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Tell Smart Seating who sits together and who sits apart

Tag guests with groups, add rules on Smart's Rules tab, and set each guest's side, needs and where they'd like to sit. Seat everyone keeps every rule it can.

Included in
  • Standard
  • Pro

Works on your phone

Smart Seating already keeps every household together. Tell it the rest, like who your friendship groups are, who shouldn't sit near whom and who needs an easy seat, and every plan it makes follows along.

Steps

  1. Start with groups. Groups are your guest categories, like Uni friends, Work or Mum's side: tag guests with them on the Guests page, and the planner knows they know each other. In your seating chart, choose Smart, then Set up and Groups. Each group (1) shows how they sit and where they'd like to sit.

    A group sits Together at one table unless you choose In blocks: too many for one table, Happy to mix with others or Just a label: they don't know each other.

  2. Add a rule for anything a group can't say. Choose Rules, then Add a rule. Choose Keep apart or Sit together (1), then type each name, or a group, in the box below and pick it from the list (2). Choose how strict (3): Must or If possible. Then choose Add rule (4).

  3. Set up guests who need a particular seat. Choose Guests and pick a guest. Under About them, choose whose side they're on, Where they'd like to sit, like near the couple or quiet, away from the speakers, and any Needs, like a wheelchair, an older guest or a high chair.

  4. Choose Overview and Seat everyone. See Seat everyone with Smart Seating.

Good to know

  • Must or If possible? A Must rule is kept whenever the room allows it. If possible gives way when it has to, and the plan tells you when it did. On the Visual chart, Keep apart also keeps them off neighbouring tables when it can.
  • Divorced or separated parents? Make a Keep apart rule and tick Same distance from us, so both sit near the front and neither one is closer. A private note, like "Divorced", is only for you.
  • Children sit with their parents unless you choose At a kids' table in Set up, under Settings. Name a table "Kids' table" (any name with "kids" or "children" works) and every child is listed, so you can keep a baby or a teenager With their parents. A guest with a Child meal is seated as a child.
  • Say it in your own words. On Overview, type it under Tell the planner in your own words, like "Mum and Dad are divorced, keep them apart", and choose Turn into rules. The assistant suggests the rules, and you check each one before it's added.
  • Let family help. In Set up, Ask family to help makes a private link for a parent. They sort the guests they know into groups and say who shouldn't sit together. They never see your chart, and what they send arrives as suggestions for you to accept.
  • Who do they know? in Set up lists the guests in no group and no rule. Answer it for each one, so the planner can seat them with people they know. From their notes offers any need a guest's notes mention, with Not needed for the ones that aren't.
  • Areas of the room come from your room's elements, so add the dance floor, bar, entrance and toilets, and choose What is it? for each one. Areas and neighbouring tables need the Visual chart: a Drag & Drop chart has no room to measure.
  • Sides start as your two names, in Set up, under Settings. Guests in a group named after one of you, like "Gianna's uni friends", are on that side, and Mix the sides plans sit the two sides together.
  • On a phone, Smart is one list: find a guest with Find a guest, and the rules and set-up are further down.
  • Rules come with Standard and Pro. Seat everyone comes with Pro, and you can use it during the free Pro trial.

Last checked

Want the bigger picture? Wedding Seating Chart

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