The rehearsal dinner is often the first time both families share a table. Seat it so they talk to each other, the wedding party gets acquainted, and nobody from out of town ends up at the end with strangers.
Free for up to 20 guests and 4 tables. No credit card required.
Fewer guests than the wedding, and every seat matters more.
Most rehearsal dinners are one or two long tables, or a handful of rounds in a restaurant’s back room. Draw what the restaurant is giving you, including where the toasts will be made from.
Introduce people, host the toasts, and fit a restaurant’s room.
Place long rectangular tables and see seats down both sides and at the ends, so you know who faces whom across the table.
Give each guest a category for their family, and check each table is a mix, not two halves that never meet.
Restaurants hand you a room with a pillar in it and a door in the corner. Draw it as it is, and seat around it.
Put the couple in the middle of the long side, where the toasts can reach them and the whole room can see them respond.
Restaurants often ask for choices in advance. Record each guest’s choice and dietary needs, then send them the spreadsheet with every seat.
Print a simple chart for whoever is hosting, or a PDF for the restaurant to set the room from.
By tradition the couple sits together in the middle of the main table, with the hosts, often one set of parents, close by. The other set of parents sits across from them or beside them, because the dinner is partly for the two families to spend real time together.
Put the wedding party near each other but not in a block. Seating a groomsman beside a bridesmaid from the other side is the easiest way to make tomorrow’s wedding party feel like one group.
Look after the guests who have traveled. Out-of-town relatives and old friends often know only one person in the room; seat them beside that person and someone friendly from the other side.
Decide where the toasts come from before you finalize the chart. Whoever speaks needs to be seen, and the couple needs to be facing them.
A long-table layout for a private room, ready to fill in.
The traditions that carry over from the night before.
When the rehearsal is done, the reception is next.
A small room and a short list, laid out so you can see every conversation that will happen.
When a groomsman’s flight is delayed or a grandparent decides to come after all, change two seats and send the new version.
For twelve people, a sketch works. By thirty, with two families, a wedding party and a set menu, the sketch has arrows on it and the restaurant is asking for meal choices by seat.
PlanSeats gives you the room, the seats and the menu choices in one place, and a clean chart for the restaurant.
If you are also seating the wedding, it is the same tool you will use the next day.
Usually the hosts and the other set of parents, with the wedding party close by. The point is for both families to share the main table.
Long tables suit a private room and make it easy to mix people along each side. Rounds are better for a larger group where conversation happens table by table. You can try both on the plan.
For a family-style dinner you might not. Once there is a set menu, a toast, and two families who have not met, a chart saves the host a lot of standing around.
A few days before, once the restaurant has your final count. Set menus often need choices a week ahead, so collect those first.
Send them a view-only link or a PDF. They do not need an account.
Two families, one long table and a set of toasts, arranged so everyone meets the people they should.
Free for up to 20 guests and 4 tables. No credit card required.