Table plan etiquette?

We had table plan in full all sensible with full names, table cards, bride/groom, nicknames.

our friends who married recently did the same. don't know that this us a hard and fast rule but that's what we did xxx

I have just done mine, and anyone who is an older person I have written their full name. Anyone who prefers to be known by their nickname I used their nickname. So it's a mixture of everything.

I think proper etiquette states you should use their full name. But if that doesn't feel right to you, or the person dislikes their full name, then do your own thing. To be honest, I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about it, it's a very minor thing in the grand scheme of the day, and will be looked at by each guest for probably less than 30 seconds, so don't let it cause you too much stress.

Do what you like !!! One factor that might influence you is what 'tone' you want to set for the wedding. If you're being uber formal, I've actually seen Ms J Bloggs on the table plan before.

We went with full real names on the table plan (first and surname), and short & sweet nicknames on the actual place cards.

The only time I thought someone made the wrong decision about their table plan was a 400 person wedding with first names only. If you know a lot of people at the wedding and are seated with them, great, you'll find yourselves on the plan. But if it's only 2 of you, it takes a little bit of double checking if you're a David and Claire, for example, LOL.

I am certainly one for this and don't usually spend so long worrying over silly things like this. But I desperately don't want to offend anyone, especially OH's grandparents and other older people who are coming. I was just curious to know what everyone else is doing.

Oh, and for the top table, we actually wrote it a bit differently on the table plan, as we thought it was ridiculous to put our names on it as everyone would know (a) our names, and (b) that we're on the top table.

We therefore put "Joining the Bride & Groom on the Top Table are......" and then gave everyone else's names and their roles (eg. Joe, father of the groom).

We felt that was more sensible on the table plan, and gives a little bit of an explanation as to who is sitting up there as well, for those guests who don't know the family.

We're small and perfectly formed party too with only 29 so very intimate with people on first name terms lol. For this reason we're going first names except where there's a duplicate first name we'll add an initial, eg - Sam W and Sam M. Our invitations are the same. Very informal. Do what works for you. Etiquette is fine, but don't stick to it rigidly if it doesn't work for you.

With the grandparents, I've always thought putting what you actually call them on their place cards (not the table plan, maybe) is a sweet touch eg. Gramps, Nana etc.

Sadly, we don't have any grandparents with us, so couldn't do this.

I wanted to put Mummy and Daddy (LOL) on my parents place cards, but as my husband didn't want to do anything silly like that for his, we didn't in the end.

I did put 'Baby Joe' as a place card on my nephew's high chair though ? (there were no other high chairs in the room...)

I think this is what we will do.

Go for formality with the table plan and then have nicknames/what we call people as the place cards.

Oh gosh... I just realised we'll have three people with the exact same name at the wedding... They'll be able to figure it out with who they're sat next to, right?

Another reason why I will be putting surnames. Just to avoid any embarrasment!

We've got similar numbers and have done the same as Pammy - using first names and an initial when there was a duplicate. It was amazing that with only 29 guests, just how many duplicates that we have! We haven't done a table plan as we're all sitting around one long rectangular table, so we have just done the place names.

But they have the same surname! Hahaha.

Number them?! ?

We have just put our table plan together and OH has just said there are a couple of members of his family which might be offended by us using their full name as opposed to what they are known as.

It is really doing my head in! Surely people wouldn't get so stupid over their full name being used? After all, it IS their name? I prefer a shortened version of my name but at my friends wedding in December she used my full name and I didn't care!

That is very silly. Looking back, we put shortened names on the table plan (i.e. my BILs are Rob and Tom and nobody ever calls them Robert and Thomas). I think the only thing we did differently on the place names (which were stones painted with first names only) was to put "Harry" for one of our ushers who was a Mr Harrison.

Just thought I would update to help anyone else in a similar situation.

We decided to keep the peace and use the names people go by for the table plan (and surnames). Easier than having petty moaning guests. Might look a little odd but it is only something people will look at for 5 seconds.