How to Plan Dinner Party Seating

Video Transcript

"So, you've planned all the details to your party and now you need to design the seating arrangements for your dinner. I'm Jessica Meitzinger and I'm going to give you the steps on how to do the seating for your dinner party. First of all, you want to probably start out with place cards or escort cards like we have here. You usually have these in the entrance to the reception room or the room that you're having the party in. The guests will grab these as they come in and they'll actually have their table assignment on them as well as their name and they'll go to their table as designated. Or, you can have the cards already placed at the table so the guests will just go to the table that their assigned to and see their name at their place setting. I just kind of did a little floor plan here for a party. Just going to point out some ideas on how to arrange your guest seating. If we look here, we've got the different tables around a dancing area and then we have the DJ placed at the opposite end. You want to try to group your families and friends together at different tables. At your head table or the most important table you want to put the host of the party as well as any close friends or family members and then spread the rest of the guest around. When doing your seating arrangements you also want to keep in mind to place your elderly and people with children closer to the restrooms because they usually frequently go there. So that they don't have to trample across the whole room to get there, place them close by. Also, keep in mind, where ever your entertainment is place your guests that aren't into dancing furthest away from that. So they'd be these tables up here or up there. That way they can just talk amongst themselves and they're not shouting and uncomfortable. Up here we have just some different sizes of tables and different ways to arrange your seating. For your round tables they usually are 60 inch round, 66 inch rounds, or 72 inch rounds. The 60 and 66 usually fit six to ten comfortably. Your 72 inch rounds you can actually get twelve place settings around that too. When you're doing your seating keep in mind, try to do even numbers it just looks nicer. If you don't want to do round tables or you want to mix it up you can also do square-rectangular tables. You can use, push two 6 foots together or put two 8 foots together. If you push two 6 foots together they usually sit eight comfortably and your two 8 foots pushed together seat ten comfortably. So those are just some ideas on how to arrange seating for your party."