Diary of a Wedding Planning Machine: Invitation and Table Seating Politics

Attention all married people!

Did you ever have this happen at your wedding? Guests complaining that you have invited their worst enemy and telling you not to seat them on the same table. Or even threaten not to come because of someone else who is going to be there.

Well, we have and it really got my goat. It started when I began doing the table seating arrangements (a fiddly and painstaking job). I casually mentioned to a friend what table she might be on but told her not to say anything to anyone because nothing was set in stone by that early stage. The very next day she told another guest what table she was on and who with and made it sound like it was all definite. A couple of hours later, Duncan got a text message from this guest saying that they didn't want to come anymore because she heard she was going to be on a table with someone she didn't like (which wasn't true anyway). Duncan tried to appease this person by saying we'd seat her elsewhere. I told him he should have told her where she should stick her invitation!

A few days later, I got a text message from a good friend asking if her worst enemy was coming to the wedding. I told her yes but just to the ceremony as I'm not close enough to this other person to invite her to the reception. The next thing, my friend was ringing me and whinging that she didn't want this other person there, in other words, it sounded like that she was threatening not to come if I invited her enemy. I pretty much told her where to go and then she shut up and is coming to the wedding.

In the last few weeks, we've been finding out about all these little (or bigger) grievances that our guests have with each other that we never knew about. And guess what? All of the people complaining have been women! No surprises there, I guess. Most of the guys I know are mature enough to just deal with it if someone they don't like is there.

A friend said to me last week that she reckoned for someone else to dictate who the couple invite to their wedding is the height of bad manners. I agree! I have been on tables at receptions where I've felt really uncomfortable but I just dealt with it because it wasn't my wedding and I don't want to make anything more difficult for the couple. There is a maximum of 10 and a minimum of eight people on each table at our reception and that's more than enough to avoid someone if you really want to. Obviously we're not going to deliberately sit known enemies together but sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles. I'm not going to go around forcing people to reconcile - that's their business - but I do expect a bit of maturity and unselfishness from people in their twenties and thirties who are old enough to know better.

The next person who complains is off the guest list - I don't care who they are. I just can't believe some people would consider missing their friend's wedding because of one other person. One couple I'm friends with from student housing days are coming to the wedding and don't know anyone else except me. They said they are happy to sit with anyone, even a bunch of old ladies, and just talk to whoever. I wish more people would be like them, although the ones who are causing trouble are a minority and in no way reflect the rest of the guest list.