Reserved Seating

Most people know that the front row is reserved for immediate family without having a sign.

View Quoted Comment I Would Hope So ! Lol It Will Be One Less Thing On My To Do List

During covid, it is recommended to seat families/couples together 6 feet Apart from others. Depending on when your wedding is I would recommend assigned ceremony seating.

View Quoted Comment Our Chairs Will Be Spaced Out But Not Per Family/ Couple. Everyone Will Be Distanced.

I can’t recommend doing this enough!!! This was a MAJOR takeaway from my wedding. I did NOT.


Yes, it is true that everyone knows the first row is for immediate family. BUT, not everyone knows how much immediate family and how much space to leave. Between us we had five total people qualifying for those front seats... but without labels I guess no one was sure where it was safe to *start* sitting, and our guests automatically left the first three ROWS empty ...and now some of my pics look like there was absolutely no one at my wedding 🤦🏻‍♀️So, my lesson learned is it’s not about telling people where not to sit as much as it is about telling people where it’s definitely okay to sit !Because of this at my wedding, my brother learned and had his coordinator scooch all the guests forward to fill in the gaps before the ceremony!

View Quoted Comment Thank You! That Makes Total Sense.

I would hope they would automatically not sit there. But honestly, until last year, I did not know it was “reserved” for family I just automatically always sat in the middle rows or closer to the back. I am going to buy some signs from Etsy jic

You could use some ribbon to tie off those rows if you want to.

It's an unspoken thing that the front row is reserved for parents, grandparents. So signs aren't needed but a small decoration on the end will work.


If someone does not have any parents to seat, they can let guests of their choosing know ahead of time who is invited to sit in front.

Like others said, depending on who/how many family members there are this can lead to some confusion. Daughter needed seats in the first two rows on both sides of the aisle, and as a pp mentioned, it wouldn't necessarily have been clear who should sit where (also, SIL's M&D are divorced and there is a lot of drama, especially with his mom, so they needed to be at opposite ends of "their row" with some people between them as a buffer). Daughter used placecard type cards and wrote the first name of each person who should be in the first two rows, and gave them and a seating chart to her venue coordinator. The coordinator taped the cards to the upper front part of each seat (nicely, so the tape was hidden). Daughter also emailed the families/groups in those rows and let them know a seat would be saved for them in row one or row two. It worked out perfectly -- everyone who was supposed to sit in a particular seat sat where they were supposed to.

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I have seen this happen, too. And I have also seen one or two rows marked reserved and the people who were intended to sit there didn't know and so they sat behind those rows, which left those rows mostly empty.

So, I don't think it's really something to overthink or worry about, but plan to mark one or two rows reserved (this can be done with a simple ribbon or sign) AND tell the people ahead of time who "belong" there that the reserved seats are for them. The other guests will definitely respect that so you don't need to label each seat or have a detailed sign with instructions.

I think it’s nice to have but it doesn’t seem necessary

View Quoted Comment Ooh that’s smart!! Let me go buy more signs so I can reserve chairs not rows lol. My side is huge, his is not