Seating Chart

I did it alphabetically by last name since it's quicker to find for that many guests. I also had the same amount of guests as you did.

And it went smooth? Did you have someone helping the guests?

Have you had prior events where his family didn't RSVP? I would set your RSVP date 10-14 days out from when you need your final count, then really tell your fiance you'll need his help collecting responses from people who don't respond. We invited 225, and after our RSVP date had to contact around 60 people. It took 3 days to get a hold of everyone, not bad at all. We did a seating chart. I'm not a fan of weddings that don't have them. The seating chart sets the tone for the reception and is super important. Plus, people won't seat themselves efficiently so you'll have to plan/pay for extra seats if you don't have a seating chart. And if you have any guests coming from out of town/state and don't know other guests, it's super awkward to expect them just to sit at a random table. We did them by table, we had 125 guests and it wasn't hard for people to find themselves on the seating chart. We had place cards too.

For a wedding as big as yours I would recommend a seating chart. If not you'll get groups of people bunching around tables to all be together or spreading themselves out too far leaving one chair here, and one there. It will also give you an opportunity to attempt to seat people together that may have something in common or already know each other. Dinner at big events can be....difficult if no one at the table has anything to say to each other.

View Quoted Comment I did because half the guests don't speak English and are older so it felt nice to have one of my bridal party members assist with that.

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Yes actually we just threw his mom a surprise birthday party a few weeks ago and literally about 80% of the people who never responded or rsvpd showed up :/ I'm a big planner so just thinking about that gives me anxiety. If I have to become a bridezilla i will! Lol the other thing that's going to be an issue is the ADULTS ONLY part

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You are right! I will do the seating chart even if it brings out my inner bridezilla

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Yeah I think as long as your fiance knows he has to help (and maybe his mom or dad if they can), then you'll be fine. For us, it was me, my husband, his dad, and my mom, that reached out to everyone. We started reaching out to the 61 people the day after our RSVP date, and in a few hours we were down to 20 people. We ended up hearing from every single person. I knew it was inevitable that people wouldn't respond so we left 10 extra days between our RSVP date and our final count date. We also included stamped & addressed RSVP cards in every invite & they could RSVP online so we tried to make it as easy as possible for everyone. I think for the adult's only (we didn't do this), putting it on your wedding website FAQ then putting a # on the RSVP card is a good idea for sure.

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HAHA! Maybe when people refuse to RSVP. Then you can make the passive aggressive "I didn't RSVP but came anyway" place cards. I would REALLY want to use those but just don't think I could do it.

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LOL if we didn't have to pay per head per person I would have totally used those cards.