I had dinner with a friend who's about to get married, and had an interesting conversation about wedding table plans. Towards the end of the meal I asked him if he was going to be doing anything towards the wedding later that evening. He explained that he did have plans, and when I asked what exciting things he was looking forward to sorting out he explained that it was his intention to start, and to complete, the entire wedding table plan that evening after dinner.
To be perfectly honest I wasn't sure what to say, but certainly I thought to myself that this was extraordinarily optimistic. Normally my friend is a very practical sort of person, very down-to-earth and realistic. But the problem is that as with so many people, it's his first time getting married. As such he has no prior experience of what it actually takes to create wedding table plans.
I wasn't sure whether to reveal to him my own experiences or those of so many other people I've spoken to who have been through the same hell. Clearly I didn't want to spoil his enthusiasm but on the other hand I felt I had a duty to at least find out more so that I might be able to help point him in the right direction. So I asked him how he was planning to go about creating his wedding table plan.
He explained that he was going to sit down with a piece of paper and a pen, possibly a ruler as well, draw out a plan of the room as he remembered it, draw in a few tables, and then add people's names in reasonably suitable positions. I bit my tongue although the temptation was to laugh out loud on the assumption that he was pulling my leg. He wasn't. He was entirely serious.
In my experience this kind of approach would be a little like sitting down with an international chess champion and planning out how to beat them by spending 5 or 10 minutes with a piece of paper jotting down a few possible moves.
Of course if you happen to be in international chess champion then creating wedding table plans is going to be as easy as, well, playing chess against one of the most powerful computers in the world. But if you're the sort of person who is still struggling to get to level 3 on that Snake game that came free on your mobile phone, then when it comes to creating wedding table plans you may need a little extra help.
There are so many factors which need to be taken into consideration about both the room and every single one of your guests, and although there may be very many successful ways in which you can seat your guests, there are many more ways in which you could seat your guests in ways which are likely to be rather less successful.
Unless you happen to have an international chess champion to hand, several spare reams of paper and a box of pens then it may well be worth looking into the possibility of using computer power in addition to brainpower. Computer based tools for creating wedding table plans are now one of the most popular ways of tackling this aspect of planning a wedding.
Toptableplanner is an online tool that can help you arrange wedding table plans in no time at all. Just drag and drop your guests and tables around the screen until you've created the perfect plan.
