Often, couples will spend so much time fussing over the seating arrangements for their wedding reception that they will forget about special seating at the wedding ceremony itself. There is etiquette regarding the seating of very important people (VIP’s) at your wedding ceremony, and special circumstances can make things tricky.
Wedding Ceremony Seating: Traditional Method
Traditionally, the bride’s friends and family are on the left side of the seating area when looking in from the rear, and the groom’s friends and family are on the right side. On each side, the parents sit in the front row, with the mothers closest to the aisle, and then the grandparents sit in the second row, with the grandmothers closest to the aisle. The mothers are seated last, just before the ceremony begins. Siblings can sit with either the parents or the grandparents, and aunts, uncles, and cousins will typically sit either in the third and fourth rows, or if your rows are long, toward the ends of the first couple rows.
Wedding Ceremony Seating: Divorces and Remarriages
If your family is not so clear-cut, you may need to use extra rows for seating your divorced and remarried parents and grandparents. If a couple is divorced, but not remarried, and wouldn’t mind sitting next to each other during the ceremony, it would be simplest to do that. It also allows them both to get the best seats possible.
If, however, your parents are divorced and remarried, or not cordial toward one another, you should seat the one that is closest to you in the front row, and the other in either the second row, bumping the grandparents back to the third row, or behind the grandparents.
Another option is to seat each parent on the aisle with their parents (your grandparents) inside that row. This allows the parents and grandparents to still take only two rows, and it maintains the honor and continuity of the parents on the aisle.
Wedding Ceremony Seating: Empty Row for Bridal Party
If your wedding ceremony will be long, especially if there are people who will be speaking for long periods of time, you should consider whether to allow the bridal party to sit down. If so, you will want to leave a row empty at the very front of the seating area, or reserve seats at the far ends of the front row for this purpose. Your bridal party will thank you for the chance to sit down and get out of the spotlight for a few minutes.
Wedding Ceremony Seating: Marking Seats as Reserved
Now that you have decided which seats to reserve and for whom, the question is how to, in practice, reserve the seats. If you have ushers for your wedding, it makes it easy because you can just tell them which seats are reserved for whom, and they can seat everybody. If your ushers do not know all your guests, consider having a family member of the bride and a family member of the groom available to help point out VIP’s to the ushers.
If you don’t have ushers, you can either rope off the front rows with ribbon strung across them on the aisle(s) from which people are entering their rows, or you can put “reserved” signs on the seats that you will be saving. You could even consider giving these VIP guests small gifts attached to their “reserved” tags.
Wedding Ceremony Seating: When in Doubt, Ask
If you are not sure how to seat your family in special circumstances, the best thing to do is to ask. Check with your divorced parents to see if they would want to sit together or not, and ask your siblings whether they want to sit with your parents or your grandparents. Taking care of all of these things before the wedding day will help you to avoid surprises in your wedding ceremony seating.
