Seating Chart Before or After Rsvps?

Definitely wait until you get RSVPs because otherwise you’ll just have to go back and make a bunch of changes. That will happen anyway with last minute cancellations, “I thought we couldn’t make it but now we can”. Based on posts I’ve seen, it gets very annoying. So just hold off on that frustration until you need to deal with it lol.

You should wait. You’ll be making last minute changes.
I added and subtracted someone the day of our wedding. Lol.

Have your vendors and vision ready to go but do not finalize anything until after all rsvps come in. That includes when you and fiancé track down guests the days immediately following the due date to make sure.


Seating posters are very expensive to reprint because they have to be done from scratch. You can’t just move one name on its own. Escort cards are much easier and cheaper to reprint. You have to be mindful of your time as well, which is also money.

Definitely after!!! I had sooo many people drop out and I had to seat people in a way I didn't expect until now. I had originally 210 now my # is 160 which I'm happy about

View Quoted Comment

We invited exactly 100 - we have 44 confirmed and waiting on 3 (which would be 6 people) At first I was really upset, especially since so many people couldn't stop telling me how excited they were to come and would definitely start looking for airfare, etc. Now I'm like, hey - their loss, and I'm saving $3,000!

You can always "play" with your seating here on WW by using the seating chart thing under "Planning". You can remove or add people and tables by a simple mouse click. I started mine when the STD went out - and obviously it has gone through many transformations. But it's a fun way to figure things out without using up paper, pencil lead and erasers.

I'm a crazy person and made a seating chart YEARS ago lol. It was mostly for me to just have fun and mess around the with organization of it all. It has obliviously changed over the years. I would say if you want to do it for funsies go for it now! Though it's not going to be useful until you know exactly who all is coming.

It's really up to you. I made a rough one before, just knowing what groups of people would probably be good together. But once the RSVPs come back, then you'll have to make changes and finalize it.

Thanks for the info guys. I will be waiting till after the RSVPS to start the fun of the seating chart.