Wedding Invitations

You’ve probably wondered what the best way to handle seating guests at the reception.  Here are 4 rules to follow for proper wedding etiquette.

1. Seating the bride and groom, close friends and family

The bride and groom should sit in the center of the main table with their parents, and wedding party. Your closest family and friends should be seated nearest the top table.

2. Seating Couples

If your tables are round seat couples next to each other. Otherwise for retangular tables, seat them facing each other. Don’t split up couples or children from their parents.

3. Alternate Sexes

It’s usually good form to alternate seats between men and women.

4. Think about how people will get along

Try to seat people next to each other who will most likely get along well. Avoid seating people next to each other who probably won’t get along. On round tables, this is even more important because it’s even more intimate.

Assign someone to give some thought to this matter. It can really affect the mood of your wedding reception and add to the atmosphere of the room.

What is the proper way to handle children the sensitive topic of allowing or not allowing children at your wedding? No doubt many brides have struggled how to approach this graciously. Many times it’s that the couple wants to discourage people from bringing children. What is proper wedding etiquette in this situation?

There are many reasons why you might choose not to invite children to a wedding ceremony:

• The cost - tabs for food can run high and by the head. Adding a lot of children can push the cost of the wedding higher.
• Children may not be well-behaved or their parents may not keep a good watch on them so things can get broken, spilled, etc.
• You want a quiter, intimate atmosphere not conducive to having children.
• There will be alcohol served and the celebration will be very late.

There are different ways you can approach this. You can ask people to spread the word informally that the wedding is for adults. Or you can state this on the invitation.

Sometimes no matter what you say people will bring children and you can expect that guests with young babies may bring them. You could anticipate this and hire a babysitter to watch the children in a room close by. Provide snacks and perhaps show a movie. You may consider inviting the children to join in one dance or part of the reception.