Picking Your Seat vs. Having Your Seat Picked For You

No, this is not a post about horrendous invasions of personal space. This is about having a seating chart. Or not.


We spent Christmas at my family's and I really tried to keep wedding talk to a minimum however I could not pass up a chance with most of the major players present to ask: Seating chart? Yes or no? I personally had very mixed feeling on a chart. I know it is the "polite" thing to do so you guest aren't wandering around like confused sheep, or (more likely) stuck next to people they don't know and forced to make awkward conversation because they came in late. On top of that I really like the idea of fun beautiful table numbers and seating cards.


On the flip side, we are celebrating in a brewery, not a ball room. It is a casual atmosphere and people would hopefully be able to figure out a place to sit. The other bonus of this plan is that it saves me from having to make said table numbers and seating charts because as beautiful as they can be I have a feeling they will have a high PIA factor.


All of that considered I was on the fence. Mr. Aardvark had absolutely no opinion on the matter, so there we stayed together on the fence. And thusly we needed input from parental sources.


However team MOM (aka Mama and Step Mama Aardvark) quickly made clear that a seating chart was the way to go. No ifs ands or butts (hehe butts get it! In seats... (oh boy)) about it.


The mothers having spoken I set out to start the skeleton of a seating chart. The first thing I need was to know how many tables we had and how many they could seat. A couple e-mails later I had the following information:


2 to 4 ppl = 6
4 ppl = 16
6 ppl = 6
8 to 10 ppl = 2


on top of this, there is a bar and six high-top tables. Four of the high tops seat 8 and two seat 2. One of the larger ones will be used for cake and candy buffet (that was a stroke of wedding planning genius to keep small children away from the candy without adult help).


So, there you have it. We have 35 tables at which to seat people, hopefully 175 or fewer people. To save space (and paper and money) I have decided against escort cards in favor of something big that people will read when they come in and then find their seats.  Other than that I have no plan.


Are you doing a seating chart? Why or why not? Do you have any advise for me or ideas on how to simplify the process? Should I make some of those 4 tops into 8 tops?