Sweetheart Table or Dinner With Your Favorite People?
Close your eyes and picture the first forkful of dinner at your wedding. Who’s sitting beside you? Maybe it’s just the two of you, knees touching under a little table while the room hums around you. Maybe your partner is on one side and your best friend is on the other, already telling you about something hilarious you missed during cocktail hour. Both sound like wonderful dinners. Which one sounds like yours?
A sweetheart table is simply a place set for the two of you. A family or head table means sharing dinner with other people you choose. You can also sit at an ordinary guest table, leave two places at the end of a long table or join relatives at a round one. Start with the conversation you want to have over dinner. The furniture can catch up once you know that.
What kind of company do you want at dinner?
Ask each other when you last really enjoyed eating at a party. Was it catching up with one person you hadn’t seen in ages? Looking down a crowded table and seeing everyone laughing together? Slipping outside with your plates for ten quiet minutes? Marriage celebrations come with plenty of company. If one of you finds a busy room energizing and the other needs a pause, dinner is a lovely place to give both of you a little of what you like.
A table for two won’t automatically give you privacy. Put it in the path between the bar and the bathroom and you may see the entire guest list before the salad plates are cleared. If privacy is part of the attraction, choose a spot where you can watch the room without being a natural stopping point. Ask your coordinator to give you the first few minutes of each course to eat before inviting anyone over.
Try sitting in the actual spot
Go to the proposed table and sit down, even if it’s just a pair of chairs in an empty room. Look at each other, the dance floor and the people likely to speak. If both chairs face outward side by side, can you talk comfortably? Turning the chairs slightly toward each other can feel much more like dinner. At a long table, find out whether you can see the people you hope to talk to or whether they’ll be three enormous arrangements away.
Check what’s behind your chairs. A gorgeous window might be perfect until you realize it’s also a door the staff will use all evening. Let your venue lead show you the service route and where they need space to set plates down. Ask about room for your clothes and for any guest using a mobility aid. A seat at the head table should be comfortable to reach and easy to leave during a toast or trip to the restroom.
If it’s a family table, decide who gets an invitation
You don’t have to seat everyone who stood up with you in one long row. Wedding-party members might prefer to sit with their spouses, children or friends. If you include partners, count actual seats before falling in love with a particular table. Six friends, their six partners and the two of you make fourteen places. Add a grandparent you want close and the whole shape of dinner may change.
If family relationships are delicate, start with who enjoys being together. You can make two nearby tables feel equally welcome, or join one side for the rehearsal meal and sit with the other at the wedding. Tell people what you’ve chosen in a positive, specific way. “We put you with your sisters, right next to us. I want to hear you all laughing over there.” People often appreciate knowing you thought about their evening.
Decide what goes on the tabletop
Set down two plates, glasses, bread plates and anything else the caterer needs. Now find space for your hands. If you’re sharing dishes, add the serving platter. A tiny sweetheart table can look gorgeous in an empty-room photograph and still leave nowhere to put dinner. Try the arrangement with real place settings before adding flowers, signs or the basket that someone wants you to keep beside you.
You can borrow a little frame for a favorite photo or leave the whole space clear except for dinner. If you want to browse ideas, small tabletop frames and gently used wedding items are places to look. Choose something you’d enjoy seeing from the chairs. Most of the evening you’ll experience the table from the inside, which is a very different view from the one in a picture of the room.
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Can we sit alone for dinner and still see everyone?
Yes. Let the first course arrive and enjoy it while it’s there. If you have time between courses, choose a few nearby people to visit, then come back when the venue lead gives you a signal. You can catch up with other guests over dessert or during dancing. Some of your best conversations may happen earlier while everyone is still arriving. You don’t have to earn your dinner by making a complete lap of the room.
Ask whoever is setting your places to put the two of you at the table early on the floor plan. It’s surprisingly easy to count all the guests correctly and then discover your own chairs are the two that interrupt the view of the speeches. Try the view from those chairs once more before dinner is served.
What if we don't like being watched while we eat?
Choose a table at the same level as the others and skip the spotlight. Sit among the people you’d call if you had good news, or set your two chairs at the corner of a longer table. Ask where your photographer plans to stand during toasts so you know when attention will turn your way. The rest of the time, guests are likely to be happily occupied with their own dinners and the people beside them.
The sweetest question to ask when you’re done planning this is also the simplest. When the plates arrive and somebody says, “Can you believe we’re here?” whose answer do you want to hear? Leave that person a seat. Then remind each other to take one look around the room while you’re eating. All those people got dressed up and came to have dinner with you on your wedding day.