The Wedding Seating Chart

Do I need a Seating Chart?

If you have a small, informal reception, you may not feel you need a plan. However for larger numbers, or a sit down meal, both you and your guests may benefit from a seating chart. Guests are saved from a mad panic of trying to find a seat on a table with their friends/family and you can place people where they’ll be happiest! The wedding meal may last for 2-3 hours and is a significant part of the day. If your guests are sitting with people they get along with, it will make a big difference to their overall enjoyment of the day.

There are a number of options for the seating plan:
No plan at all – best for stand up buffets or small and informal events.
Assign guests to tables – you allocate guests to tables but the choice of seat is theirs.
Assign guests to seats – you specify the seats at which each guest will sit.

If you remember only one thing…
Do what you think would make you and your guests most comfortable.

The Head Table Dilemma
While the traditional head table (Bride and Groom seated at a long table flanked by the wedding party) is still favored by most, alternatives are often being used. The traditional layout is as follows:

Groomsman - Bridesmaid - Best Man - Bride – Groom – Maid of Honor – Groomsman - Bridesmaid

There are alternative arrangements – such as including parents/godparents or clergy on the table. Or you might want to include partners of the bridal party. Alternatively, you may want to avoid the top table altogether and have a romantic table for two.

Top Tips for Other Tables
1. Seating tables with just one family group will let them relax, but won’t do much to encourage mingling. However, a table where no one knows anyone else might be a bit daunting for most people! Try and arrange a mix on each table – so everyone knows a few people. By thinking about guests’ ages and interests you can make sure that each table is likely to get on and have fun!

2. Where to sit singles can also create a dilemma. On one hand you might want to try out a little matchmaking, but on the other, this could be rather uncomfortable and awkward for your guests (it might be very obvious too!). Certainly avoid a ‘singles’ table but generally do whatever you feel is best for your guests.

3. If you are using round tables, the general etiquette is to seat males and females alternately around the table. If you are using long tables, seat couples opposite one another and then alternate male/females along the table.

4. The tables closest to the Bride and Groom should be reserved for the closest friends and family.

5. Give each table a name or number. Table names could be themed - for example people, objects or places that are relevant to you as a couple. Names also remove the perceived hierarchy of tables. You should create a name card for each table (your venue may do this for you) so that guests can easily find their table.

6. If you are assigning guests to specific seats you should create name place cards. These could also show menu choices (if you are offering them) or indicate vegetarians. The waiting staff will really appreciate this and it will allow them to give a more seamless service. You should also give a paper copy of your plan to the venue so that they can see where people are seated.

Creating the Chart
Start arranging your seating plan early. You can start doing this before all your RSVPs have come in as most of your close friends and family will probably be definitely attending, even if they haven’t formally replied yet.

To begin creating your arrangement, get a general idea from your venue how tables will be arranged in the room, determine whether you’ll be using round or long tables or a mixture of both, and work out how many people you can sit at each table.

Arranging the chart can take a long time and might involve numerous revisions. Many people cut up pieces of paper for each guest and table and use these to try out different layouts. Thankfully, over the last few years software (web-based, for download or even Excel spreadsheets) has become available to make the task simpler. It can save you not only hours of your time but also reduce the stress in the lead up to the big day by simplifying last minute changes.

Written by Adam Leyton
http://www.toptableplanner.com/

Wedding Day Stress – 10 Tips for Reducing Stress on Your Wedding Day

Even though your wedding day is billed as your 'special day', you often can't help but feel stressed and overwhelmed by the whole affair. Following are some tips to help you reduce the stress on your wedding day:

1. Try and eat a healthy breakfast. A healthy, nutritious breakfast will provide a wonderful start to your wedding day, followed by several small meals throughout the rest of the day. Incorporate into your meals a light menu of unsweetened fresh/dried fruit, unsalted nuts, raw vegetables, low-fat yogurt, cottage cheese, and high-fiber bread. Unsweetened fruit juices also help to calm stressed-out nerves.

2. Make sure you have some fresh bottled water with you at all times. Taking a few sips throughout the day is better than guzzling down the whole bottle in 10 minutes, unless you want to spend a lot of time running to and from the restroom. Among a host of other things, water is necessary for the body to digest and absorb vitamins and minerals. Coffee, tea, and caffeinated sodas prompt the body to lose water, so they can work against you on your wedding day.

3. Laugh! Find every reason throughout the day to find things around you that help to make you laugh. Laughter has been found to help in decreasing stress hormones that can constrict blood vessels and suppress immune activity.

4. Be very well organized. The more time you spend organizing everything with everybody prior to the wedding (e.g., caterer, event coordinator, photographer, disk jockey/DJ, videographer, limo driver, etc.) the less stress you will have on your wedding day. Do not leave things to the last minute, and try to have everything finalized at least one week ahead of your wedding day.

5. If you are leaving for your honeymoon immediately after the reception, don’t forget to have all your luggage (along with important items like passports, airline tickets, travelers checks, etc.,) packed and placed in a safe location you have access to.

6. Get a good night’s sleep the night before your wedding. In order to get a good night’s sleep the night before, you should • avoid watching TV in bed; • minimize noise, light, and temperature extremes in your room;• avoid any naps during the day before;• not drink caffeine at least 4 hours prior to going to sleep;• avoid eating, exercise or alcohol prior to going to sleep.

7. Delegate as many tasks to as many people that are willing to help as possible. The less you have to do on your wedding day, the less stressful it will be for you.

8. Keep a healthy perspective on the day. Even though the wedding day is important, your future happiness does not depend on this single day alone.

9. Research has shown that music has a profound effect on your body and psyche. Music can be used to bring about a more positive state of mind, which can help prevent the stress response from wreaking havoc on the body. Make sure you work with your disc jockey/DJ to incorporate all the songs that mean the most to you in your ceremony and/or reception.

10. Understand that not everything on your wedding day is under your control. Names can get mispronounced, important participants can get lost or arrive late, nature can refuse to cooperate, vehicles can break down, and so on. Amidst all this, try and accept with grace and humility the fact that not everything is under your control.

11. Bonus tip! Above all, make sure you take the time to enjoy your special day, even though there will be a lot going on. Take in the elegant floral arrangements, the exquisite table settings, the smiling faces, the soothing music, and all the other special touches that have been put together just for you.

This article was provided by DJ Jem, a Maryland Disc Jockey with Premier Sound Entertainment http://www.psedj.com

Why Wedding Colors Aren't Such a Huge Help After All

It was during the holidays, most likely. At the glitzy restaurant, you got your diamond solitaire and the proposal you'd been waiting for, maybe for years (which wasn't, "hey, you wanna get two tickets to the Rangers this weekend?"). Then it was tears, a smattering of applause, crème brulée (hopefully), a frantic call to the parents and the top five BFFs, and then with any luck, you sat back for a good week or three to simply enjoy the moment, before diving head-first into what could be a solid year of wedding planning. You did, didn't you?

After that, it was binder time ... or event planning software time, depending on how addicted you are to your Blackberry. Now it was a simple matter of selecting a generous handful of vendors and checking off a few hundred boxes. But somewhere in all this, you and your fiancé needed to lead the troops, set the flow. Where do most people start? By choosing wedding colors.

The problem is, this is a lousy place to start. There's no question, wedding colors are valuable. Fundamental, even. You can't choose your invitations or even something as minuscule as a bouquet wrap without them. But these days, the average wedding is a very big event. And very big events need a center with far more emotional resonance than colors can offer. And that center is a theme.

Some brides balk at themes. They picture bridesmaids with fairy wings or magic wands, or towering piles of pumpkins and gourds stacked on hay bales. "Not for me," you hear. "My theme is 'a wedding.'"

But a wedding planner won't let you get away with that. And let's listen to her, because she
knows what she's doing. A wedding planner knows that every love story has a theme, including yours.

Let's make the theme-haters feel better by calling it by some other words. Let's try 'mood.' Or get wordy, and say 'a sense of place and time.'

Your wedding is a day-long dramatization of your story as a couple. Think of it as a movie ... goodness knows you'll be spending enough on photography and videography to justify that. So even if you plan to skip the hay bales, your event still needs to have a storyline, a look, a feel, a heart. And that heart depends on you two: your personalities, what brought you together, and your gut feelings about romance.

Arsty couples are basing their receptions on black-and-white movies (for some, a picture of ultimate glamour) or even a painting, like van Gogh's Starry Night. Starry Night evokes a definite mood. And within that mood are all the elements you need to plan an event: even one as big as a wedding. Moulin Rouge's love story is another mood, place and time.

The problem with pink and silver, say, or peach and chartreuse, is that there just isn't enough emotional vibration to move forward. Pink and silver doesn't say much about your hopes and dreams for your new life together, or how you met at the coffee shop, or cheered in the stands together as college sweethearts. It doesn't tell your guests much about you as a couple: how he left a rose on your car seat, or stayed up all night with your sick dog (now the happy ringbearer), or how you both independently came to the conclusion that you simply have to bike across France within the next ten years.

And that's what a reception is for ... to breathe that love story to life in some way that your guests will absorb, and remember.

So think about you two as individuals before you think about colors. The colors are secondary, if that. They're workhorses, and they'll serve you well, but settling on colors before you flesh out a theme is like distributing the trailer before you storyboard the movie. It leads to a lot of frustration and dead ends. And if you don't believe me, visit the color sections on my site where bride after bride is agonizing over what to do next, now that she's picked her colors. The colors give her no clue.

Spend your time on the theme, and let the colors play a supporting role. You'll find that a well-developed theme starts to almost plan the wedding for you. And then, when the day arrives, it tells your guests exactly who you are ... and how you love. And that's what a wedding's for.

This article was provided by Blake Kritzberg at FavorIdeas, a site for wedding favors, theme wedding ideas and sharing bridal finds.