Wedding Seating Chart Pros and Cons

   

So you’ve got your guest list down, you’ve sent out all your invitations, now its time to be thinking about a potential seating chart. Some couples love the idea, some couples don’t but if you’re like most couples you’re probably just somewhere in between. You might be leaning one way or another but you still really don’t know what would be best for your wedding. In this article, we are going to take some time and go over the benefits and costs of each. We are completely objective on the topic and are creating this article to give you a little more insight to the pros and cons of a seating chart at your wedding. Really there is no right or wrong answer, it really is just is what is best for you and your guests. Here are a couple things to consider…

Seating Overview

First, when it comes to having a seating chart, typically people do it one of two ways. They either choose every seat and give each individual a chair at each table or they will do “table” style seating. This is where you give everyone a table number but they figure out which seats to sit in. Outside of that, if they don’t organize seating they by default opt for an open style seating policy.

Seat by Seat

The first area that this could come in handy is when you have specific people that you want right next to each other. This could maybe be the case for an example if you have a single friend who you want to place right next to another person who could be a great date. It’s kind of like a blind date that you set up for your friend. Hey, and if they fall in love they owe you all the thanks! The other situation where you might want two people to be on other ends of the room. If there possibly a bad divorce amongst you parents or two family members. It might be a good idea to do a seat by seat chart so they are on opposite sides of the room and also not facing each other. Now the cons of using this type of method are that you might not give your guest the freedom of choice that they may want. Also, it will be a time-consuming task on your part to plan the seat by seat organization. If you have no real big reason to do a seat by seat, save yourself the time and trust that it will work out on its own!

Table by Table Organization

This is another option for many people and typically is more popular than the seat by seat method. This is where you would select specific tables for people but leave the rest up to them to decide who sits where. This is such a popular method because it’s a lot easier to organize and it still gives your wedding some sense of order. This way of organization doesn’t have a whole lot of cons except for the fact that one of your guests may have to ask another to make room or move spots in order for certain people to sit next to each other. This only happens if there is an odd spacing gap at the table but most mature people can figure it out with no real issues.

Open Seating Policy

This is by far the easiest method of the three because you really don’t have to do anything. This is the nice part about it. This is the method where people just show up and claim their seats as they choose. If you have mature family and friends they will have no problem figure out where they want to sit. Plus a lot of times people like the option of having the freedom to choose who they sit by. Obviously, this has some cons too. First, it has the potential to be a little more chaotic since it is just a free for all and it involves people. The other con is that sometimes the people who show up late don’t really get to sit by who they want or in fact anyone who they even know.