I am having a BIG wedding please help me with sitting arrangements!!!!!!?

Question

I have invited 450 people to my wedding. Can anyone suggest any ideas for seating arrangments.... How should I do my card holders?

Answer 1

Talk to the people that run the place where you will be having your reception. Oftentimes, they will give you a hand with seating arrangements, and print out the cards, as well. You don't necessarily need a holder, just a stiff piece of paper folded in half, so it stands on its own.

Answer 2

This is hard. I had the same thing a year ago and it was a mess! I had a sit down served dinner. Well where I thought I was putting people was great. But somehow it got all messed up! People where to far away than I wanted them to be and some did not like sitting by people they did not know!

Here is what I wish I would have done!
Take your close family and seat them! Have a reserved sign on thier table. This way you family is close to you two and they can see everything. Then with the rest of the people put out their name cards and have them pick the table they want to sit at. This seems to work a lot better than trying to place everyone.

Answer 3

WOW!! Start off with immediate family, seat them at the tables closest to you. Try to keep people that know each other together, but don't put 6 people that are good friends at a table with 1 couple that they don't know. Don't assign seats, assign tables, that way it's easier to switch around if you need to (and you'll need to). Also, remember that unless you've given them a choice of entree, the site shouldn't need to know who's sitting where, yet another reason to just go with feeding everyone the same thing--I went to a reception that had 2 entrees on the same plate, made things alot simpler for all I'm sure. Of course, I don't know how much more it was....LOL
Check out theknot.com and weddingchannel.com for lots of neat ideas on how to do the place cards--I've seen votive candle holders, cards tied onto "tree" branches, and just the standard folded cards arranged on a table. You can get as ordinary or extravagant as you want, just remember, the more extravagant you go, the more work it's probably going to be, either on you or someone else, and if it's someone else, the more $$ you'll pay.
Best of luck to you!!

Answer 4

Seat with whoever you think would be fun together. Seat young people together and older people together.

I've travelled to two weddings in the past few years that my in-laws (who live near us) also travelled to. There was nothing worse than having travelled 1500 miles and then being forced to hang out with them.

Be thoughtful of couples. If children are allowed at your wedding, don't put young childless couples with them, unless you know specifically that they would be fine with that. That was one of the weddings. Not only was I separated from my husband because of that crappy head table thing, I had to sit there and pretend to have fun with 4 sets of 55+ year olds and an annoying lady with her baby. Fun. : |

You can seat singles together and with others of the same age.

If family that doesn't see each other often, or friends that haven't seen each other in a long time, all come in, try to seat them together.

Put some life of the parties at tables that might otherwise be withdrawn or quiet. Cousin Susie who is known for getting her groove on may be able to get uncle Ted on the dance floor and create a fun moment.


And please, even if only 300 respond yes, have a seated dinner. It's not fun for 300 people to be fighting over the same buffet line.

Good luck to you!! : )

Answer 5

For starters write everyone's name on little index sized cards. Then group them into piles of friends, bride's family, groom's family, children, and anything else you can think of (co-workers). Once this is done hopefully you'll have a round number of people per table. If not see who you think might have something in common with another group/ table and move them around. Check with the catering hall or wherever you're having the reception if there's a maximum number of people you can have at each table. If the tables are big enough you shouldn't have to worry too much about people who aren't getting along because it's your wedding and they have to deal with whatever issues and if they can't say something nice to someone, you'd hope they keep their mouth shut and talk to other people at the table. Hope that's at least a start for you. Good luck!

Answer 6

At each table, you may want to mix up your guests with his guests so everyone can become aquanted . . . especially where family members are concerned. It would really help to have a diagram of the table layout (your reception site should be able to provide this) to assist with seat assignments. Don't forget to use pencil because you will probably need to make revisions almost all the way up to the day of the wedding itself! lol

Check out Microsoft's templates for DIY place cards http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/CT010872401033.aspx

You can also check out Michaels http://www.michaels.com for some crafty suggestions for card holders.

Good luck!

Answer 7

ok so i ahve over 40 cousins and alot of them are way older than me liek in their 20-30's and i ahve been to more weddings than any other 13 year old i think so wwhat i ahve seen that works really well are big round tables and for your card holders you could do littel candels and right their names on it in craft paint sticks or if you are talking about before they eneter the recption you can list everyones name and there table number next to it and make about 10 copies becasue you have so many poeple then put them in picture frames and put them on a tabel out side of the reception area. good luck =) best wishes

Answer 8

Have at least 4-5 people at the entrance so they can have your guests check to see what table they should be at. I've been to receptions where they've used numbers on the tables and used various names of wines because we were at a vineyard. I would ask your mom and your future mother-in-law about which people to seat together.

Answer 9

450 people? Holy cow! I'm pretty sure I don't even know 450 people over my lifetime. Talk about living to excess.

Anyway, group people who know & like each other together at a table or tables close to each other. Group singles with other singles or fun couples who are similar in age.

Answer 10

Put the names in cute little frames. They can also serve as a wedding favor.