Free seating (kind of!)

You having a sit down meal or a buffet?

Would be fine for a buffet i reckon- as long as you make sure you have more tables than needed- after all if you only have just enough room someone will end up sat on their own to fill in the gaps.

Also reckon it wil be harder for a sit down meal and again youd need spare tables x

Ok, good to know it went well! We're having a sit-down meal.

Meggles - we'd allocate people to tables, but leave it up to the 8 on each table to decide where they sit, IYSWIM?

OH cool i didnt get that bit! Yeh that'd work fine- if not preferable to guests i'd say!

It's what we're doing Lol xx

That sounds good. A little stress taken out of the preperations too.

Excellent - yeah I thought it would be preferable for the guests too! This idea, strangely, has gotten OH quite animated (he thinks it's brilliant) - he obviously really didn't want to do place names! Thanks for all the help!

I think it sounds like a good idea but if you're having a sit down meal I would just check with your venue that they don't need a copy of a seating plan in advance. Our venue asked that we provide a seating plan with the vegetarians and children marked on it so that the serving staff knew where the veggie options were and where the kids meals went. Not sure how necessary that was tbh since we gave everyone the choice of chicken or venison (and choices of dessert) so they would have had to remember on the day who'd ordered what ? I've confused myself now ? Anyway, I'd check with your venue to make sure they're cool with free seating. If they are then I'd say go for the partial option of picking what table guests are on and letting them sort postioning themselves.

That's a good point, AlmostMrsP, I'll bear that in mind!

thats exactly what my OH and I are doing! He said that nearly every wedding he's been at that they someone at his table has moved their placecard so sit beside someone else! So theres no point in us spending hours picking who's in what seat!! Im still going to do a table plan and all for who's at what table!

It is a good idea if you know people will mingle.

My fiance and I know for a fact that some people would not mingle with anyone they don't know so we have done a set seating plan that will be in the foyer of the hotel outside the venue door. We have tried to mix people up to a certain extent though. I'm sure people will do their own thing once they've eaten and heard speeches x