A little backstory: my ceremony venue is a bed and breakfast type place, and (weather permitting), we're doing the wedding in the backyard/garden. My wedding has 33 guests invited, including everyone except my FH and I. That number could fluctuate slightly if our friends begin or end relationships w/ their SOs, but I really do anticipate exactly 33 attending, as we only invited VIPs.
The bed and breakfast is a unique place that specifically caters to small weddings and elopements, and they structure their prices based on the number of chairs/guests. As I just finished making our second payment (the final payment is due on our wedding day, depending on how many people show up), our coordinator mentioned that I should let her know our final numbers, and how we want their seats set up, around the beginning of May for our May 19 wedding.
It's not really something I'd thought about prior to this, because for every wedding I've ever been to, the first row or two were reserved for VIPs, and the rest of the ceremony was just open seating in a church. I'm probably completely overthinking this, but because our guest list is solely, 100% VIPs (parents/grandparents/siblings/absolute best friends who would be best man and MOH if we had them), I'm a little worried people won't know what to do as far as seating goes.
For instance, at 33 guests, I figure I'll do 4 rows of 4 on each side of the aisle, give or take one or two (if it's exactly 33, the last row on one side will be 3 and 2, most likely). Of course, with such a small ceremony, no seat will be a bad seat -- but will everyone think they're entitled to the first row or two? He has two sets of parents (and the corresponding grandparents/etc.) because his parents are divorced -- and they can't all sit up front. Neither can his 6 siblings all sit in the same row. His family also has a little tendency to overshadow mine (of the 33 guests, 6 are my family, and 1 is my friend -- the rest are his), and I don't want my family to end up in the back row because everyone else decided they were entitled to a front-row seat.
Also, what happens if people leave open seats, or a couple has to split up between two rows because of the way people sat themselves? I know that would be a disaster at the reception, and I can't imagine the ceremony is any different.
My question isn't really asking for a solution (I really, really think doing a seating chart is overkill), I'm just sort of asking if this is something I should be concerned about at all. Were you worried about your ceremony seating arrangement, or did you have ample seats available so it didn't matter? (I wish this was an option!) And do I need to be concerned that his family won't make room for mine? As much as I'd like them to, it's a narrow garden, and everyone can't be front row. Some grandparent(s) and sibling(s) are going to have to sit in the back. Will people be offended?
Yours truly,
The bride who is doing everything she can not to offend people or be rude, so much so that it is driving her mad
