Reserved Table wording - ideas please?

Hmmm I'm glad you posted this because I decided to have reserved tables instead of table numbers. I wish I could give you some advice but I'm stuck on this as well.

It's possible, especially if people are reading quickly they may not fully comprehend and just see the word "friends" and decide they belong there.

It sounds like you have two groups. Have you considered using two colors? So that a certain section is "Reserved for Blue". Then when people walk in, they pick up their escort card and it is in their color. Blue for family you want in the middle, green for everyone else (whatever colors go with your wedding). As family comes in, they get their blue cards and go place them wherever they are sitting in the blue section. That way it is very clear who goes in what section.

I think it is a very cool idea but with 100 guests it could cause some chaos. Some people may think that they are family friends and sit at the family table. You shouldn't need to indicate "and their guest" as it is assumed that they will sit with the family member they came with. Here is a suggestion though...

"Reserved in honor for Jessica and Kyle's family"

Good Luck!!! :-)

Thanks for the ideas. My struggle is for a small number of people who are long-term friends of my family, mostly middle age to elder folks whose relationships are more with my parents and grandparents. Kyle's invited family is so small, that between these two groups there are about 10 people, who I don't want to them to get pushed to the side by the large number of mine and his shared friends, mostly 20's to young 30's.

So I'm trying to include this "friends of family" concept so that John and Jane friends of my parents can sit at the family tables. And hopefully our friends half of the guest list, approx 21 - 35 will sit further away from the front of the space, and the head table.

I could do color coded escort cards... by at that rate I also might as well do a table-seating list, which is probably easier in comparison.

We had two tables on each side of our sweetheart table and we put "reserved for Brides Family", "reserved for Grooms family" on little cards on each one.

If you are having "open" seating, other that your family and close friends, you should have the venue put "reserved" signs on the tables you want to have for those folks.

Then, let those who should be at those tables know which table they are seated at.

We did this for my daughters wedding. No assigned seating, but, three tables were "reserved". One for the Brides Family. One for the Grooms Family. One for "close friends of the Bride". Those guests were told, ahead of time, where their table was. Other guests mingled, which turned out to be great.