S/o do you have assigned seating/place cards at simchas?

amother

Hotpink

Fri, Jun 18 2021, 1:10 pm

For those saying they don’t like assigned seating because they're adults and want to choose with whom to sit, what happens often is that there isn’t space for you at the table that looks like it would work for you. And sometimes there’s only room at all, at one random table with the other side’s coworker. Some people are fine like that and others just leave. So even though you’re not always interested in shmoozing with your other cousins and you do want to sit with the other side’s coworker who’s your elementary school BFF, it’s definitely more risky and less of a chance to make more people satisfied.
I’ve been at a wedding where there wasn’t room for me with the adults that I knew and should have sat with, and I sat with the kids/teens. I’m almost 40, and it could have been weird but I sat and shmoozed with the 10 year old sitting next to me- I’m friendly and think you can enjoy almost anyone’s company. But most people would have left.

Chayalle

Fri, Jun 18 2021, 2:42 pm

I think the seating card system works best when the hostess is smart about the seating.

One of the nice things my SIL did for my oldest DD at her daughters' weddings was, at a certain point, graduating her from the cousins table to the aunts table. By the time she was in high school, there was little appeal with sitting with all the 10-year-old cousins. Since there aren't many cousins on that side in her age range, my SIL seated her with me, and she really appreciates that.

It's really nice for mothers to get to spend an evening with their married daughters. The problem on the other thread is that with no assigned seats, the OP got left out from the rest of the family because of it. Had there been assigned seats, the mother/daughter could have been accommodated at one table with, say, half the SILs and a few cousins, and the other table could have had some more aunts and some more cousins. Something like that, to accommodate everyone if they can't all fit at one table.

rzab

Sat, Jun 19 2021, 3:16 pm

I just made a bat mitzvah and I did seating. Honestly, I find it more awkward to go to a Simcha when there isn't seating. This way someone thought about it before.
Also, I have a sister that isn't on speaking terms with any of my other siblings. It was better that there was no question about that....

Iymnok

Sat, Jun 19 2021, 3:18 pm

I don’t think I’ve ever seen it at a chareidi Israeli wedding. There are sometimes a few tabled with a sign with (chosson’s family, kallahs family)
People switch and it works out.

amother

Crocus

Sat, Jun 19 2021, 10:40 pm

Yehsivish. American.
I've been to very few weddings without individual place cards and those still had assigned tables for each group.
At my own wedding, all family and family friends had cards, but for my friends there was a sign "kallah's friends at table X" with a few table Xs. I knew my friends would come and go, and some people had responded a bit unclearly so I didn't really know who planned to come. I didn't want anyone to expect to have a card and not find one. So this worked out pretty well.