Wedding seating chart etiquette
Updated
There is no rule book that guests check your chart against. What they notice is whether they are near the people they came with, whether they can see you, and whether anyone looks like an afterthought. Get those three right and the rest is detail.
Closest to you, closest to the top table
The tables nearest the head table or sweetheart table go to the people closest to you: parents, grandparents, siblings who are not in the wedding party, and whoever raised you if that is someone else. Distance from the couple is the one thing every guest reads in a seating chart, so this is the place to be generous. Grandparents also want a seat away from the speakers and with a short walk to the door.
Parents who are divorced
Give each parent their own table near the front, hosted by them, with their own partner, family and friends around them. Two tables at an equal distance from you say that neither one was ranked above the other. Do not seat them together to make a point, and do not put one at the front and the other at the back. If things are friendly, ask them; plenty of divorced parents are happy to share a table, and the asking is a kindness in itself.
Couples, plus-ones and singles
Couples sit together, always, including plus-ones you have never met. A singles table is risky: it can be the liveliest table in the room or the one people remember for the wrong reason. A better plan is to seat each single guest at a table where they know at least two people and where there is someone of a similar age. Nobody should be the only person at a table who does not know anybody else.
Children
Under-fives sit with their parents. A children's table works from about six to twelve, placed where parents can see it and away from the bar and the speakers, with a responsible older cousin or a sitter at it. Count children as full seats when you work out how many tables you need, because a high chair takes up as much room at a round as an adult does.
The guests who cannot sit together
Most families have at least one pair. Write them down before you seat anyone, along with the pairs who must sit together, and treat both lists as fixed. The planner holds them as rules: mark two guests as keep apart or must sit together and it warns you the moment a move breaks one, and its automatic seating keeps to them when it fills the tables for you.