Seating chart or no seating chart?

I'm not doing a seating chart. Our favors will have our guests names and their table numbers.

If you swill have extra tables, I wouldn’t do one. My venue is making me do one but only because we are maxing out the space. If I had a choice, I wouldn’t do it.

If you're asking whether to assign tables, the answer is always yes. Open seating causes guests a lot of anxiety and groups will get split up. If you're asking about printing a poster to display the seats, that's up to you. A lot of people will recommend escort cards so you don't have all your guests crowding around the poster.

While you don’t need everyone’s meal choices, I’d be careful about how many extra people “might show up”. We went to a wedding once where this happened and because the groom’s family had 15-20 extra people show up that the couple didn’t know about, the buffet ran out of food. As far as a seating chart goes, I’d still assign tables. Anyone who doesn’t rsvp can fill in those extra tables.

Yes assign tables not nessciarly seats but do tables or it becomes a mess

I grew up where every wedding I attended didn't have seating charts, and it has always worked fine, but I'm personally assigning tables. For one, my FH's family/friends are used to seating plans, and I think they'd be confused about what to do if they don't have one, and two, my family/friends have had some drama so I'm arranging to avoid that, and three, we have groups of friends who won't know anyone else there and we don't want one or two couples to get isolated while the rest have one table so we're trying to balance it.

Unless you are planning a desserts only reception, always have a seating arrangement. You don’t need a poster that is difficult to read and causes traffic jams but have a table of cards for each individual sorted alphabetically by last name that they can grab and go. They can be color coordinated to indicate meal choices if you need to. Plus they are a fraction of the price if you move anyone last second or have typos, where a poster is expensive each time that it has to be reprinted from scratch with each modification.



Assign guests to tables and let them pick the seat. If you don’t and you have a free for all, you need extra chairs, tables, linens, centerpieces and place settings which add up very quickly. Couples and families always get split up and grandma saves a table for people who don’t even sit with her. Everyone has ptsd from the high school cafeteria.

We're reserving a long table for our immediate family and the bridal party and families, since they will be taking photos the other guests have a seat. But otherwise will be open seating. We're also serving a buffet and plan on having extra tables/chairs than our final count to give some extra room. I've been to alot of weddings with open seating and never seen it be a problem.

As a guest, I prefer a seating chart but it’s up to you!