Weddingbee Blog

We had some really awkward choices to make too… A few things that worked for us (keep in mind that all of our tables seated 10):
1. We didn’t want a sweetheart table or to separate our bridal party from their guests, so we wanted to pick two couples from each side to sit with us. Obviously my MOH and her boyfriend and E’s BM and his wife, but then it got tricky. E had 5 groomsmen (+ an usher who was basically a GM), whereas I only had 3 bridesmaids. If I picked another bridesmaid, that would leave one out from the head table. Ergo, we decided to put my brother and his date at our table (technically a groomsman, but really from my side anyway) and the only other one of E’s groomsmen who had a date. That solved our head table issue. (My two other bridesmaids sort of became heads of other tables.) I felt a little bad about separating my brother and his date from their friends at the college-aged table, but they both had a great time, and remember that tables are mostly only for dinner; people can move around as much as they want otherwise.
2. For a group of one too many: I had 11 guests from the school where I teach (including a couple guests of theirs). I took my best work-friend and her date, and moved them to one of the tables a bridesmaid was heading. I knew that would work well because my teacher friend raved about this bridesmaid after my shower weekend.
3. For large groups: I have a lot of cousins on my dad’s side, and some of them had guests, too, so I just paired them off and tried to put them with guests they would like. It was sort of arbitrary, but I felt like as long as they had 1-3 other people they knew at their table, it wouldn’t be a big deal. I don’t think we had any problems there.
4. For singles: This was definitely the hardest. I had a friend from college who was coming by herself. And while I did have other UVA people, we didn’t have a UVA table the way we split everyone up. We tried to figure out where to put her, but by the end we had limited options. It was between the college-aged table (sort of a slap in the face, right?) and the extra space at my teacher-friends table. That’s where we put her since she’s the same age as most of them. It worked out okay. At one point when she stopped by my table and I asked how it was going, she said no one was talking to her except this one girl’s date who worked in the same field she was getting her Master’s in (lucky break I hadn’t thought of). At least she wasn’t completely alone, right?
5. Random success story: We had another single person that we had a hard time finding a seat for, and we finally put her at the college-aged table because he son was there, and she’d recently broken her ankle, so he could get her drinks, or whatever. But I still wasn’t happy with this. So my dad had a genius idea. We knew of one woman that had RSVPed “yes” but her husband had just had emergency surgery the week before, and we had a feeling she might not make it to the reception. So we ended up making two cards for the woman with the broken ankle. We sent over the one for the college-aged table, and my brother kept one in his pocket for the table that we hoped would have an empty seat. At the reception, when we were sure the married woman wasn’t coming, my brother switched out the cards, and no one was the wiser.
6. What I’d change: If you have to stick a single person somewhere, definitely, definitely give the heads up to the table where you’re putting him/her. I knew my teacher-friends were extroverted, but I still meant to tell them, hey, my friend from UVA will be at your table; please make her feel welcome. I know that would have made a big difference.

Sorry this is such an obnoxiously long post, but I found this one of the hardest things we had to do, so I wanted to share.