Transcript:
Well, hello, lovely humans and welcome back to my channel. If you are new here, my name is. Jamie Wolfer and I’m a wedding planner in Southern California and each and every single week. I bring you tips and tricks and DIYs and behind the scenes to just help you understand this whole wedding planning beast, just like a little a little bit more now. If you happen to miss last week’s video, you need to stop whatever you are doing and go take a look at that right now. I’m gonna link it up here in the cards. It is the biggest collaboration. I have done to date and that we need your help, so I’m gonna go ahead and pause for a minute. Let’s go ahead and click on that if you haven’t had a chance to take a peek at it yet. Do that do that now? And then come back to this video. We have been overwhelmed with the response that we’ve received so far and we just want to keep this ball rolling, so for those of you who’ve already commented and shared. Thank you so very much. Thank you so much and for those of you who are about to share because? I know you’re going to thank you very, very much Another thing. I would love to bring up because I feel like. The beginning of my videos are like announcements. Is that the Union podcast? The podcast that I have with? Heather are hosting a little mixer, a little get-together if you will for both wedding vendors and couples, so if you want coming out of this, all the details are gonna be in the description box down below. It’s going to be the end of this month. The 29th we got an extra day this year. Let’s take full advantage of it and hang out, lets. Go grab a drink meet. Some vendors have a cocktail. I go hug you so many fun things. Just a couple of hours for us to to hang out together again. All the details down below, it’s going to be at urban wood in San Diego from 5 pm. To 8 pm. On the 29th tickets are available in the link below in this week’s video. We are going to talk about a subject that I get so many questions about like, so so so so so many and that is seating charts assigned seating open seating all of the details of where people put their Toshis during dinner time. So I thought it’d be a good idea to compile everything in relation to seating charts and assigned seating all into one video and here it is if you are a note taker. This is this is end of video. Jaime, looking up at her camera and realizing she’s been filming for like, thirty minutes. If you’re a note taker, get ready Because there’s a lot information coming your way, but I gotta say it. You need to know everything you need to know about seating charts so without further ado, Let’s just jump right on into it. [MUSIC] Now it’s important to note starting off that this is for a dinner if you are having a appetizer, only style reception or dessert, only style reception. This is not going to apply to you at all whatsoever. You still need tables for people to like, set their plates down on to if they’re using a fork to like cut into things and you’ll still need to figure that’s that’s a video for another time. This is for specifically if you are serving your guest’s dinner, which I know is a majority of you, Another little disclaimer that I’d love to share that I tend to share at the beginning of a lot of my videos. Is my experience is limited to my experience. There may be things in your culture or where you’re from. Specifically, that would negate everything that I’m saying or portions of what I’m saying, so feel free to filter through whatever information is coming up out of my mouth and make it apply to you and your life and your event, so with that out of the way, we’re gonna cover the top three ways that you can have people sit down during dinner at your wedding. The first one would be you assigned their chair. The second would be you assign their table and the third one would be you. Don’t assign anything at all, so we have assigned chair assigned table or unassigned. There could be other options, but I don’t know them like. I tried to think of other options. You do a combo of some of those. I guess, but like those are the three basic ones. So when you are assigning someone a chair, that means you are designating a specific seat for them to sit in at a very specific table. This is most often used for when you have a plated meal and the server needs to know where to bring that specific plate or if you have social situations where you want to make sure people are in designated seats, which could include, but is not limited to people who might not necessarily get along well together and that could be like divorced persons or family members who aren’t speaking or just friend groups. Generally that might clash with one another, and you want to assign specific seats for them. The second option would be assigning them a table now. This is the most common option that I see in the events that we work. That’s where you say. Hey, you’re at Table seven. But they could pick which seats they want at that table base more often than not is used for buffet style events and/or family style, anything that isn’t plated and therefore extremely specific to the person that’s sitting in that chair. The last option is unassigned. Open seating. It’s a free-for-all. You can sit. Where wherever you like? This is something! I’ve learned from like previous videos that a lot of places do this. I personally am. Not a huge fan of it, but I understand that that’s quite normal for a lot of people. The only thing that you will need to do when doing unassigned seating is you’ll need to have an extra 10 to 20 percent worth of seats in case all of the groups and numbers. Don’t work out quite right and that will happen. I have had a situation where you’ve had to pull multiple extra tables because the numbers didn’t work out right when a couple had a like open on assigned seating and it got a little chaotic. If that’s the norm for you guys great. Just make sure you have a contingency in place with some extra tables and chairs when the numbers don’t work out correctly, so those are like the three different types of seating. Now, let’s talk about the seating chart. Shall we, cuz? This is this is one where I see so many clients, and I see so many subscribers talking about how stressful this is and it is and I. I want to take off as much of that pressure as I possibly can. So when it comes to your seating chart, typically, there is a sweetheart table or a head table. If it’s a sweetheart table, it’s just you and your honey, it’s a head table. That means the bridal party is joining you. You can choose to add the bridal parties. Plus One’s and/or spouse’s. Girlfriend’s boyfriend. If you have enough room in that table or you can just have your bridal party instead, so you got a couple different options for when it comes to. Who’s sitting next to you. Now, let’s talk about like the overall layout of the room. There are quite a few opinions on this, but here’s what. I see to work out the best at the tables closest to you. You’re going to want your immediate family, Parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Those who have been an integral part of your life for a long part of your life, The next furthest rung out You’re going to want to have family friends and that at the very furthest points. You can have your friends from college. You can have your co-workers. Typically, your generation, typically a little bit younger and this works out nicely because they’re less likely to be offended by their seating proximity to you as some of the older generation might be because they deserve a seat of honor of being your grandparent or being your aunt or uncle. So as you can see, you’re kind of going from the people who have known you the longest like from your your mom from your very first breath to the people who’ve known you the shortest and that’s why so many people get caught up in doing seating churches because they don’t want to offend anybody, so I would say that tends to work out really, really well now. I just want to reiterate real fast. These are just general guidelines, But remember that somebody’s gonna have to sit in the back of the room. So be sure that whomever you put back. There is going to be the least offended by that decision. Okay, okay, so there’s the overall flow of where people go right right now. Inevitably, the next question that kind of comes with like assigning seats, seating chart, etc, etc is the actual way of communicating where people are seated. Obviously, if you are doing on assigned seating, this next section won’t apply to you, but if you are doing either in assigned chair or in assigned table than this one’s for you, there are three ways that you can kind of communicate where people are seated. You can do escort cards. You can do seating chart and escort cards or you can just do seating chart. I know this feels pretty complicated, but I promise stick with me. It’s gonna make sense if you are doing assigned seating. You do need to have escort cards. You need to tell people exactly where they are seated. And if that is the case. The escort card needs to be at that seat so once people come inside, they can see where their card is and said at that appropriate seat on the escort card. You may be communicating. What that person is eating If they have any sort of gluten sensitivities that needs to be denoted on their car if they have a vegan preference or perhaps you just need to delineate between the chicken or the beef that also needs to be on that card at their seat, so when a server comes out with that food, it goes straight to that person. So if you’re doing a plated meal, you need to have escort card at their seat now. The question is, how do people know what table their card is gonna be at? That’s where a seating chart in advance comes in handy. So that way you tell them cool. You’re gonna be at this table. When they come inside, they go straight to their table and then look around for their card or you can just choose to have escort cards as a means of communicating what table someone is at. It can be some sort of cute little individual display. I’ve seen people do paint samples or just cute escort cards. I can have them display it on a table or clip to some sort to display anywhere that is a non windy location and that part’s important. Why is that part important because I’ve chased down escort cards before so in a fun? And if it is potentially in a windy location that they are weighed down by something, it could be like a little escort card. I had a couple do chapstick and like taped individual chap sticks onto everyone’s like, escort card, and that was super cute, too, so it double that is like a weight and their favor, and it says Jamie Wolfer Table seven. So that means that I know I’m at Table seven. I can go ahead and take that with me, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that my seat is assigned and if you’re going to use escort cards and they’re on some sort of display, be sure that they are organized alphabetically by last name, because when you’re looking at something really tiny and looking for you like where you’re supposed to be seated and let’s say you’re at table 12 out of 20 then it’s gonna take you a long time to scan through all of those tables to find your number, so be sure to organize them alphabetically by last name because it’s a lot quicker for people to scan through so option number one assigned seating like tush in specific chair, that card needs to be at that chair with a seating chart beforehand, escort cards if they’re allowed to choose their seat at their table, just put their name and their table again in a non windy location or weighted down and then there’s the good old-fashioned classic seating chart now. This is the most common one. Most of the couples we work with just don’t happen to do plated meals, so we don’t tend to deal with escort cards that often also seating. Turks generally tend to be easier to assemble and for people to view and go through, which is why they tend to be the most popular option. When it comes to an overall seating chart, there are a myriad of displays that you can do, but keep like the the world is your oyster. When it comes to a seating chart, you really can do so many things like with the escort cards. It is a great idea to organize people alphabetically. It means they find their names faster, which means they get to their seats faster, Which means you get to dinner and dancing faster. However, it is far more popular to organize them by table numbers. The good news is that because it’s listed out on like a fairly easy to read list, which is what listening out is, it’s easier for people to read through chunks of lists than it is through little individual cards while alphabetical is faster. Table numbers are more popular for seating charts. So let’s talk about where we place these. Shall we? Whether they are escort cards or a seating chart? This should be placed in your cocktail hour space. Why because it gives more people more time to go over and take a look at it if it is right, Extry reception entrance and you let’s say you have 125 guests and they all need to find their seats. It’s gonna take them quite some time to be able to scan through, regardless of whether you’ve done alphabetical or table number. You’re gonna have some bottle necking right at your reception entrance, Which means you’re kind of putting off getting to dinner and dancing and all the fun stuff that comes after that, you want to give people plenty of time to be exposed to this list so as many people as possible will go up to it without prompting now for us, we tend to say hi, ladies and gentlemen, we are about to get started with dinner, so if you haven’t done so already, go ahead and find your seat on the seating chart right over there and make your way into the reception space, so we just like a gentle quick reminder and I would say, like a generous portion of time. Half the guests haven’t even looked at it. But, hey, that’s still half of them that have, and that’s a okay by me. That means that’s like fifty less people that are standing there waiting to find where they’re seated now A couple of like closing pro thoughts for you when it comes to seating chart assigned seating assigned tables. What have you start planning early like you can always scoop people around later, but because it tends to be a stressful thing for a lot of people. The earlier you start kind of working groups together, the better you will feel you can always add or remove people later, but just get started on it now. This is something that. I go into way more detail on the master plan. Which if you guys don’t know it’s an online resource that I’ve created for you guys to help you plan your wedding as if I was your online wedding planner and this is something we definitely delve into in that. I’ll leave a link to that in the description box below. If you’re interested but sorting people out as you go just makes your life so much easier in the end, a great way to sort people is group them. According to life circumstance, obviously, coworkers would go really well at one table. If it happens to be your high school friend, they would probably go really well altogether. They may not know each other, but they should have enough common ground to stand on to have pretty decent conversation throughout the dinner hour. Next thing. Do not expect perfect numbers whether you have eight people you can fit at a table or ten people that you can fit at a table that’s not gonna happen. You will not have eight tables with ten people perfectly fitting out each and every single one you’re going to have tables with six like it can fit ten, but you can only figure out how to fit six there because you can’t figure out another group of two three or four to go along with them, and that’s okay, and you’re gonna have some tables where you’re like. Oh, shoot! I don’t know quite how to make this work. I think we’re gonna have to split a chunk off and go to this table. That’s okay, it’s gonna happen. You will not have perfect tables. The numbers will not be a perfect number. If you can fit up to ten, a lot of your tables are gonna have like seven and eight people at them, just because it’s so hard to get those perfect numbers, and, Lastly, but most certainly not least you’re gonna have the awkward table now, not the singles table because that’s just making it awkward on purpose, but you’re going to have that table, you’re like well. I I hope you get along like just. You’re gonna have a circumstance where you’re like. Couldn’t make that perfect. So we’re just gonna roll with it. Just keep in mind that people are only seated for dinner for, like, 45 minutes, maybe an hour and they will be more than happy to get through that just to be able to get with you on the dance floor, so don’t feel like you have to make every table perfect whether you’re doing assigned seating or not, it is not your responsibility to own every guest’s exact experience for the entire hour that they’re at dinner. It’s okay, they’re only gonna be there for a little bit of time and you can make it up to them by shaking it out on the dance floor or coming by and saying hi, don’t own that part too much cuz. Every single wedding has that table or two tables where you’re just like, well, these these feel hodgepodge II, and that’s the best that I can do, that’s. We have for today, folks. Thank you so much for stopping by again. If you haven’t heard about last week’s announcement, go check that out also. If you’re interested in the mixer coming up at the end of this month. Grab your tickets down below. And if you haven’t checked out the master plan, do that do that right now? Down below! Check it out! You’re gonna love it. I promise, why do I say that because there are a bunch of people that already in there? And they love it too. If you haven’t done so already like this video because you liked the video and subscribe to this channel for more tips and tricks for the modern day pride. And until next week, bye, guys.