Over the years we have covered all types of events from high school proms, birthday parties, to elegant or casual corporate events and of course a multitude of wedding receptions. Whichever category your event falls under a majority of the time you will need to decide whether to assign guests to tables or allow open seating. This is particularly helpful for weddings as many of your guests will want to be able to sit with their friends and to not pre-plan seating arrangements can lead to unforeseen dilemmas.
In the case of weddings so many brides and grooms dread this task, they are concerned they will offend guests and not place them with whomever they would wish to sit with. This is simply not the case, a majority of guests wish to be placed at a table with free choice of where to sit at the table. The only situations we encourage chair assignments are at the bridal table and the parent tables or family table (conjoined parental tables).
- You have control of who sits closest to the bridal and family tables.
- You know who needs to be placed at one side of the room and who needs to be at the opposite end of the room.
- The room stays neat and orderly, because the guests are not disrupting the look of the room by tipping chairs, placing napkins over the backs of chairs to save seats for others who may or may not arrive later in the evening.
- The guests feel more comfortable knowing they are at a table you assigned for them.
- A separate place card is not needed per guest. You may write Mr. & Mrs. John Smith on the same card. If color codes are needed for dinner selections, both the seat number and food choice codes are placed on the same card.
- You can make sure families don’t end up separated due to not enough seats at one table.
