Seating Charts- Who sits with who?

I'm doing it a mix, families will be together and then like work people, friends, etc

I'm doing kind of a combination of 1 and 2. I'm keeping households together (mom, dad, kids), but then I'll have to mix it up a little, since the tables seat 8 or 9, and there isn't a family with 8 or 9 people in it.

I'm also trying to seat my side together, rather than mixing with FHs side. Although, I could encourage them to get to know each other by seating them differently. It's hard, and as you can see from my response, I don't have it all worked out yet. But starting with the baseline of households first, then associations second. We'll see how it goes.

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OHHH okay, that makes sense. Thanks Lizzy!!

Haven't gotten close to putting that together but I plan to mix people up somewhat by interest and personality.

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Hey Cristy,

Yeah that sounds like a good starting foundation. That makes sense. Yeah, it sort of seems like keeping households together would make a lot of sense, and then just adding accordingly.

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Hey April,

Yeah we still have a lot of time, and your wedding is before mine! Haha! But yeah I just wanted some general ideas to keep in my mind and be able to look back at.

I am thinking I will go by association; households, coworkers. So like your 1 & 2

For ours we are just having people sit wherever they want. We'll have our head table with the bridal party but other than that its a mix of our family and friends. I think it just makes things easier and gives people a chance to talk and get to know one another.

Most of our guests are traveling from out of state, so I am trying to group them with people they know. I will probably have to put some of my dads friends with my FMILs friends, but that’s because I think they have things in common. I may also mix all of the cousins together but really just because of how the table sizes work out. For friends, FH has a group of camp friends who I will put together, and his band friends will be together, and some random ones filling the extra seats at those tables. I’ll be putting my friends together in similar groups.

What I did was write each couple/family on index cards. I then grouped people based on who they knew for sure. If that didn't equal between 8-10, I would think about who may get along well and group smaller pairings together that way. I only had 115 people to contend with, so it wasn't too bad. For me, the physical cards I could move around made it a lot easier.

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Wow, Samantha, that's really different. I was thinking about doing open seating, but worried about people feeling out of place. So happy for you.

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Hey Arkilia, thank you for your input

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Wow, that sounds like a good plan. I love those ideas!

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Hannah, that's actually a pretty smart way to go about it, using the index cards. I like that!!

View Quoted Comment I made an excel sheet (I love excel) and just basically made 14 little “tables” by listing out the numbers 1-10, and then started filling in guests names. It was easier to start with the bridal party/their dates since I knew they were coming, then each parent has their own table (mine are divorced) and figuring out who would sit at their tables, etc.

View Quoted Comment I tried to do a seating chart but I have a lot of family and less friends and he’s got more friends and less family so I was running in to the same problems as you and it just got a little overwhelming so I decide to “screw it” basically and since doing that I’ve felt so much better. I’m sure whatever you decide will be perfect!

I still have a lot of time so I have a couple scenarios. 1 if we do a sweetheart and 1 if we do a head table. It’s mostly family together and then friends. If we do a head table I will probably mix my immediate with his immediate family

We haven’t done ours yet but we will do them in circles, like mom’s side cousins together, aunts and uncles together, coworkers, and different friend groups.

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Hey Ashley, that sounds like a good plan!

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Hey Melissa, yeah doing them in circles sounds like a simple way to go about it, thank you so much for your input!