Do I need a chair for every guest?

[Yissie]

Casual ish wedding, outdoor mainly, food trucks, live music, we have a marquee that can seat 50, we over invited (it crept up on us..) and have 68 coming. I thought more people would say no as it's last minute

Anyway ceremony we've arranged 50 chairs, not a huge issue as we have rustic benches in the marquee and we could put some of them at the back.

There's no sit down meal, as it's food trucks and hopefully we will have good weather so people will be scattered around the marquee and on the hay bails around the fire pits. But dad and best man want to make speeches does everyone need a proper seat for this? Will it be ok to have benches in the marquee for 50, and if everyone does pile in there at once at some point does it matter if some are standing? Or could bring chairs from ceremony in? I'm stressing!

Sorry if I was some where I couldn’t sit down I’d be off . Health reasons

5 people won’t turn up on the day. So potentially 13 chairs short in the indoor bit. I don’t think you need any more chairs. Give your dad a big bell to ring and those outside will come in to hear speeches.

If it rains can you bring in the ceremony chairs? Can you bring 18 of those after the ceremony anyway then you have 68 indoors?

We had a simil wedding and everyone stood around for the speeches.

Similar*

Where is everyone going to sit for the ceremony if you only have 50 chairs?

Yes I went to a lovely. V casual wedding with not enough seats and there was a lot of good natured shuffling about as people finished eating and made room for the next sitting. Hard on the elderly, pregnant , knackered and infirm.

You need more chairs than people if you don’t have a seating planning as couples/families won’t want to take a single spare chair at a table. How many do the benches seat? If the benches seat more than 30 you are good to go if not bring in ceremony chairs.

It sounds fabulous! Have a wonderful time.

Shooting sticks.
That's what you need.
You can probably hire them.
Best allocated to those with a smaller rear-end, if you're not going to incur some additional medical fees for subsequent extraction...

(There doesn't seem to be an emoji for [wince] so i'll go with

Most people won't want to sit on hay nails. Scratchy and would catch on any tights etc.

Have you got tables?

Yes, but including the benches and bales.

Put the benches in the marquee for the speeches.

Even rugs on the ground for teens : kids?

God I’ve been to this exact type of wedding and hated it. Standing around in heels is awful and then queuing up for some rubbish from a food truck and eating stood about. Ugh!

The wedding sounds brilliant. But yes- seats please! I might look able to stand to the casual observer but after an accident when I was 19 I had broken vertebrates and a smashed pelvis that knitted badly so i now have one leg shorter than the other. I find standing for any length of time to be quite excrutiatingly painful.

@Yissie

There is more than enough seating for everyone across the whole venue, 50 chairs in ceremony area, benches to seat 50 in the marquee and enough hay bails/outdoor furniture to sit 40. With food trucks and bands and outdoor games I'm wondering if everyone will be sat down at a table at the same time that's all.

Yeah but people aren’t going to be in the ceremony area after the ceremony.

You need a seat of some sort for everyone in the reception bit. But fine if it’s hay-bales etc for younger guests.

But a seat for everyone is NOT optional.

Of course everyone needs their own seat, it's not a big game of Musical Chairs!

Everyone need a a chair at a table surely? Otherwise they get food, get a drink and then what? You can’t Balance a wine glass on a hay bale.

Unless you have formal, allocated seating, then you need about a third more seats than people for the reasons laid out above.

@FairyCakeWings

Where is everyone going to sit for the ceremony if you only have 50 chairs?

We can bring some of the benches out from the marquee to put behind the ceremony chairs so everyone can sit. Then in the evening deffo not everyone will sit at tables to eat pizza, some will sit on hay bails or on the outdoor furniture and we can bring ceremony chairs into marquee if need more.

Be prepared for a lot of your guests to leave early...

You need a place for everyone to sit during the ceremony and you need a place for everyone to sit and eat and a place for everyone to sit during speeches.

The vast majority of people aren't going to enjoy having to stand around for speeches, to eat, or for the ceremony. Do you really want people making the effort of dressing up and coming along to your wedding, only to force them to stand and awkwardly hustle for seats when it comes time to eat? That's a very rude thing to expect your guests to do.

Of course I don't want to be rude it's a very last minute wedding and I'm struggling to find a big enough marquee! I will keep hunting I've got a 6x12 reserved in case I find nothing else but clearly that isn't big enough.

I read it as you have 140 seats overall for 68 people. Seems enough to me. Benches back of ceremony and then move them to the marquee with an extra 20 ceremony chairs?

The faff is who will do the moving?

People won’t leave early it’s a live band and party vibe and I’m assuming OPs friends like what they like.

I went to a wedding just like this last August. Marquee without enough chairs for everyone to sit down but to be honest It didn't matter. Obviously weather plays a massive part but we sat on hay bales outside round a fire pit and it was lovely but i can imagine on a cold night people would want want to be inside

You need to be able to seat everyone indoors.

In this country you cannot bank on good weather and when it gets dark people might not be keen to be sat outside.

But they won’t sit on hay bales outside if it’s raining. No one likes that.