I have noticed that the one big “no-no” for seating is putting the old people near the DJ. They hate it and will constantly ask you to turn the music down, even if they are half deaf.
Also, did you know that wedding caterers (who know a lot of about food, but not a lot about sound) often set tables right in front of the DJ booth? Did you know that this is bad because it blasts the guests in those tables, and creates less good sound on the dance floor, due to obstacles in front of the sound waves?
Writing a successful seating arrangement for your wedding reception sounds like an easy task, but without a little research, IT AIN’T! A working knowledge of sound equipment & where to put your DJ, family politics, friendship issues, divorces… There are a million rthings to think about.
This is a good guideline to at least think about, before going about making an effective wedding seating or floor plan:
1) Seat the Bridal Party First
Decide where you want the bride, groom, and the bridal party to sit, first, and then the rest of the tables can make sense. Do you want the whole party sitting together? Or do you want the bride and groom to sit at a table by themselves, with the bridal party members scattered among the rest of the guests? Dates of bridal party members will need to be seated with other guests, but it is nice when they can be near their loved ones.
2) Seat the Parents and Close Family
Next, lay out the tables for your families. Usually, Table #1 is for the bride’s family and Table #2 is reserved for the groom’s. These tables are for parents, grandparents, siblings, and other immediate relatives. Be careful: if you leave someone out who believes they belong at this main table, there will be hurt feelings. If you have divorced parents, stepparents, or anyone else in the immediate family who do not want to be seated together, consider using multiple tables.
BAD FLOOR PLAN: Did You Know That Tables In Front Of The DJ Booth is BAD?
3) DJ Close To Dance Floor
Always put your DJ as close to the dance floor as possible and do not put a table directly infront of the DJ booth. Ideally, you should have a clean open pathway from the DJ’s booth to the dancefloor with no obstacles in the way, and particularly no guests!
Make sure and discuss this request with your venue provider’s event organizer. Quite often, their agenda is very food & service-driven. This means they do not always have in mind the best interests of optimal entertainment requirements.
Ask any good DJ and they will tell you it is NEVER a good idea to be far away from the dance floor or have seating directly in front of the booth. For more on this common problem, check out our article, Where to Put Your Wedding DJ.
4) Get Help!
Don’t try to do the entire seating chart all by yourself. Make out a rough draft and pass it around your family, first. It’s actually even better if you can enlist one person from each side of the family, like the two mothers or perhaps a couple of siblings. Family members will know who needs to be seated where and together, and who needs to be seated on opposite sides of the room! Older family members probably know family politics better than you.
5) Put Families Together
Take your index cards and make little piles of families. If you have small groups of families who are friends with the bride, you may want to combine them other small family groups of the groom’s to encourage mingling. If you do this, try to choose families that seem similar in interests.
6) Put Random Friends, Coworkers, Neighbors, and Others Together
Take your index cards and make little piles of friendship groups. Keep these people together. To encourage mingling, seat small groups of friends together that seem compatible. Do the same thing with groups of coworkers, neighbors, people you know from a particular organization, and anyone else who knows each other as a group.
7) Kid Tables
Making kid tables is always an option. This could be risky, but also could work out best in many situations, depending on who the children are. If you have lots of children who are mature enough to sit alone, consider creating a special children’s table. Try to group kids together who are in the same age group. Depending on the age of the children, you can put some activities on the children’s table for them to complete.
8) Tables for Singles
Like to match-make? Weddings are great places for singles to meet, so place singles at tables together. When making tables full of singles, try to make sure everyone present knows at least one other person so they won’t feel totally on the spot.
9 & 10) MORE RANDOM TIPS!
– Keep ex spouses or ex boyfriend/girlfriends apart.
– Keep people apart who actively dislike each other.
– Don’t mix people with highly different political opinions or religious beliefs.
– Elderly and disabled people should be near rest room, or area with least amount of walking to a destination point.
– If you have guests who are rude, silly, and obnoxious, you may want to seat them together, rather than subject a few of these bad seeds to each table. That way there is just one rude table.
– The final headcount is never perfect. Some guests who said they were coming will not, and some guests will show up unexpectedly or bring an extra person.
Look out! If you come to see us at Villa Valenti Pub Troy, NY – every Friday & Saturday for THE KARAOKE JAM – you may find yourself on Facebook.
Why? What do pictures have to do with fun dance music, and tipsy people singing? We don’t know!
Look for updates once a week to the www.facebook.com/kennycasanova page to see what you were doing when the karaoke madness was going on!
Come see why we are the #1 karaoke in the Capital District, by Albany, NY!
Not our Facebook friend yet? Befriend us for access to all the mobile DJ musical status sweetness! We have contracted out to many brides for wedding receptions, and also people looking for other events like birthday parties, etc… We are a great connection to have!
P.S. We are also offering a great Digital Camera package at all of our events! Don’t forget to ask!
(Some Saturday nights the fun starts an hour or so without me, as I have many weddings to DJ. But fear not… If you are showing up for the Karaoke Jam – DJ Kenny Casanova will be there shortly.)
When you book a photographer, they usually do a super job focusing on the ceremony shots. However, come the end of the night, they are usually gone before the end of the reception occurs. As you well know, the crazy shots happen at the end of the night. If the photographer is gone by then, you have to rely on your guests to take the shots.
This is why we offer a photography package now. For $150, we take 300-500 shots at the reception with professional nikons. There are no watermarks or print packages to worry about. It is very simple. At the end of the night we give you a disc with the pictures for immediate sharing. You have the rights to the shots. The end.
This package is also a great alternative to leaving disposables on the tables and getting back who-knows-what from the best man’s trip to the men’s room.
Email or call us for more intormation. Under certain circumstances, we can also cover the ceremony for an additional charge!
It’s been a couple of decades since The Who (or what’s left of The Who) was relevant in the pop eye. Why did the NFL feel the need to travel back in time to find it’s half time music act? While they were an awesome live band in their prime of the 70’s, by the early 1980s, old age, arthritis, and other various ailments have stricken the band and many members have been replaced. While this is understandable in show business, the Superbowl’s rendition of the band made me wonder just WHO is now in charge of the once great band.
A few months ago, THE WHO, was billed as the half-time performers at this year’s 2110 Super Bowl. At that time I was like, “Man, they are going to have to get out the Geritol for this one.” I had seen some current pictures of Roger Daltry and Pete Townsend and honestly had no idea how they were going to pull if off.
But come on! Did the NFL really think we would fall for it? Who is fooling who? While the band sounded okay due in part to Millie Vanilli lip-sync technology, the entire segment was bizarre to watch with the replacement of the band’s front man. I don’t get it. It is mind-boggling to me why Roger Daltry and Pete Townsend would allow Tom Baker, aka Doctor Who, to replace Daltry, as lead singer. I mean, do they really think we wouldn’t notice?
I don’t begrudge the duo for wanting to keep the band performing. But it’s clear that their best days (or even okay days) are way behind them, and that a time travel exposition to the past may not be one that should be revisited.
It was a total mystery to me why the NFL booked The Who in the first place, until I saw Tom Baker complete with his Austin Powers scarf, filling in for the 65-yer-old Roger Daltry who no longer has it in him. Then it came to me. If one of the buttons popped on Tom Baker’s shirt, no one would have any Janet Jackson flash backs.
All joking aside, as a DJ in my thirties, I feel a lot of sympathy for those aging rockers who want to rock out and look like they did years ago. I am sure that being fifty or sixty on the outside doesn’t matter to most of them, as they still like the teenager idol superstar they once were. However, Tom “Doctor Who” Baker should lose the microphone and stick with traveling the space time continuum in his little green phone booth, robotic dogs and sonic screwdrivers.
A DJ has to keep up on music. It’s not optional. In fact, any good DJ should love music so much they couldn’t not keep up on music.
A few nights ago, I watched the Grammy Awards. There were some great performances, and a lot of talent featured. I love how the Grammys feature all different genres of music and expose amazing musicians to people whose natural inclination would not be to gravitate in their direction.
Here are the artists that were nominated for Best New Artist this year at the 2010 Grammys. Even if it is does not seem like your genre, give it a try. You just might like it.
We’ll start with the winner, the Zac Brown Band, playing Chicken Fried. I also love their Toes.
