September 17, 2007

• Take a Seat!

   

  Although it looks like Mr. Eggplant is diligently studying all the reasons why he's excited to marry me, he's really doing our table seating arrangements.

  We're setting up our reception room with 18 or 19 round banquet tables that seat 8-10 people per table. I know tons of seating software programs exist out there and I could even use MS Excel, but I'm really a hands-on type person. I work much better visually, so I printed a mail merge of my guest list to some address labels and adhered them to a bunch of index cards that I cut in half. Once that was done, it only took Mr. Eggplant and me thirty minutes to finish our table arrangements.

  I was worried that the seating people would be much more of a headache, but it was pretty quick and easy. Well, for the most part, anyway. There's always a little drama involved (I can't seat Guest A near Guest B because they used to date and Guest A is bringing his new girlfriend... I can't seat the divorced parents next to each other, but which table do we place their children at?).

  I am a *bit* worried about some of the fragile dynamics, but everyone is an adult and I trust that our friends and family are more mature than to cause a scene. Although... I ran across one unfortunate incident one Saturday night when Mr. Eggplant took a stroll outside our wedding venue. I wanted to take a peek at what the courtyard set-up would look like while a wedding was in progress. As we walked by the reception, I happened wo walk past a guy in a tuxedo cursing at a nicely dressed older man and woman:

  Young man in tux: You keep that crazy woman away from here! Don't ever bring her near us again!

  Older woman to older man (I'm assuming her husband?): (mumbling) That's it, he's cut off from everything! That's the last check I'm writing to them!

  I don't know why, but I got really sad watching that spectacle. Weddings are supposed to be full of joy and excitement and it saddens me to watch when people cannot get past their own differences for one night to celebrate a new beginning for their loved ones. Of all the things that could go wrong at a wedding (cake falling to the floor, flowers coming late, etc), it would devastate me the most to have a dramatic scene between family or friends.

  Have you had to deal with touchy dynamics while doing your seating chart? How did you deal with it?

  • 4:02 pm
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