<p>For those really struggling with table seatings, I learned that you can use tables of different sizes, if your venue has them or if you are renting anyway. It would work best if you are using round tables, but we mixed 60 inch and 72. I have a friend who used some 48 (?) inch tables as well, because they fit 6 people and she needed that.</p>
<p>A cousin used a venue that was more like a restaurant and she took advantage of all the different shape/sizes of the tables to seat people in the manner she wanted to.</p>
<p>DH would always dance with the unattached- and forget to dance with me!<br>
KKMama, at my neighbor’s daughter’s wedding, we were seated with the pastor. But she explained she thought he and his wife would be more comfortable than with the church ladies or the punkish guests. It worked out fine.</p>
<p>I realize we didn’t have seating assignments at my reception. It was a brunch-ish buffet at an old home and there were plenty of tables, but most people wandered through the rooms. The older folks sat in the LR and our friends got together in the DR. Maybe it worked because it wasn’t a dinner.</p>
<p>^^ Yes. we have suggested using different sized tables to D. Her venue generally uses round tables seating up to 10 but other tables can be provided at a fee. I have suggested she arrange for some smaller tables seating six to solve some seating challenges. I also think a variety of round table sizes could be more aesthetic, but the big issue is it offers better seating planning flexibility.</p>
<p>We have a wedding to go to next summer (have already received the Save The Date) just outside of Buffalo, NY, where I KNOW we will be the odd couple. We will know absolutely no one there, other than our daughter (who is a bridesmaid), the bride, and her parents. She is one of D1’s best friends from college, so we got to know her well enough over four years that she wanted to invite us. But yea, we will know basically no one.</p>
<p>I have several nephews. Whenever we are all invited to a wedding, they make a point of canvassing the tables and getting all the single ladies - no matter what age - out on the dance floor. Everybody goes home with a smile on!</p>
<p>^ **Love this! **Good for those nephews – and their mothers, who I suspect are the source of their chivalrous manners, extended to all ages! The little old ladies must adore them. I suspect they will make wonderful husbands one day.</p>
<p>My father an old-style European gentleman (my mother was from Europe, too), and he always danced with the other guests; he could never understand the American idea that a man should not dance with a woman other than his wife/date. He had a knack for making all the other women at the table, no matter what age or appearance, feel young and beautiful.</p>
<p>I once asked my mother how she felt about my father’s “flirting.” She said, “It doesn’t matter. It’s harmless and he always comes home with me.” (He was so charming that all the women knew it was harmless, too. There was nothing smarmy about it at all.)</p>
<p>I am so opposed to open seating that I don’t even like to go to the movies.</p>
<p>I recently attended a party where the host did not think he needed to do table assignments. As a result, people anxious to ensure themselves a place to sit spent almost the whole “cocktail hour” defending the territory they had staked out. He had envisioned that people would mix and mingle, and even made a point of telling me that there were other guests on the list who shared my daughters’ interests. But because everyone was concerned about finding a place to sit, no mixing or mingling occurred. And no one ate the cheese, either.</p>
<p>I think assigned seating is a courtesy to guests, ensuring that everyone will have a place to sit, at a table that has table-mates the host believes will be congenial–either because they know one another already or because they have some common thread and will get along. </p>
<p>This also means that seating someone with the vendors–the musicians or photographers–doesn’t make much sense, unless you have decided those guests would particularly like chatting with those vendors. I do not think the vendors expect or want to be seated with the guests, or to have their meal drag out the way a waiter-served, multi-course meal might. They just want to eat and take a break. </p>
<p>I was once seated, in a seating plan that assigned seats, not just tables, next to the wife of the musician. At a long table, at the end of the table. I honestly don’t know why the wife of the musician was there, or why the hosts thought that would be a good person to seat next to me. Honestly, I was insulted. This was my husband’s family, most of whom I have met once, if at all…but perhaps one might think, gee, it would be nice for the family to have the opportunity to meet Desk, who married into it over twenty years ago and is the mother of the bridesmaids?</p>
<p>^ Congrats, woody, to you and your sisters. Tell them an online stranger friend is impressed and will share this anecdote with her son. Your nephews have done a bit to make the world a better place for some ladies.</p>
<p>Woody, that is simply terrific. I’l remember that at our next family functions!</p>
<p>JEM, I agree it’s helpful for out-of-towners to be able to sit together among family as a mini-reunion. But it’s interesting that the B&G were inclined to want to “mix sides.” Are they trying to help the families get to know each other better? If so you can reassure them that it will happen organically over time as they begin to attend each others’ family occasions. </p>
<p>I’ve found that young people do better and are more curious about each other “across sides” than middle age and elders, if that’s any help. And sometimes if there’s a very strong common interest or professional bond “across sides” that can be a very good table of middle-agers.</p>
<p>^ Well, I concur that the concept of mixing sides could have its advantages, but in this case because of geographic and other issues it is unlikely that the “sides” will interact much in the future, with the exception of D’s future mother-in-law and myself. (We have established a regular correspondence, and, despite living plane rides apart, spent a weekend together last month.)
D has met and spent brief times with her future father-in-law (fiance’s parents divorced and the dad remarried), but he mostly lives in Paris and his domicile in the U.S. is nowhere near D and fiance’s city. Sees the sons from his first marriage only rarely – seems much more involved with children of his second wife from her first marriage, and their families. D’s fiance’s brother is on the West coast, and D and fiance are on the East coast, but they are close and do visit each at least annually or semi-annually. Such visits are unlikely to include H and me though. Anyhow, I think any wedding day mixings of these groups will be one-time only encounters, with the exception of the mothers-in-law. </p>
<p>But for other family situations I can see the advantages. For my S and his GF, for example, since her parents have family not too far from us, mixing it up could be a good idea, as we likely could spend holidays, etc. together in the future. </p>
<p>Interestingly, D seated H and my best long-term couple friends with her future father-in-law, and our good close neighbor couple friends with her future mother-in-law. H and I had envisioned seating these couples together, but are living with D’s scenario – “gifting” our good friend couples to D’s in-laws for the day LOL! I will tell them it is a testament to the esteem D has for these special friends of ours. (They will be with nobody they know at their tables, but are the kinds of people who will handle it adroitly and graciously, and I guess D figured as much.)</p>