Wedding seating chart maker
Add your tables, paste in your guest list, and drag guests to their seats, or let auto-arrange seat them with their party. Then print the chart, an A to Z sign, escort cards and table lists for the venue. It is free, with no account and no watermark, and your guest list never leaves this browser.
New seating chart
Start with your room
Pick a rough layout. You can add, remove and move every table afterwards.
Free, with no account and no watermark. Your plan is saved in this browser only: nothing is sent to us.
Starting from a guest count? Open a template for 50 to 200 guests. Planning in the UK? Wedding table plan maker.
How to make a wedding seating chart
- Wait for most of your RSVPs. Debrett's puts it this way: “There is no point starting the seating plan too early, as names and numbers are bound to change, but it shouldn't be left to the last minute.” Emily Post's planning timeline has “Finalize the seating plan for the reception” in the final weeks before the wedding. Your venue or caterer will have its own deadline for final numbers; ask for it, because some want the table plan up to two weeks before the date.
- Draw the room first. Debrett's again: “A plan of the room should be made first, locating the wedding party's table(s).” Ask the venue for its floor plan and the sizes of its tables, then add the same tables here, plus the dance floor, bar and entrance.
- Enter guests by invitation. Put each invitation on its own line, so a couple, a family or a guest and their plus-one stay together as one party: Anna & Ben Smith, Tom Lee +1. Add a group (“Work friends”, “Dad's side”) and a meal choice if you have them.
- Seat the fixed places by hand. Your own table, parents, grandparents, anyone who needs to be near a door or away from the speakers. Tick Lock seat so nothing moves them.
- Add keep-apart pairs, then auto-arrange the rest. Auto-arrange fills the remaining seats party by party and group by group. Move people by hand afterwards; the checks list tells you if a party has been split or a keep-apart pair ends up together.
- Print what the day needs. A sign or escort cards for guests, table lists for the venue, and meal counts by table for the caterer.
How many guests fit at each table
Rental companies publish different numbers for the same table, because they assume different chair widths and spacing. These are the ranges they give:
| Table | Seats | What the sources say |
|---|---|---|
| 48" round | 4 to 8 | Hill Country 4–6; Lifetime 5; Party Rental Ltd 6–8 |
| 60" round | 6 to 10 | Hill Country 6–8; Lifetime 8; Party Rental Ltd and Bright 8–10 |
| 66" round | 9 to 11 | Party Rental Ltd and Bright 9–11; Town & Country up to 10 |
| 72" round | 8 to 12 | Hill Country 8–10; Lifetime 10; Party Rental Ltd and Bright 10–12 |
| 6 ft × 30" rectangle | 6 to 8 | Party Rental Ltd 6–8; Lifetime 8 with one guest at each end |
| 8 ft × 30" rectangle | 8 to 10 | Party Rental Ltd 8–10; Lifetime 10 with one guest at each end |
Sources: Lifetime Products, Party Rental Ltd., Bright Event Rentals, Town & Country Event Rentals, Hill Country Event Rentals. Checked October 2026.
Party Rental Ltd's rule of thumb is to “allow 24–30 inches of space per guest for comfortable seating.” This maker draws each table with 24 inches of table edge per guest, the tight end of that range, so a table that looks crowded on screen will be crowded in the room. Ask your venue which sizes it has before you set seat counts.
Head table or sweetheart table
A sweetheart table seats only the two of you. A head table seats you with your wedding party, usually along one side of a long table so everyone faces the room. Debrett's notes the drawbacks of the long version: “it is more formal and may make the wedding party feel that they are on public display. It is also not very sociable for those seated in a long line.”
With a sweetheart table, your attendants can sit with their own partners at guest tables. With a head table, decide whether partners join it, which makes it longer. In the maker, both start as tables that auto-arrange leaves alone, so you seat them yourself. In the UK the head table is called the top table, and it has a traditional seat-by-seat order, set out on the wedding table plan page.
Where the parents sit
If your parents are not at your table, give them tables close to yours, with grandparents and the family friends they would want to talk to. If parents are divorced, Emily Post's advice is that “divorced parents aren't seated at the same table at the reception.” Debrett's offers one way to do it: “At the reception you could opt for three ‘top’ tables”, one hosted by each parent and one for the two of you with your attendants and friends. Add the parents as a keep-apart pair and the maker will warn you if they end up together.
Children and plus-ones
Emily Post's advice for weddings with children is to “set up a children's table with favors”. Debrett's adds that a children's table should be supervised and, preferably, “out of earshot”. Tick Child on each child's details: the table lists and meal counts show how many children are at every table.
For plus-ones, type Tom Lee +1 and the maker adds “Guest of Tom Lee” to his party, so they sit together. Rename the guest when you know their name. Emily Post's rule is to “keep couples at the same table together, though not necessarily next to one another.”
Escort cards, place cards or a sign
Escort cards tell each guest their table. In Zola's words, “Escort cards direct wedding guests to their intended table. Less formal than a place card, they don't assign guests to specific seats”. Place cards go one step further: WeddingWire describes them as “indicating not just the table, but the exact seat assigned to each guest.”
A seating chart sign does the escort cards' job on one board, listed by table or alphabetically. The maker prints all three, and can add each guest's meal to the cards so serving staff know who ordered what. For a sign, 18 × 24 in and 24 × 36 in are both on FedEx Office's list of standard poster sizes; save the sign as a PDF at that size and take it to a print shop.
For the rest of the reception
Writing a speech for the same day? There are complete best man speeches, maid of honor speeches and father of the bride speeches to adapt, and the vow builder drafts your vows in a couple of minutes. To work out how much to drink for the same guest count, Sipulus has a free reception alcohol calculator.
Common questions
- Is this seating chart maker really free?
- Yes. There is no account, no watermark, no credit line on the printouts and no limit on guests or tables. Every print and download (PDF through your browser's print dialog, PNG and CSV) is free.
- Where is my seating chart saved?
- In this browser on this device. Nothing you type is sent to us, so we never see your guest list. If you clear your browser's site data the plan goes with it, so download a backup file from the Save menu to keep a copy or to carry on from another device.
- Can I import my guest list from Excel or Google Sheets?
- Yes. Copy the cells and paste them into the guest list box, or save the sheet as a CSV file and import it. The maker recognises columns such as Name (or First and Last name), Party, Side, Group, Meal, Dietary, Child, Notes, Table and RSVP, and skips anyone whose RSVP says no. An .xlsx file has to be saved as CSV first.
- How does auto-arrange decide where people sit?
- It seats each party (a couple, a family, someone and their plus-one) side by side at one table. It keeps guests who share a group, such as 'University friends', at the same tables as far as the table sizes allow. It never puts a keep-apart pair at the same table, and it does not move locked guests or touch tables you have set to be left alone, which includes head and sweetheart tables. The same list always gives the same result, and Undo reverses it.
- Can my partner, parents or planner see the plan?
- Use Share link. The whole plan is packed into the link itself, so it is never uploaded anywhere. Whoever opens the link gets their own copy to look at or change. Their changes don't come back to you, so send a new link after you make changes.
- Does it work on a phone?
- Yes. Tap a guest, then tap a seat or a table. You can also pick a table from the guest's details, or switch to the Tables list view, which shows every seat as a row. A plan for 150 people is easier to arrange on a laptop, and your plan is saved in each browser separately.
- How do I print a large seating chart sign?
- Choose Sign: by table or Sign: A to Z, pick 18 × 24 in or 24 × 36 in, and choose Save as PDF in the print dialog. Send the PDF to a print shop; the text stays sharp at any size. FedEx Office lists 18 × 24 and 24 × 36 among its standard poster sizes.