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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think that its a bit rude to change the place cards at a reception?

153 replies

CrysPally · 26/03/2013 12:44

Sorry it this is retreading old ground, but this was brought up in the thread about separating couples at a wedding dinner, and I was surprised at the casualness with which some people suggested just swapping the place cards around. Surely there's far more to this then a guest could ever know about? The places might have been carefully chosen so that a shy/awkward person isn't on their tod, or that that Uncle Wandering Hands is kept safe, or any number of other things.

Leaving aside the couples together / apart etiquette, isn't it a bit rude to assume that you know better than the B&G?

OP posts:

JenaiMorris · 26/03/2013 17:53

Well if you know how many of each dish there are on each table, it is far easier to get all the food out table by table. Otherwise you end up with one person sat there hungrily awaiting their salmon surrounded by another 7 who are staring at their ever-cooling plates of chicken a la wotnot and aubergine goulash.

LiseYates · 26/03/2013 17:56

Actual lol at people, especially brides, getting outraged at people daring to swap place names on wedding tables!
Don't they have enough to be concentrating on during the day rather than getting in a flap over who sits where? You know, like getting on with and enjoying the day?!
The furthest I went with a seating plan at my wedding was making sure two friends who hated each other's guts sat at opposite ends of the room to each other as I didn't fancy a full on bitch slap at my wedding.
Beyond that, I didn't care less who sat where, far better for people to be able to sit next to who they like.
If I had have had a seating plan I certainly wouldn't have got upset because Aunty Ethel or whoever decided to sit somewhere else!

SirChenjin · 26/03/2013 17:59

Absolutely - a good guest will sit where they are told and not move the placecard, I'm with you on that as per my previous post.

However, as the bride has first dibs at being the goodest I would suggest she makes the guests feel at ease

PurpleStorm · 26/03/2013 18:08

Really not seeing how it makes things that much harder for the waiters if name places are swapped within the table.

I can see how table hopping before the meal could cause problems, but not switching seats on the table itself.

BuiltForComfort · 26/03/2013 18:10

at bride being the goodest. We did cock up on our plan though, there was an old friend of DH's from school days who'd been a bit of a cow to a lot of people. We had real difficulty in knowing where to put her, she'd also worked with someone not from school days and pissed off SIL, which limited options further.

Thought we'd cracked it but turns out the people she sat with also knew her of old, also couldn't stand her weren't keen and the atmosphere on their table was a tad icy. But if we'd let everyone sit where they wanted she and her (recent, oblivious and confused) DP would likely have ended up on a table on their todd. (And no, I have no idea why DH thought it was a good idea to invite her.)

TolliverGroat · 26/03/2013 18:16

Which is why most people who've mentioned problems for waiting staff have referred specifically to inter-table switches.

Fillyjonk75 · 26/03/2013 18:27

I've never swapped between tables but I have swapped the name cards when we got to a table first so I could sit next to someone I know.

limitedperiodonly · 26/03/2013 18:28

jenai and sirchenjin Thank you. This thread has made me think that I should throw more parties. I'm not a bad hostess.

BIL was disappointed to miss out on my friend but you make your choices and you have to live with them.

TBH I think she'd have gone for DH's friend over him anyway. Although for family unity I'd never say that.

Original poster

CrysPally · 26/03/2013 18:41

Fillyjonk75 - when you say you were there first, do you mean that you got to the table before the other guests and changed their places without their knowledge?

OP posts:

TeWiSavesTheDay · 26/03/2013 18:41

DD has a dairy allergy - it's not life threatening but she has got the runs at a wedding before which is not pleasant as I bet you can all imagine!

So I would be a bit twitchy if I found out someone had moved her. She often has to have different veg etc, because of the sauces they use, although the rest of the plate would look the same. It would be easy for her to be eating the wrong meal and for none of us to notice until it was too late.

We had no table plan at our wedding. It was great for us, but I didn't realise there was one couple from DHs friends who didn't know anyone else and I don't think they managed to get chatting to anyone except elderly relatives or have much fun... it would have better to have a table plan to include them I think. bloody parties. So many things to get wrong!

Original poster

CrysPally · 26/03/2013 18:57

Sorry Fillyjonk75, that came out as pouncing on you a bit - I'm not judging, I promise! I suppose what I'm interested in is whether, if you were indeed making changes ahead of everyone else arriving, did it feel like a cheeky thing to be doing, or did it seem at the time completely natural when you saw the seating plan and wanted to sit next to this person instead?

OP posts:

Didactylos · 26/03/2013 19:09

limitedperiodonly

youre not telling me I have to also work 'liklihood of having meaningless one night stands' into my negociations of the tables too? Hadnt thought of that... may have to move my sister....

lainiekazan · 26/03/2013 19:09

But fillyjonk75, but sitting yourself next to somebody "you know" may have made the occasion jolly good for you chatting away, but left the displaced person feeling very awkward.

Fwiw I once went to a do connected with work and found that nearly everyone who was supposed to be on my table had squeezed onto other tables to be with people they knew. I, who didn't know anyone, was left at the table by myself !! Before I was just about to die of embarrassment a few kindly souls ran over to join me.

darkbluedelphiniums · 26/03/2013 19:23

I have an anxiety disorder, and social occasions aren't easy for me to get through. If I wasn't sat next to DH at a wedding I'd probably end up having a panic attack, so I would not hesitate to swap seats if we were separated.

limitedperiodonly · 26/03/2013 19:25

didactylos being a bride is about so much more than choosing your dress and making sure the bridesmaids wear colours that make them look fat/dead.

Talkinpeace · 26/03/2013 19:30

darkblue
but a good hostess would know that and would set the table accordingly.
That is the point : hey would choose a table of people who you would have things in common with and put you next to your DH even if the other couples were not next to each other.

A silly point is that if you move seats and do not know everybody else, you may end up making a BAD mistake (Greenpeace activist friend next to climate denier cousin)

pollypocket82 · 26/03/2013 19:33

I went to a wedding where the only person I knew was my husband and we were sat apart. i thought it was a bit rude to swap the place cards though so I just went with it. I also thought it was rude of the bride and groom to sit us apart and put me next to two people who had as little in common with me as you can imagine though. It was torture! I tried to have fun to be a good sport and when i failed I drank the wine and pretended to have fun ;)

FarBetterNow · 26/03/2013 20:18

I moved seats when I took my 80 year old mother to my niece's wedding. She had split us up. She had put my Mum next to a very grumpy relative and one of the groom's 25 year mates and no, that was not good planning.

I really don't see the problem with swopping seats.

I don't necessarily think it a privilege to be invited to a wedding and as a wedding guest, I've made a lot of effort: I've got dressed up, travelled a long way, possibly taken time off work, spent money on petrol and accommodation, given up my time, bought a present.
So I will sit next to my Mum who will struggle on her own.

The bride doesn't always know best.

I don't understand the Really Rude comments on this thread.

I do know that it is Really Rude to talk over someone's head and I've been to a wedding where some frightfully nice guests did exactly that right through the meal.

Karoleann · 26/03/2013 21:24

I would always swap seats if I wasn't say next to DH at a wedding where I didn't know many people. Wedding breakfasts are a long, long affair and I wouldn't want to be stick next apro someone I didn't know well, and neither would he.
Why would we want to spend all that money (present, hotel, babysitter for the weekend) on a night where we had to make polite forced conversation to someone I didn't know.

FasterStronger · 27/03/2013 08:02

I have been to religious Muslim wedding and not only was DP on the other side of a giant dividing screen (in a room large enough for 600) so men could not see the women and women could not see the men, but we are also racially segregated (!! I win !!)

the other women I knew were Asian, I am not, so I was sat on the black and white women's table.

while everyone made an effort and it was pretty good considering there was obv. no alcohol, can I suggest that in the future, wedding planners don't racially segregate their guests....it's little bit odd

Snugglepiggy · 27/03/2013 08:27

Yes actually I do think it's rude.There I've said it .And maybe I am a bit old fashioned but I think it's a bit indicative of today's I want what I want culture.
Most brides and grooms have probably thought carefully about their seating plans and tried their best.It's two or three hours out of your life for goodness sake and I genuinely don't get the horror of being split up from you OH for that length of time.You are at the same do, in the same room and there's usually interminable amounts of time during photos ,pre- drinks, post drinks to chat to whoever you want.
I'm not the most sociable person,and have often got sat next to someone I would never have picked out of the room to sit next to and yes occasionally been a bit bored and glad to get away,as may they have been.But more often had a really interesting chat and learned something new to discuss with my OH later.
If it's a really informal do with no place cards fine ,shuffle around.If place cards are there honour the hosts - it's their day not yours.

tiggytape · 27/03/2013 08:34

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

RubyGates · 27/03/2013 08:36

We didn't bother with a seating plan, mainly because I had no idea who in the previous week or so had fallen-out with whom, who might not like whom, and who might have a special need that they didn't like to talk about that a seating plan might scupper support for.

So to avoid embarassment and political cock-ups I let them sort it out for themselves having appointed a couple of friends as "Ambassadors" to direct the friendless and awkward to where they'd be most comfortable.

But then I didn't even have a "top table". I just wanted everyone to feel that they were as important to us as everyone else on our special day (She had not contributed to the cost). Having explained this to my Mother she tried to move a table to be the "top table" and proceded to sit at it. We just sat somewhere else.

But I'm partially deaf and socially awkward, so I did things as I would like them to be done having been marooned at several weddings in the past, by fascist well-meaning brides.

RubyGates · 27/03/2013 08:37

She being my mother who seems to have escaped from the following sentence.

hackmum · 27/03/2013 08:57

What's clear from these responses is there are two kinds of people in the world: those who, seated next to strangers, think, "Oh how delightful! I will have some interesting new people to talk to and maybe even make some new friends." And those of us who think, "Oh Christ. I'm going to have to make small talk with people I don't know for two hours."

Luckily, I've never been in the position of having to make a seating plan, but I'd like to think that the intelligent bride and groom would take this into account, so that they don't sit the shy introverts with a load of strangers. If we're talking about bad manners, surely it's bad manners to put your wedding guests in a position where they're going to be uncomfortable?

Years ago, I had recently split up with my husband and was single again. I went to a friend's wedding, but instead of being put on the same table with my best friend and her husband (the only other people I knew), I was put on a table with a load of people I didn't know, all of us single. It very much felt like we were the pariah group, not allowed to sit with the couples.

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