@Massmomm - all of those posts about seating weren’t directed at you. I think it was someone else who said people should want to mingle. I am sure you were great as a host.
@oldfort t, I know. Thanks for your post. It was on another site where not using seating charts was viewed as some hideous breach of etiquette, regardless of the circumstances.
We had table assignments at D’s wedding. I didn’t do the assigning - D did all of that. She was very thoughtful about it - probably did a better job than I would have.
Much ado about nothing
Most civilized adults will be on their best behavior at special events such as weddings. This should be low on your list of things to worry about on the wedding day. I can think of at least a dozen things more important to stress about.
I totally wish I had not done seating charts. Everyone was mad.
If you think seating charts for a wedding is hard just try it for a Bar/Bat Mitzvah where you are dealing with children! My daughters were extremely conscious of putting people with their friends and really worked to ensure kids wouldn’t be placed away from their friends since they both hated going to ones where that happened to them. My older one paid close attention to the seatings at lunchtime when we were in the process of doing tables and my younger one had the assistance of Facebook which was at its height for kids at that time.
Because of where we live my kids went to more than 100 Bar/Bat Mitzvahs each(!) and theirs were at the end of the “ season” so they really tried to avoid what they saw as pitfalls of what they saw as “ bad” at some.
My daughter and I decided to forgo the seating chart at her bat mitzvah. Maybe because having the service and reception at a dim sum hall/banquet restaurant in Manhattan’s Chinatown was irresistible, we had many more RSVPs than expected and wound up with 120 people, a third of them kids from the various schools my daughter attended, the NYC China adoption community, her citywide chorus, etc., etc. Yes, there were tables that wound up with extra chairs (mostly kids), but everyone got the same food, so no confusion for the serving staff, and I think everyone had a really good time. Our family is very small, and there was no need to separate warring factions (something I remember well about my brothers’ bar mitzvah receptions way back when). And I know that some friendships were made via the random seating results.
“My daughter and I decided to forgo the seating chart at her bat mitzvah”
My good friend tried that but it worked out so poorly with several kids miserably shut out of anyplace to sit that we nixed that as a possibility. My friend had no idea this happened since she was busy hosting. It sound like your very fun party had many kids from many different places which probably made this work. My kids party consisted of 95 kids from school and 11 camp friends who were seated togethe and the cousins who all sat together.
“the key to not having an out-of-control wedding is to do what suits the personality of the people getting married. There is too much pressure to adhere to so-called traditions that are really made up and have more to do with Pinterest than etiquette.”
True, though I have seen creative planning on the part of couples that was just plain rude – even cruel – to certain guests. Like a wedding where the entire reception was a cocktail party, with food and drinks served to standing guests among scattered high-top tables. There were only a few seats, and most of those were high stools that matched the tables. Hello, what about your elderly guests who can’t stand for 3+ hours and can’t climb onto those stools? Even middle-aged folks don’t want to be forced to stand the entire time.