open seating plan??

was thinking about forgoing the traditional seating plan and just letting people sit where they want? What do you think?

We did this but we only had 20 people- including us. I had no desire to try to figure out where people fit best so we had one large table and let them sit where they lie. It worked out I guess. No one seemed butt hurt or anything.

This is the question I was going to ask...I think if you have a larger party it is useful to have a seating plan.

I have never been to a wedding with a seating plan & I've been to a ton of weddings. There is always just an assigned table for the bridal party. It works out fine & eliminates a lot of work.

Wow, really? I have never been to a wedding without one. Too funny!!!

do you think its a regional thing? even pretty fancy weddings i've been to didn't have assigned seating.

It totally might be. It is very interesting. I wonder.

The ONLY reason why I am doing assigned seating is because I want to use starfish as the seat markers at the reception table. Its a huge headache though. Our guest count jumped from 154 to about 175 this past week, and I keep having to re-arrange the tables.

 

I've gone to weddings where they've had assigned seats and some where you can sit where you want. There are many ppl who are not very sociable and would rather steal a chair from another table and cram into one where they know ppl.

 

Other's I've attended will reserve a few tables for their closest guest and that's it, the rest of the guest can figure out where they want to sit. I don't think you can go wrong either way.

I would say if there aren't that many guests it's fine, but I recently went to a mid size wedding with no seating chart. I didn't like it, because we picked a table with a few people that we knew but then were asked to move when a family of 8 wanted to sit together - we ended up sitting w/ a bunch of people we didn't know. Not quite as fun. At least with assigned seating you can keep those that know each other or would get along together. And those that don't get along as far away from each other as possible.

Well said, same here. Our guests had no problem finding a chair to sit at for the short time while we ate and if they were put off that I didn't have a chart...well those types wouldn't have been on our guest list anyway.

I've been to both, assigned and non. I don't think it's a regional thing.

I always much prefer the non, but that's because I don't like to be forced into the "how do you know so and so" banter. People tend to seat you with people they think you would like and it annoys me because they aren't always right. I'm almost 30 years old & respectful enough to leave the seats nearest you to family, let me find my own seat to eat my chicken in the back