Your closest family and friends should be seated near the top table (so closer to you) with other relatives and friends sitting further away. If you have round tables, guests with partners are usually seated next to each other. If you choose to have long tables, partners are usually placed opposite each other. It is usually customary to alternate male and female guests on tables. Children should always be seated next to their parents.

You should ensure as much as possible that your guests sit with people that they know as this will make them feel more comfortable and also give a more relaxed feel to the celebrations. Although this will not be possible in all cases, at least try to have similar age groups or guests with known similar interests sat next to each other such as aunts and uncles, friends, work colleagues etc. Guests may be very uncomfortable if they are seated with people they do not know at all. It is particularly important to bear this point in mind if you have round tables, because the temptation is to fill up the tables with unconnected guests.

So that guests can easily find their places, a printed table plan positioned just inside the reception room would be very helpful especially to guests unfamiliar with the venue. The most efficient form of table plan is where guests' names are listed alphabetically with their table number and position printed next to their name. An adjacent map showing the physical table layout with the table numbers shown allows guests to locate their table easily.

As an alternative to numbering the tables, why not give each table a certain name, particularly if you have a theme running throughout your wedding. Alternatively, you might wish to name your tables after people or objects relating to an interest or hobby you share or name each table after a poet and have a love poem written by the poet left on each table. If you are using table numbers you can buy pre-printed cards and table number stands. To print your own table numbers or customised table names use imprint able blank cards with your home printer.

To ensure guests sit at the correct seat, table place cards could be used for ease and less confusion. They can either be flat for placing in card holders or fold tent-like to be free-standing. If the original invitations were written in the formal, traditional style of, for example, Mr. and Mrs. David Smith, the place cards should show Mr. David Smith on one card and Mrs. David Smith on another. Less formal place cards, where the invitation was written in the style of, say, David and Sarah Smith, should simply have David Smith written on one card and Sarah Smith on the one next to it.

Once your guests have passed along side your receiving line, they will move into the reception room and make their way to the tables. If you have engaged a master of ceremonies, your entrance will be announced and your guests will be asked to stand. The bridal party then enters the room to take their places at the top table, even if you are not having a formal meal, it is usual to have a top table reserved for the brides party. The bridal party is normally led by the bride and groom walking side by side, followed by the bride's father with the groom's mother; the bride's mother with the groom's father and the best man with the chief bridesmaid. Your guests are seated usually once the bridal party have sat.

Deciding who sits on the top table can be a straight forward matter if both sets of parents have conventional relationships. Although problems may arise when there are separations, divorces or tension between people you would like to include on your top table.

However, by following established tradition, the decision-making process can be simplified. Traditionally, the wedding party, who sit at the top table, comprise the bride and groom, the bride and groom's natural parents, the best man and chief bridesmaid. Even where the parents are separated, remarried or divorced, it is still usual for only the natural parents to sit on the top table. Other family members, such as step-parents, are not part of the normal bridal party but are treated as honoured guests. As honoured guests, they should be given importance by being seated on a table very close to the top table. If you have an honoured guests' table also solves the problem of where to sit bridesmaids and ushers. Since these helpers are also honoured guests, they would join step-parents, and partners of separated parents, on this special table - although young bridesmaids and page boys should sit with their parents.