Head Table - Just the two of us?

[transferred post]

This is a thread that was started in our old BlissWeddings.com forums by vandygirl on 02/04/2005.

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posted by vandygirl

First, I'll start by apologizing for being gone so long! Buying a house has totally consumed me, but I'm back to wedding planning now!

Anyway, it looks like our wedding party is going to be pretty uneven, because I have multiple bridesmaids and FI just has his dad as BM. That's totally fine with me, but I'm wondering what we should do at the reception! It would probably look weird to have 5 girls on one side and two men on the other, plus, his dad would probably want to be near his mom and grandparents. But I don't want to exclude all my BMs cause most of them are travelling to be here and won't know many people. Any ideas?

**Colleen**

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posted by catina

Seat them on either side of you and your hubby. Or, sit with your parents and grandparents, and let the BM sit with their SO.

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posted by TheaterDiva1

I hear you vandygirl - I've been consumed w/ a new apartment as well and haven't had time for anything else!

Anyway, at our wedding, the head table was just me and DH for several reasons (uneven BP, people wanting to sit w/ family/friends. etc.). If you go that route, maybe you can seat your BM's together.

-Maggie

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posted by vandygirl

I think this is going to be harder than I thought, so I might have to just do the two of us. Considering FI's side will have both father and mother as well as both grandparents, and my side will only have my mom, that would feel weird to have a "family table". Plus, most of the BMs do not even have SOs so they'd really be on their own. Anyway, thanks for your thoughts!

**Colleen**

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posted by HeatherR

I don't like the idea of the bride & groom sitting apart from the wedding party. (Sorry Maggie!) I think it sets them too apart from the rest of the wedding guests and makes it harder to approach them.

We sat with our bridal party, and allowed their dates to sit with them at the head table as well. It was an uneven number but no one noticed or cared. Most of the time, people are only "sitting" for dinner. Trust me, no one will notice if something is uneven at the reception. If they do, they certainly won't care.

Heather

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posted by bebe0315

We are kind of in the same dilemma! We have 9 on my side (6 bm's and 3 jr bm's) and on his side (7 gm's and 1 ring bearer). (Yes, it's out of control, I know, don't even get me started...) We are still figuring the whole thing out. I think what we are going to do is have the MOH and her husband (my sister is MOH and her hubby is a GM,) the Best Man and his wife, and our ring bearer and JR bms all at the table with us (the ring bearer and 2jr bms are my MOH/sister's kids and the other jr BM is my FH's niece,) and then the tables on either side of our table will be the rest of our party with their SO's. I am still trying to figure out how exactly it's all going to work, but I just know that with that many people, our head table would completely span the entire room, and that would just be rediculous! Plus I think it's nice for the party to be able to sit with their spouses.

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posted by bebe0315

Oh yeah - we are just doing rounds like the rest of the tables, not the one long table in front of the room in case I wasn't clear about that!

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posted by TheaterDiva1

I don't like the idea of the bride & groom sitting apart from the wedding party. (Sorry Maggie!) I think it sets them too apart from the rest of the wedding guests and makes it harder to approach them.

Oh - it was a small table on the floor by the others... it wasn't a big table on top of steps or anything.

-Maggie

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posted by munchkin

I have to agree with Heather in that I don't like the "sweetheart table." I also haven't decided what we're going to do, since I have a maid of honour, a man of honour, and two bridesmaids. My FH has a best man and three groomsmen. If you include their SO's, that table will be huge, but I don't want to separate the couples.....I dunno, we shall see.

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posted by feb-bride

I'm not a fan of the sweetheart table, even if the table is close to everyone else. I also am not a fan of the head table being on the other side of the dance floor. Both scenarios cause guests to feel that the bride and groom are unapproachable.

What we did for our wedding was to have the "head table" in the CENTER of everyone. We had the wedding party sit on both sides of the table and invited all of them to have their dates/spouses sitting with us. This way, there were no "sides" to sit on; everyone was around both sides of the table.

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posted by HeatherR

What we did for our wedding was to have the "head table" in the CENTER of everyone. We had the wedding party sit on both sides of the table and invited all of them to have their dates/spouses sitting with us. This way, there were no "sides" to sit on; everyone was around both sides of the table.

We did the EXACT same thing.

Heather

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posted by feb-bride

How did you like it, Heather? Personally, I loved our seating arrangement. My husband doesn't like to be the center of attention, so it was great for him. We had a lot more guests approach us than what I've seen at other weddings when you have to walk across the dance floor to speak with the bride and groom.

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posted by HeatherR

I LOVED it. Our head table was a huge rectangle (28 people) but it didn't seem that way. There were two round family tables on each side. I could reach over and hold my Mom's hand when she cried, lol. The other tables were scattered around the 'bottom' and no one was far away or felt like they were at the "bad" tables, if you know what I mean. There weren't any.

If you're curious, you can see how it was set up...

Go to http://www.franklinplaza.com. If you let the intro play, they have the head table set up exactly how we had ours. You can see the other tables around the main table where the bride and groom are. (That's not us! lol)

Heather

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posted by feb-bride

Heather - We had a huge rectangle, too. Actually, all of our tables were rectangular. For the "head" table, we pushed two of the rectangular tables together.

Our set-up was almost exactly like the one in the website you posted, except we didn't have round tables.

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posted by HeatherR

Sometimes I wish I could do it all over again.

Heather