How to make a wedding seating plan

Ask the venue for a floor plan and a list of what they actually have: how many round tables, how many long ones, and what each seats comfortably rather than what it can seat. The difference is an elbow. A round table is usually eight to ten; a long trestle takes three a side per section.

Mark where the dance floor, the band, the bar, the doors and the toilets are. Those fixed points decide more of the plan than you would think. Nobody wants the table beside the speakers, and someone always needs the one nearest the door.

There is no rule. Some couples sit with their parents and the wedding party in a line facing the room. Some sit at a small table for two. Some sit in the middle of their friends and let the parents host a table each. Blended families often find the last of these kindest, because nobody has to be placed in an order.

Choose the version you would enjoy, then build outwards from it. The tables nearest yours go to the people you most want to see across the room, whoever they are.

Write the guest list out by the groups that already exist: each family, school friends, university, work, the neighbours, the club. Most tables fill themselves this way, and a table of eight people who already know each other needs no help from you.

The work is in the leftovers. The friend who knows nobody, the cousin coming alone, the plus-one you have never met. The aim for each of them is one person they know and one person they would like. Two strangers at a table of eight friends is a hard evening; two strangers next to each other with a host on either side is a good one.

Children go with their parents unless there is a children's table and somebody has agreed to sit at it. Ask before you assume.

Every wedding has a pair or two. Write them down at the start, not after the plan is drawn, so you never have to undo a table to fix it. Write down the pairs who must sit together as well: anyone who needs help during the meal, a guest and their interpreter, a small child and the adult in charge of them.

A wheelchair user needs a clear route from the door and space at the table, which means a chair left out of the setting from the start rather than pulled away when they arrive. Anyone who finds a loud room hard needs to be away from the band and the speakers. Older guests, a pregnant guest, or anyone who might need to leave quietly are happiest near a door. So are parents of small children.

Dietary requirements are a seating question too. The caterer needs to know which seat the vegan meal goes to and which guest cannot have nuts, not just how many of each. Collect all of this with the reply card or the reply form, and put it beside the name so it follows the guest wherever you move them.

Not until the reply deadline has passed. Every late reply is a reshuffle, so drawing the plan early only means drawing it twice. Set the deadline about four weeks before the day, chase the stragglers in the week after it, and then sit down with the room plan and the final list. That leaves two or three weeks, which is plenty.

Give the venue and the caterer the final version when they ask for final numbers, usually a week or two before. Print the table plan and the place cards last of all, because the one guest who drops out will do so after you have.

• The venue: which table goes where in the room.
• The caterer: a list per table, with every dietary note beside the seat it belongs to.
• Whoever is making the place cards and the printed plan.
• You, on your phone, for the guest who cannot find their name.