WHO SITS WHERE?

One question we’re often asked by couples and Ushers alike, is where to seat people at a Wedding Ceremony.

As you may or may not already know, there is one golden rule that applies to seating Wedding guests, and it applies to both Civil and Church Ceremonies. The rule is:

When looking from the rear of the venue, seat the Bride’s friends and family to the left, and the Groom’s friends and family to the right.

Knowing and remembering this key piece of information is crucial, but there are a few other things you can do before and after the day to help you achieve the perfect seating arrangement. So if you’re interested in finding out just what they are, then read on.

Check out the Venue

Whether it’s a Church, a Country House, or an outdoor garden Wedding North of the Border, perhaps the most important piece of information that you need to know (other than Bride’s party to the left and the Groom’s lot to the right) is how the venue will look when it is set up.

To find this out, simply arrange to for a visit when the location is set up for a Service. Ideally this should be a job for the Ushers, but to keep things simple, the couple may wish to check this out then relay the information out to the key Groomsmen at a later date.

There are a few things to look out for when ‘casing the joint’, and first and foremost is the seating capacity and layout. Check out how many rows of seats/pews there are, how many guests can be comfortably seated on each row, if there are any seats that will have restricted views and which ones will give the prime vantage points. The other thing to be on the look-out for is accessibility – which seats will be tricky to get to and where will guests in wheelchairs be able to sit.