How to make a wedding seating chart

Start with the numbers

A seating chart is easier when three things are settled first:

• Your guest count. Work from confirmed RSVPs rather than invitations sent. Late replies can go in later.
• Your tables. Ask the venue or rental company which tables they supply and how many they have. A 60-inch round table seats 8 comfortably and 10 snugly; a 72-inch round seats 10 to 12.
• The room. Its width and depth, plus anything fixed: the dance floor, stage, bar, buffet, doors and pillars.

Open Table Planner to lay all of this out to scale. To see how a finished plan looks first, select See an example in the empty room.

Build your seating chart, step by step

1. Open More, then Room size and settings…, and enter the event name, the room's width and depth, and your meal choices, such as "Chicken, Beef, Vegetarian".
2. Use Add table to place your tables. Round, banquet and long tables come in the sizes rental companies supply.
3. Use Add to room for the dance floor, stage, DJ or band, bar, buffet, cake table, gift table, photo booth, entrances, walls and pillars.
4. Select Paste a list and paste your guest list, one guest per line. Add details after commas, in the order Name, Group, Meal, Note. A header row copied from a spreadsheet works too, and Jane Smith +1 adds a partner in the same group.
5. Drag guests from the list onto chairs. You can also click a chair and type a name; the planner moves on to the next chair.
6. Select Seat everyone to fill the remaining empty chairs, keeping each group together. Undo works for this too, so try it and see.
7. Check the button next to it, which reads All good when nothing needs attention. Otherwise it lists guests without a chair, broken seating rules and furniture that doesn't fit.

Seating rules for the tricky pairs

Every guest list has people who must sit together and people who must not. Select a guest and open Who they sit with:

• Same table as keeps couples, carers and close friends together.
• Not at the same table as keeps apart the people you would rather not seat side by side.

Seat everyone follows these rules, and the checker warns you if a later change breaks one.

Who to seat where

• Start with the fixed tables: the head table or sweetheart table, then parents and grandparents with a clear view of it.
• Seat by group, then fill in. Put school friends, cousins and colleagues together, then use the smaller groups to fill the gaps.
• Think about the room. Keep older guests away from the speakers and closer to the doors and restrooms. Put families with young children near an exit.
• Mix carefully. A guest who knows nobody is happier beside a friendly, chatty table than at the leftover table by the kitchen.
• Note access needs. Add notes like "wheelchair space, near a door" to a guest, and leave a gap at the table for a wheelchair.

Print the plan, cards and lists

Select Print and choose what you need:

• Floor plan for the venue and your coordinator, with names in the chairs.
• Table by table, a list per table with meal choices.
• Guests A–Z, names and tables for the welcome desk.
• Meal counts, the totals per table for the caterer.
• Place cards, fold-over tent cards with the name on both sides.
• Escort cards, each with a name and table number for a card table at the entrance.

Choose landscape or portrait and whether to sort by surname or first name. You can also send the seating to the venue as a spreadsheet: open More and select Seating as a spreadsheet (CSV).

Keep your plan safe

The plan saves automatically on the device you are using. Sign in to a free account to keep it in your account and open it on another computer or phone. To keep a backup or send the plan to someone, open More and select Save a copy to a file.

Last-minute changes

Someone always cancels the week before. Take them off the plan by dragging them back to the guest list, move people around to close the gap, and run the checker again. Print place cards and escort cards last, once the plan is final.