Table plan - Mix up family/friends or not???

Both mine and OH's family were keen on sitting in their family groups, which was impossible to sort on the plan but we got there in the end !

Personally I am a fan of keeping those who get along well together... It would just make for a more comfortable, easy-going atmosphere, and doesnt risk any awkwardness.

I know people get quite determined to mix up strangers, but truth be told, it doesn't always ends up a bit of risk and some personalities just dont mash well. If people wanna mingle with strangers they will do so of their own accord.

While my preference is to keep people together, it was simply not possible with the size and numbers of tables we had available to us. I have a large family, so I have chosen to keep friends of groups together and fill the tables with the family members I think will get on best with the particular friends. My reasoning is that my family see each other all the time, while several of the groups of friends don't often get together so I didn't want to split them up if possible.

Table planning is a bit of a dark art I reckon. Fortunately i don't have any warring parties to keep separate, and my family are very accommodating, but it was still quite a task. I haven't seen a single bride on here say it was easy!

I shall be keeping people that get on well together on the same tables, the last thing I want is people moaning that they don't get on with so and so and want to move seats/tables.

Thanks ladies, confirmed what I thought. We went through our table plan last night and kept family/friends together and those people that didn't know so many others we've tried to pair with people similar interests or ages. H2B mentioned about trying to mix up families but think now that we've got it sorted to leave well alone. Fingers crossed we don't have people drop out before the wedding and have to jiggle people about!

I once spent a very uncomfortable wedding breakfast with a bunch of people I didn't know. While we did have some conversation, it was mostly of the so how do you know the bride and groom variety and died into awkward silence very quickly.

My family were all sat at different tables and the result of this brilliant idea to allow people to get to know each other was an uncomfortable tension throughout the room. The only table having fun was the top table.

Sit people who know each other together please!

I agree with sitting people with others they know as far as possible. I personally don't go to a wedding thinking I hope I will meet new friends as I probably won't meet them again and if I were single and interested in meeting someone I still don't think I'd want to be sat next to them all day as that is awkward. I was disappointed at one family event that they mixed everyone up and as a result we hardly spent any time with cousins which we don't see often. Having said all that, sometimes for numbers reasons it is tricky to do.

We've got a mix of some together and some split but my main priority was to make sure people had someone to talk to.