Open Seating or Assigned Seating: What Suits Your Wedding?
Many couples consider simply skipping the seating chart. Everyone sits wherever they like, done. That saves work, but it only works under certain conditions.
What happens with open seating
The first guests take the best tables and save seats. Couples who arrive late cannot find two chairs next to each other. The grandparents end up at the table next to the speaker. And anyone who knows nobody stands with a plate in hand looking for a free chair. That is not always how it goes, but it is often enough.
When open seating works
- Under 40 guests who almost all know each other
- A buffet instead of a plated meal
- More chairs than guests, about 10 percent in reserve
- A casual celebration in the garden or at a barbecue
When you are better off planning
As soon as a menu with choices is served, the service staff need an assignment. The same goes for allergies, for many children or when there is tension in the family. From about 60 guests, it almost always gets restless without a plan.
You decide who sits at which table, but not on which chair. That is only half the work, and at the table people sort themselves out.
What the guests think of it
For the couple, open seating sounds like relief. For the guests it is often the opposite. Anyone who walks into the hall and has to find a seat faces the same questions you do with the seating chart, only without the overview and under time pressure: where are the others from my group sitting? Is there still room at that table, or is someone waiting? May I sit with the groom's family?
This is especially unpleasant for guests who know only a few people, such as plus-ones, new partners or colleagues. They tend to stand around until the end and then take whatever is left. A seating chart removes that uncertainty, and many are grateful for exactly that.
How to run open seating well
If you still decide on it, a few small things help:
- Set up about 10 percent more chairs than guests coming. Then even couples can still find two seats next to each other.
- Ask your witnesses to walk guests without a connection to a table in the first few minutes.
- Give the guests a moment of lead time: first the hall is opened, ten minutes later the food comes. Otherwise everyone hurriedly sits down at the nearest seat.
A mix for the evening
Some couples combine both: there is an assigned seating chart for the meal, afterwards the tables dissolve and everyone sits wherever they like. That works well because there is order during the meal and later nobody is tied to a chair.
Reserved seats despite open choice
Even with open seating you should reserve: the head table, the parents and grandparents, families with small children and guests who have trouble walking. A little sign reading "Reserved for the Müller family" is enough.
If guests chose in advance between meat, fish and vegetarian, the service staff need to know who sits where. Otherwise people swap at the table and in the end a plate is missing.
A seating chart, by the way, is not old-fashioned. Most guests find it pleasant to know where they belong, because it takes a decision off their hands. And the effort is manageable: with a sorted guest list you can finish a table plan for 60 people in one evening. The 6-step guide helps with that.
Assign tables only
Drag guests to tables by drag & drop, without prescribing fixed seats.