Sorting your guests into tables has a reputation for being the worst part of planning a wedding. In reality it's a puzzle with few rules, and almost all the pain comes from starting too early or without a method. This is how to do it just once.
When to do it
You can sketch a first draft a couple of months before to see how the groups fit together, but the real plan is done once the RSVPs are closed. Every “we can't make it after all” or “can I bring my boyfriend?” moves a seat, and sometimes a whole table. Ask the venue when they need the final plan and leave it for that last week or two.
How many per table
Banqueting venues usually have round tables for 8 to 12 people, but it depends on the size of each venue's tables: ask how many fit comfortably (not squeezed in) and whether sizes can be mixed. With that figure and your number of guests, the table calculator tells you how many you need, counting the top table and the children's table.
The order that works
- The top table. First decide who sits with you: your parents, the padrinos (the couple's sponsors at a Spanish wedding), the witnesses or nobody (more and more couples sit on their own, or with their friends). It's the decision that shifts everything else the most.
- Family. Grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins. Older guests near the top table and away from the speakers, with an easy route to the toilets.
- Groups of friends. School friends, university friends, work friends: each group at its own table, or at neighbouring tables if it's a big one.
- Guests on their own. Anyone who doesn't fit into a group goes with people their own age or with shared interests, and never alone at a table of strangers who all know each other.
- Children. A table of their own works from a certain age and if there's someone to keep an eye on them; the little ones stay with their parents.
The tricky cases
- Separated parents. If they don't get on, don't make them share a table: each of them can head a table with their side of the family, close to yours.
- People who aren't speaking. At tables far apart, and with neither one in a worse spot than the other.
- Plus-ones who don't know anyone. Always next to the person who brought them.
- The table that won't add up. If two people are left over, two slightly fuller tables are better than a table for two.
Before you call it done
Go through the guest list one last time and check nobody has been left without a seat. Send the caterer the allergies and special menus by table, not just the total: that way the waiting staff know who each dish is for. And get the sign or seating chart for the entrance ready, with names in order of surname or of table, whichever is easier to find in a hurry.