Seating

So one of the things I've been thinking about lately is seating. Since we've rented a tent and tables, obviously we'll be having a sit down dinner, even though it'll be buffet style. To keep with the informality of the event, I wasn't going to assign people to tables, but having thought about it a little bit more, I think I have to.

The thing is, we're having about 10 friends and 17 family members, then the wedding party and their significant others, the Justice of the Peace, and one newborn, for a total of 35 people. That's 34 seats and we have five tables. So basically, I assume we'll have 6 to 8 people per table and the wedding party's significant others can sit with the wedding party.

But then I got to thinking... what will happen if we just let it be a free-for-all? Will we have an issue where the whole wedding party can't actually sit together? What if we just designate a table for the wedding party? Then will we have an issue were family doesn't end up as close to the wedding party as friends. Don't get me wrong, I love our friends, but ideally, family will sit at the closest tables to the wedding party with friends potentially being further. And what about seats? My parents and I decided to save money by renting 20 chairs and we'll be supplying 18 of our own. But our own chairs will be a lot more comfortable than the rented chairs and we want to make sure grandparents (and potentially parents) get the nice chairs. How do we make sure that happens if after the ceremony the wedding party and family is taking pictures while friends get to go pick their seats first.

So to avoid that dilema, I've decided to assign tables. Not seats, but tables for sure. The only issue with that is... who sits with who? My family is small enough (7 if my brother brings a guest) that I can put them all at one table, but Seth's parents are divorced and probably don't want to sit together. Plus there are 10 of them and that would be pretty crowded. So now I have to separate Seth's Mom & co. from Seth's Dad & co. But where does his sister go? Now I have to decide which parent she sits with, or put her with friends, which would be wierd. And now that my family has one table and Seth's family has two, there's only one table left for friends. But there are 10 friends! I don't want to crowd them into one table. So now I'm thinking some of the friends will have to sit with some of Seth's family!!! Is that weird?

Here's my current thoughts: