Weddings these days are always thriving on unique ideas. It doesn’t matter if you’re planning for a wedding that’s small or big; thinking out of the box always helps to add a little spice to each wedding. Similarly, a wedding seating plan can also add to the uniqueness of the entire event.
Along with making the wedding eccentric, having a wedding seating plan can help organize the whole event. In most cases, guests often face a dilemma about where to sit. Also, most people try to find a seat on the table close to their friends/family, and that can be hectic for you as a wedding planner!
By arranging a perfect wedding seating plan, you can make sure that things run more smoothly and you’re saved from the additional tension. Also, you’d be able to try out different styles of the wedding seating plan and use unique seating guides to enhance the experience of the wedding.
Now, most wedding planners face difficulties in designing an effective seating plan to organize the whole process. However, it’s not as difficult as it seems! How? Let’s look at the process that you can follow to arrange a perfect wedding seating plan!
Arranging The Perfect Wedding Seating Plan
For the most part, creating a seating chart can have a significant impact if you’re trying to bring out the most of the wedding. To help facilitate you in arranging a wedding seating plan for your guest, we’ve broken down the complete process into a small, step-by-step guide. We’ll also be giving you some tips and tricks so that you can make the whole process a lot smoother and enjoyable.
So, without further ado, let’s get straight into how you can arrange a top-notch wedding seating plan for your guests!
1. Ask For A Floor Plan
Before you even start planning the seating arrangements, it’s very important for you to know the space you’re working with. Knowing this will help you plan more effectively, using every bit of space available to you. So, just contact your venue coordinator and ask for the full layout of the venue. This will include everything from the dimensions, electric outlet locations, and bathrooms.
2. Planning The Hotspots
Once you have the floor plan, you should plan the hotspots of the event. These are the places where people will visit more often, like the food zone, DJs, and many others. Planning the seating arrangement around the hotspots will ensure that you’re not cramming too many people into one place.
3. Choosing Table Sizes
After planning the hotspots, you’ll know how much space you’ll be having to arrange the wedding seating plan. Now, plan around that area available to you. Choose table sizes and shapes that fit the space and make sure you don’t cram. If you’re opting for circular tables instead of rectangular, be certain that you’d need more of such tables to fit in all the guests.
4. Planning The Seating Distribution
Once you’re happy with your tables, you can start planning the seat distribution. To start this off, group people in terms of how they know the couple. This will help you to identify the certain groups of people who’re most likely to stay together and thus you can put them together. This is very important because you might not want to put a friend beside a relative who’s beside a guest.
Knowing the chemistry between each group and each individual will help you in determining who goes where.
5. Special Treatments For VIPs
If you expect some VIPs to attend the wedding, it’s crucial that you have sufficient preparation for that. This may be done by giving the VIPs a special place in your venue and arranging a separate seating plan for them.
6. Keeping Friends and Relatives Separate
Although we’ve said this earlier, you must tactfully plan which group of people will be sitting together. You surely won’t want friends to sit along with relatives; both will feel bored, and they might not stick. This may mean that they won’t enjoy the occasion.
7. Crafting A Seating Guide
After all of that, you must create a seating guide that will help guests to know where to seat. To do this, you can simply write down the names and table number they’ll be seating and stick it to the wall. Alternatively, you might try something unique and different! You can try two of the best Pinterest boards for seating guides that we’ve found! Here are the first and second boards to check out!
Tools To Get A Perfect Wedding Seating Plan
Up until now, we’ve seen why you need a proper seating plan and how you create one. But, what if you want to take it to the next level? To help you create a perfect wedding seating plan, there are a few wedding tools that you can try!
1. Wedding Wire
Wedding wire is one of the most convenient wedding seating planning tools. It lets you plan the seating for your guests using a simple drag and drop method. You can create floor plans, place your hotspots, and plan your seating all within the tool.
You can also put up who’ll be sitting where, and the profiles to each guest. Once you’re done, you can easily print, export, or email the floor plan. You can also create reports of guests who’ll be attending the occasion.
2. All Seated
All seated is a free to use event planning tool that focuses on delivering the highest ROI on event venues. It uses VR technology and 3D mapping for devising seating charts, creating seating layouts, and organizing guest space. It allows total flexibility and collaboration with venue or wedding planner. This reduces back and forth conversations.
If you’re looking for a more advanced wedding seating planning tool, All Seated is definitely the tool for you!
3. Wedding Mapper
If you’re not into VR/3D mapping and want to make it simple, you can surely try Wedding Mapper. It’s a very simple tool, and lets you plan your floor, seating structure, guest lists, and seating distribution. You can also change the dimensions and shapes of your tables, enabling you the flexibility to try all sorts of concepts! It’s truly something worth trying!
Conclusion
So, what did you think about this article? We hope that we’ve been able to provide you with a comprehensive guide on how you can arrange the perfect wedding seating plan for your big day!
For most people, a wedding seating plan is unnecessary and adds up to the effort. However, not making a wedding planner is one of the many mistakes to avoid as a wedding planner! Why? This is because guests often face a dilemma about where to sit. Creating a plan for them can make lives easier for both the guests and you as a wedding planner!
Follow our step-by-step guide on arranging a perfect wedding seating plan and use the tools discussed above to bring the most out of your events! Cheers!
