Wedding Seating Chart Maker: Free Seating Plan Generator

1. Wait for the RSVPs. Seating a list that is still moving means doing it twice. The usual sequence is RSVP deadline, then final headcount to the caterer, then seating — which is why the planning checklist puts "draft the seating chart" around two months out rather than six.

2. Get the venue's floor plan and table list first. How many tables fit, what size they are, and where the dance floor, bar, cake and doors sit. Everything below is downstream of that, and venues hand it over happily.

3. Group before you seat. Tag every guest with the group they belong to — one side's family, the other's, college friends, work, neighbours. Grouping is the whole job; the seating is mostly arithmetic once it is done. This is what the Group column in the tool above is for.

4. Fill the tables, biggest groups first. A party of eight needs a whole table; two parties of four can share one. Placing the big ones first is why the tool does not scatter a family across three tables, and it is the same trick if you are doing it on paper.

5. Now spend your time on the twenty people who need it. Divorced parents at different tables with good sightlines. The guest who knows nobody, seated with the friendliest group rather than the other strays. Elderly guests away from the speakers, near the door. Kids together, or with their parents, but decide which. Work colleagues who will actually talk to each other.

6. Do a last pass by table, not by person. Read each table aloud as a group: would these eight people have a good evening together? That catches the table of five strangers that looks fine in a list.

7. Print two things. The table plan for the venue, the caterer and whoever is running the day. A find-your-seat list for the entrance, alphabetical, so guests are not hunting their own name on a chart sorted by table. Both come out of the download above.

One rule worth keeping: assign tables, not seats. Seat-by-seat assignment doubles the work and most receptions do not need it. Long head tables and formal plated dinners are the exception.

• The printable seating chart PDF comes out of the tool above. Two sheets: the table plan with every table and its guests for your venue and caterer, and an A-to-Z list of every guest with their table for the entrance. A free WedGenie account unlocks it, and the same free account saves your chart so the weeks between the first draft and the final headcount cannot cost you the arrangement.
• The CSV is free and needs no account. It carries Name, Group and Table — the same three columns as the guest list template, so it pastes straight back into the spreadsheet your list already lives in.
• Print this page works too, if you just want the tables on paper with no download at all.
• The free wedding guest list template is the blank spreadsheet to start from, in Google Sheets, Excel or CSV. It has a Table column, and this tool reads it: fill in the tables you are sure about, paste the rows here, and those guests stay exactly where you put them while everyone else is seated around them.

Escort cards, place cards and the chart are three different things, and it is worth knowing which you are making. The seating chart or table plan is the single display at the entrance telling guests their table number. Escort cards do the same job as individual cards on a table by the door. Place cards sit on the table itself and assign a specific seat. Most weddings need the chart or the escort cards, plus place cards only if dinner is plated and the caterer needs to know who ordered what.

How many people fit

Confirm these against what your venue actually rents, but the common sizes:

Table	Comfortable	At a squeeze
60-inch round	8	10
72-inch round	10	12
8-foot rectangular banquet	8 (sides only)	10 (using the ends)
Sweetheart table	2	2

Eight is the default in the tool because it is the size most receptions are built from. Squeezing to the maximum saves a table and costs everyone elbow room all evening; it is usually the wrong trade unless the room forces it.

The tables that need a decision

• The couple. A sweetheart table for two, a head table with the wedding party, or a regular table with your closest people. All three are normal. A sweetheart table is the easiest by far, because it removes the hardest seating puzzle in the room.
• Parents. Traditionally both sets share a table with grandparents and the officiant. Where parents are divorced, give each their own table with their own people, ideally with clear sightlines to you rather than to each other.
• The wedding party. At a head table with you, or spread across tables with their own partners and friends. Spreading them out tends to make the room warmer, and it solves the plus-one problem a head table creates.
• Guests who know nobody. Seat them with the most sociable group you have, not with the other strays. A table of strangers is a long evening.
• Kids. A kids table works from about age five upward if there are at least three of them. Younger than that, keep them with their parents.
• Elderly guests. Away from the speakers and the DJ, close to the door and the bathrooms.

Still stuck on a table? Tell the Genie who the people are and what the tension is — it will talk it through with you, and it remembers the rest of your wedding while you are there.