Who Sits Where?

Your Wedding Day

Bride Login

Vendors

Search Sites

Who Sits Where?

Your Wedding Reception Seating Guide

Reception seating can be one of the most challenging aspects of wedding planning. Since your wedding is, in some ways, a giant party, you want to make sure everyone invited is comfortable and seated at a table with people whose company they enjoy. Of course, you also want to make sure you follow wedding etiquette.

For starters, advises Danielle Bobish of Curtain Up Events, in New York, “Make the task as fun as possible; you might want to sit down with a bottle of wine while going over the seating charts.”

Traditionally, the reception features a Head Table, with the bride and groom seated in the middle, the Maid of Honor and Best Man next to both, followed by both sets of parents and the rest of the wedding party.

If you’re having an Old School conservative wedding, this is the way to go. Nowadays, however, many couples opt to mix things up. Since the Head Table is faced toward the rest of the guests, it’s difficult to mingle; also, dates of bridesmaids and groomsmen are often forced to sit at separate table. The issue of divorce sometimes makes parental seating a problem as well.

There are several options to traditional seating, and as long as you make sure parents are near the bride and groom, with a good view of the room, you’re not breaking any rules.

Sweetheart Tables, in which only the newlyweds sit at a table, are very popular. You can have the parents at the next table, followed by the wedding party. Another popular option, according to Bobish, is to intersperse the bridal party so they have different people to mingle with. “You don’t need for them to be seated near you.”

As for children, Bobish recommends that kids under 10 sit with their parents, regardless of whether or not they’re in the wedding party. If you do have a children’s table, she suggests hiring a sitter, and to give them goodie bags to keep them occupied.

Divorced parents can create obstacles, depending on how well they get along, but you can work around any complication. Should one set of parents be divorced, for example, the mother and her date can sit at the table with the other parents. When in doubt, says Bobish, sit down and talk to them. “If they’re unhappy with the seating arrangements, explain that the day is not about them.”

Finally, says Bobish, don’t stress too much. “You’re never going to please 100 percent of the people 100 percent of the time. Do your best to make everyone happy, and know that some people might complain.”

Keep that advice in mind and you’ll be sitting pretty.