Planning wedding for 15 what do you do for...

[PoppyHen]

Entertainment and table plan?
Our destination wedding in Feb has been called off and the venue we planned our 90 people party with has called to say we can change to a 15 person ceremony & sit down meal instead of the party.
There will be 12 adults, our 3 kids (ages 12, 10 and 9) plus us -

How do you seat everyone at a 15 person sit down meal? X3 tables? One long one?

How do you entertain everyone? Assuming the ceremony will be around 6pm, drinks and then pretty much straight into dinner- I don't want it to be finished by 9:30pm but at the same time I don't really want to plan for a disco or anything like that for such a small amount of people- ideas welcome! X

Our venue had a wedding with a film in the evening? Blankets and snacks and they all watched together?

Congratulations on your wedding.

15 is a lovely intimate number but an incredibly different event to having 90. One large everyone together table would be memorable.

I think I'd slow things down pre meal and stretch out the meal more.

So maybe canapes and champagne/ something to toast with pre dinner. Then sitting down for starters - possibly add a soup and/ or fish course as well as the usual meat course and then some desert wines, maybe cheese platters followed by coffee, chocolates and after diner drinks.

Contentious but I'm a fan of a bit of quiet tech for children after they've joined in for a while at the table to keep them happy and keep the stress off their parents having to make them behave. If the children are allowed to be on tech quietly the chances of the event going on longer are greater.

Thanks for the replies and the congrats - yes we haven't discussed details with the venue yet but hoping to have a drawn out dinner after the ceremony- I like the idea of drinks and canapés too.

We don't usually have tablets or anything at the table (I don't judge others who do i just haven't made a habit out of it for mine and they are pretty good at chatting about random nonsense to keep themselves entertained usually!) but I would definitely consider taking one for back up for boredom!
They love a bit of coloring and drawing still at their age so I'm not too worried about that I just didn't know it I needed "something" else for entertainment whilst we are eating but maybe not if we drag the dinner out and can seat everyone together ish!
Have only just started to think about planning it tbh as it's all been so up in the air!

What about moving the seating about? You could switch between courses, perhaps with an activity?

It depends how well people know each other already. The frustrating thing about a group is only being able to mingle with the people nearest you. Swapping mid meal would give a bit of entertainment. You could make a game of it.

You need to talk to your venue - ours will only allow people to be seated in household groups and no mingling ☹️

Yes. My sisters wedding venue have said that people have to be seated in bubbles. We've got to have 7 tables for 14 people. They were only having 15 people anyway and it's an afternoon tea wedding.

There will be two people who will have to sit on their own. My sister is not happy that I haven't officially bubbled with my parents. Because I will have to for the wedding. (Bubbled with my best friend)