Seating your guests - Tips on Table Planning

There will come a time in your wedding planning, usually around 1 month before your wedding, that your venue/caterers/decoration companies will require final numbers of guests, a seating plan and details of where you want any extra tables (for cakes/gifts etc). 

This was one of the tasks I found a little daunting, it sounded like a lot of hard work, but once I sat down and got organised it wasn't any where near as difficult as I expected it to be. Read on for my hints & tips on planning where to put your guests and how to get all those final details pinned down in time.

• My first tip starts with your invitations. Make sure that you request RSVP's by 3 months prior to the date of your wedding. Although this may seem very early on and way in advance of when you need the figures, it will save you any headaches later on. This gives you time to chase up any late replies. It also means you can ensure you meet your minimum head count requirements. Most venues will have a minimum amount, and if you do not have this amount they will apply a room charge. For example, my venue required a minimum of 50 day guests and 100 evening. If when we supplied our final numbers we were short of this amount, they would apply a £250 charge to our final bill. This should have been explained when you signed the contract with your venue, but if you are unsure call your venue & double check to avoid a nasty surprise when you get your final bill.
• Also, don't forget to ask for any allergies or specific dietary requirements on your invites. We had a set menu, but if you are offering a choice then you will need to request the choice is given at the time of RSVP. If you include this on your plan it makes it a lot easier for the venue/caterers when they are serving the meal.
• Find out from your venue what size/shape tables they offer and any room layouts they use. If they regularly do weddings they will more than likely be able to tell you what will work best for the amount of guests you have. Bear in mind their recommendation doesn't have to be used, so don't be afraid to ask if you have a specific idea in mind. 
• Start off working out how many tables you will need in total and roughly how many guests per table you will have. Each table may have a slightly different amount of guests on it, but try to keep them as even as possible. To give you an idea I calculated it like this: I had 52 guests in the day. 10 were on my top table, leaving 42 guests to seat. I put 8 on table 1, 10 on table 2, 8 on table 3, 10 on table 4, 6 on table 5. It wasn't the same on each table as certain couples, or groups had to be sat together but it worked out with a nice distribution across the room.
• Next draw on a piece of paper how your tables will be laid out, leaving plenty of room to write names. Here's how mine looked before the names were applied:

• You don't have to have the same lay out, you could have rows of long rectangular tables for your guests, a round top table, square tables, all the tables in a arch, or pretty much what ever you want within reason. Put this in to a simple plan as above, showing exactly how you want the tables laid out, including where you want the cake, gift table, guest book etc.
• Traditionally on the top table you would seat the Bride and Groom centrally and then working outwards the parents would sit either side followed by the best man and maid of honour. But you don't have to follow this tradition, if you already have children you may want them on the top table with you, or if you have divorced and remarried parents, you may want your step parents on your table too. Generally you will have about 10 people on the top table. Try and be fair, so if you have a sister or brother on the top table, don't leave out your other half's siblings.
• Next work through your guest tables. As an example we filled table 1,2 & 3 with our families, table 4 with our dearest friends, and table 5 was good friends & colleagues. I personally felt it was right to have our families on the tables nearest to us, but it's a choice you and you spouse-to-be will need to make together. 
• Once we had worked out who was going to be on each table I started to think of the logistics. For example, our grandparents I put on the seats closest to us, but facing us so they didn't have to twist around during the speeches and struggle to hear, I surrounded them by their children and grandchildren. Mainly because that's who they want to be sat with, not my younger friends who want to have a giggle and mess about. I put children in between adults and not together on one table separately. If they get tired, or need help with cutting their food (for example) they will want their parents to help, not another child they probably have never met before. You don't have to group your guests in this way, and if there is a family feud, you may find a table of relatives isn't a good idea. But for us we felt it worked well and everyone was sat with someone they knew well so they could have a good natter and not feel left out.
• Once you have written down where you want each guest sat on the plan it's time to include allergies, menu choices, or other special arrangements. We wrote a key on our plan as follows: C = Child, V = Vegetarian, P = Peanut Allergy, H = High chair. We didn't offer a menu choice but if you did then either use 1 = menu 1 etc or M = meat, F = fish. Next to each person in brackets include the corresponding code. For example my table place was written as - Bride (P). The venue knew I had to have no Peanuts near my plate and knew where I was sat (as if the big white dress doesn't give it away) when bringing out the different courses.
• I put the plan away for a week and then went back to it to make sure it was exactly how I wanted it. I gave a copy to the venue at our last meeting, and the night before the wedding we went over it with our event co-ordinator to make sure there were no changes.
• We did our own centerpieces so I didn't include this information on the plan, although our venue were a huge help setting up. If, however, a company are setting up for you, or you have specific table names, variations on decorations for different tables or any other detail you want to be perfect then I suggest you include this on the plan. For example if half your tables are in red, and the other half in gold, then write on the plan which ones are which colour. This will avoid any last minute panics on the day.
• If you have a decoration company, or someone setting up for you then make sure they get a copy of this seating plan. Even though you can tell companies or little helpers what you want, if it is written down they can refer back to your plan and make sure everything is how you wanted it. It just saves stress, arguments and confusion for all parties involved.

This all may seem common sense, or even rather simplistic, but I looked online and found the best thing was to keep it simple. There were many complicated plans, long blogs and articles on etiquette & tradition but it was too complex. I decided that it was best to keep it simple & include the important information such as dietary requirements. It worked for us, with the venue commenting how thorough yet easy to interpret our plan was. So I suggest you avoid big pin boards and over complicated table lay outs. Simple means less mistakes can be made!

I was lucky that my venue supplied a Table Plan outside the door of our room for guests to check where they were sat. This was part of our package. If you want to make one yourself or if your venue doesn't supply one you can do this to match your theme, without getting overly expensive. If you want my ideas on an actual Seating Plan Board for the Wedding Day then let me know in the comments below. I will do some research and attempt to make one myself before I write a post for you. 

My last piece of advice is, do not get stressed over numbers, who is eating what and who is sitting where. It is your big day, and you are marrying the love of your life. If it makes life easy on you then have a set menu, if someone doesn't turn up then it's not the end of the world. So long as your spouse is there, your wedding is legal and you two are happy then that's what is important. The rest is just added extras.

I hope you enjoyed and I hope it has helped some of you bride/grooms even just a little bit! 

As Always Thanks For Reading :)

£5 Charity Shop Challenge

While enjoying a Starbucks with my bestie this afternoon and discussing all the lovely ideas she & her partner have for their lovely new home I had a bit of a brainwave. The £5 charity shop challenge! After all, being the budget bride and loving anything that saves me money it seemed time to pass on a few tricks to saving pennies to help out a friend... and maybe a little bit for my own amusement as well!

I challenged the lovely Donna to purchase something she needed or wanted for her house, totalling no more than £5, it couldn't be any old rubbish and it had to be something she would buy if she saw in a normal shop. You can't buy much for £5 these days, but being the good sport she is it was Challenge accepted! So off we set to the shops! We started off in a Barnados charity shop, they had lots of lovely glass vases, vintage tea sets, tea pots, trinket boxes, cake stands etc. Unfortunately a lot of it was either outside of the budget, slightly damaged or it was very pretty but not needed however, after a bit of digging around Donna found herself a little gem! 

There were four of these lovely crescent moon shaped, white side plates. Which I was assured would be lovely for the hors d'oeuvres she will be serving & for onion bahji's. £3.99 for the four.

Next we went to PDSA which had a lot of lovely signs for the kitchen, draft excluders etc. but I didn't hold up much hope that any of these would fit in to the remaining £1.01 of her budget. We looked at more crockery, trinkets etc. but nothing really grabbed her fancy. Until we found another little gem hiding behind glass vases.

A lovely vintage green glass bottle with a cork. She decided the cork will probably be binned and replaced with a wine stopper or a drizzle pouring top (which you can pick up for about £3 for a two pack online). As you may be able to see it was only £0.99. Which means Donna managed to buy 5 items (4 plates, 1 bottle) for £4.98 coming in at £0.02 under the budget!!

I was going to insert a picture of the receipts here but I seem to have lost them in pile of receipts in my handbag, I really need to sort my bag out. But I assure you she did stick to the budget!

Challenge Completed!

I have to say that this was great fun, and I recommend you try this with a friend. Along with racks of clothes, the glass, crockery, picture frames, toys etc I also noticed a lot of really cool vintage jewellery, some very pretty bangles & lots of scarfs (which would be good to make head bands with!)

There are so many things you can do with these items even if you don't use them for their original/intended purpose.

• For example we came across old LP's being sold for £0.99. You could either frame them as they come, or spray paint them gold or silver & then frame them.
• Tea sets, if you don't think you'd use them for tea no problem. You can put tea lights in them, or oasis & flowers. Use them in the house or for parties/weddings.
• Necklaces/bracelets - the charms or beads can be used to make your own unique jewellery or some of the larger beads can be used in bowls, instead of pot pourri or expensive glass beads, as a decoration.
• Picture Canvas' - these can be picked up for as little as £0.50. Even if you hate the design pick them up and transform them with left over wallpaper or decorative gift wrap.
• Picture frames - once again you can pick them up cheap & fill them with post cards for a vintage decoration.
• Large vases - I don't do flowers, but a big pillar candle in a large vase can be just as pretty in my opinion. 

Keep your eye out for a bargain & keep an open mind. If you or a friend has a party, a new house or are just looking for something new to decorate your home or bedroom then set yourself the £5 challenge and see what you can find in your local charity shop. 

We enjoyed this so much that we aim to do a few of these challenges and will both partake in the next £5 challenge when we have a good few hours to explore the charity shops in town. If anyone wants to set Donna & I a budget/shopping challenge please feel free to leave it in the comments below or email me at bloggingmamma86@gmail.com with your suggestions! 

I will leave you with a picture of the lovely Donna taking our shopping trip very seriously and As Always Thanks for Reading! xxx

Guest List Dramas

Personally this was the part of wedding planning I was dreading the most. Not because it was particularly difficult but because I was terrified of offending anyone and because I didn't have a clue where to start. However after doing my guest list, save the dates, sending invites, doing my table plan I can assure you that this can be done painlessly and with minimal offence caused. Although my first tip would be - Don't be afraid to offend anyone. Once I got used to the idea that it was my wedding, my budget and that I couldn't afford to invite the world and his wife (nor did I want to), I soon realised that so long as me and my fiancé were happy with our choices then offending people wasn't the end of the world. If you need advice on how to get your guest list completed read on ... Please feel free to comment at the end of this post with any hints and tips you have or with any questions you'd like me to answer on my next post. I will do a separate post at some point on what to do when you have your guest list and people have to be removed or added, but this is just the initial guest list guide.

Top Tips To Avoid Wedding List Nightmares

• My first tip is to get some price lists/brochures from various venues in your area. Get an idea of how much it is for the wedding breakfast, drinks package, evening buffet etc per guest. This will help you assign a proportion of your budget to the venue (mine was about 1/3 or 1/2 of the budget) and work out how many people (or heads) this is.
• As strange as this sounds I advise you to write a list where budget and venue restrictions are no cause for concern. Write a list of all the people you would like to invite. I had a list initially with well over 200 people, which isn't do-able with my budget. But it was a good place to start and I found it helped me get to grips with who was in my fiancés family that I hadn't met yet. We both wrote down every one we could think of and had both sets of parents give us names of any family we had forgotten.
• Then put this list away for a week. I'm serious! Don't worry about it for a week. Come back to it after some time has passed and read back over it making sure there aren't any glaringly obvious exclusions. 
• Separate your list in to "Must Invite" and "Not Essential". The must invite list should be your grandparents, Favourite Aunts and Uncles, best friends etc. These are the people you have to invite.  The not essential should be work colleagues who won't be offended if they are only invited to the evening, friends you haven't seen in years etc.
• Once your must invite list is complete you can add people from the not essential list who you would like to invite to the day. Try to stick to your numbers. After the Day list is complete begin your evening list. There will be cuts so don't be scared to remove your third cousin twice removed you haven't seen since you were 6. Make sure you stick to your budget and that you are both happy with the resulting list.
• Bear in mind inviting 60 people doesn't mean 60 will turn up so you may have to invite an extra 10/15 guests. This requires a bit of sneaky inviting, you need to know who is likely to say no to make sure that you have enough people who will probably say yes to cover your minimum guest requirement (For most venues this is 50 people. If only 48 people are at the wedding the venue will usually still take your booking but will charge you a room hire charge. So it is better to try and have more guests than the minimum). Go through your list and put 'N' next to all your suspected no shows and make sure that you still have the amount of guests required for your budget.
• Once all the numbers are tallied up, you are sure your budget all adds up and you are happy you both have the important people in your lives as part of your special day then your job is done. People will be offended, you can't invite everyone and no doubt your Uncle will be offended you haven't invited his 5 kids, and 8 grand kids but stick to your guns. Be polite and know you have every right to pick your own guest list. 

5 THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN DOING YOUR GUEST LIST

1. If your friends & family have a lot of children, consider not inviting children. Or limit it to a certain amount of children per family. If you don't invite children, make sure your family & friends know in advance so they can get babysitters.
2. If you have a lot of cousins, invite your aunts and uncles to the main event and ask cousins to the evening only. With larger families it will be difficult and expensive to invite everyone. So long as you both follow the same rules for both families so it is fair, there is no reason why you can't invite certain people to the evening only.
3. Give you and your partner a certain amount of "friend" places on your list. Once filled with your closest friends explain politely to your other friends that weddings are expensive and move them on to your evening list.
4. Don't be offended if people can't come. Especially if you don't invite children, people may find it difficult to get babysitters. Just accept that not everyone will be available.
5. DON'T BE AFRAID TO OFFEND. DON'T BE AFRAID TO MAKE "CUTS". Unless you are rich or some one else is paying for the wedding, you will need to be brutal to get through the guest list drama. 

If you've got through it with out offending then well done!! Send your save the dates once everything is booked, and send your invites in plenty of time to get your exact numbers for your venue/caterer. Be prepared for last minute cancellations, or no shows on the day. It will happen, such is life! Hopefully these tips and guide on what I did will help you when it comes to guest lists. I will eventually get around to tips to stay calm during cancellations, declines and friends falling out... Don't panic though, if I can do it, anyone can! :) 

Thanks for reading!!