Now that you have planned a beautiful reception that everyone will enjoy as they help you celebrate the happiest time of your life, the next step is to make the seating arrangements. You should seat everyone correctly so that you do not violate seating plan etiquette by seating someone where they are not supposed to be. Planning seating can be quite a task if you are planning a big wedding. Of course this is not true of small weddings. If your guest list is indeed large, you may want to buy some computer software that will help you arrange and rearrange your seating chart without too much of a problem. Using post-it notes will work well for small wedding but is quite inconvenient if the reception will be large.
Begin with the head table, which is the easiest. The head table is long and straight and is placed in at the front of the reception space. It is obviously arranged so that it is facing the wedding guests. The bride and groom take their seats at the center of the table. Wedding etiquette allows for flexibility when it comes to if the bride should be seated on the right hand side or the left hand side.
The bride's parents are seated next to the bride and they can sit in any order. If parents are remarried, this will be a complication. You may want to have them sit at a different table and have your bridal attendants sit in their place. The bride's maid of honor should be seated after her parents. These tips go for the groom's parents as well if there has been a remarriage and the former spouses cannot get along.
Another easy table is the kids table. Older children do not have to sit with their parents. They will even feel important. There should be no problems if they know they will be seated with other children. They will enjoy it! Seating plan etiquette lets this table be placed where adults will not want to be seated. Seating children near speakers would be just perfect.
After you have planned out the seating for the head table and kids table, seating plans get a little more difficult and complicated. It is best to attempt to keep people that know each other together at the same table if that is possible. Co-workers will probably feel more comfortable sitting with each other if they do not know your family well. Seating plan etiquette suggests that you should try to keep people of similar age groups together if you need to seat them with people that they may not know. Another good tip is to try to balance the number of males and females at a table. Try to keep the numbers even.
You should consider particular circumstances when you are seating certain guests. Senior citizens, small children and women who are pregnant may need to be placed near the restrooms. If any of your guests have a disability, keep this in mind as well. Those giving a toast should be placed near the front of the room while exes should be kept as far away from each other as possible if they don't get along with each other.
It is a good idea to have a seating chart near the entrance of the reception hall so that your guests can find their seats. You might want to use a map of numbered tables so that it is easier for them to know where they should sit. Every table in your reception hall should have a number placed in the center. Place cards should be put at each seat and legible if you have assigned seats. Seating plan etiquette lets you just assign a table if that is what you prefer.
With a few seating plan etiquette tips you will hopefully be able to plan the best seating plan for your wedding.
With the advance in internet technology, you can contact your friends and relatives overseas easily via email. One question more and more couples ask is the possibility of using email as wedding invitation. It will be quite a difficult decision whether to have a physical invitation or not. The pros of an email wedding invitation will be discussed so that you may get a better idea.
Save Money
This may be the most essential point of using an email wedding invitation. An email wedding invitation costs you nearly nothing. Comparing with making physical wedding cards, you may need to spend at least a few hundred dollars. And there is nearly no cost for sending an email.
In some cases you may still want a professional designer to design the layout of your email invitation for you. This will certainly cost you some money. However, the amount should still be considerably smaller than the cost of printing physical wedding cards.
Save Time
Using an email invitation does not only save your time, but also save the time of your guest. You will not need to approach different shops in order to have your wedding cards printed. Besides, you can just sit in front of the computer and send the email. You do not need to go to the post office to send your invitations.
For the guests, they can also reply you by email, without visiting the post office to mail the RSVP. If your guests are always online, they may even find an email invitation a lot better than a physical wedding invitation since they can get your wedding invitation conveniently.
Put as much information as you need
A physical wedding invitation is usually only a card and there is limited space for you to put the information and details of your wedding on it. If you want to put maps and directions into the invitation, you may need to order a separated card for that.
With an email you will virtually have unlimited space. You can put as much information as you need into the email. And as what the first point stated, it will not cost you any extra even if you want to put more information into the email.
Include different URL links for your guests' reference
This idea is in fact elaborated from the above notion of putting information. It will be not an easy task for you to tell the guests information about details such as accommodations and points of attractions near the wedding venue. You will probably need to make a booklet of ten pages in order to tell your guests different choices of accommodations and different points of attractions.
If you are sending your invitation via email, you can include links of websites on the accommodations so that your guests can make better choices. Besides, you can also include links of websites of the tourism board in the place you are having your wedding so that your guests can also have a better understanding about the place they will visit.
Both Mary A Jane & Jerry Leung are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Jerry Leung has sinced written about articles on various topics from Lose Weight, Marriage and Writing. Jerry Leung is a wedding invitation designer with great interest in Chinese Style Wedding cards. His works are in . He runs. Jerry Leung's top article generates over 90500 views. to your Favourites.