I wish I would've... asked my venue these two questions
last weekend we had two events dealing with the same easy to overlook mistake that is often made by brides & newbies to the planning process. The mistake? Not asking the facility exactly how many tables they will be setting up.
As you probably know, you are required to confirm a number and that is the number many assume will be set up. But read your contracts closely. Most facilities will set up an additional 10 percent in order to cover unexpected overflow. Or at least one table per 100 people. Consider these two actual scenarios from last weekend.
Scenario #1: A bride was planning on 60 guests, she ordered 8 centerpieces - for a total of 64 guests. Upon arriving at the facility, they had set up 9 tables,.
Scenario #2: A client ordered 100 place settings. Upon arriving for delivery, we were told there would be 13 tables, accounting for 104 place settings.
Seems obvious in hindsight right? You might be surprised how often this happens.
To prevent last minute headaches like this, don't forget to ask your facility these 2 critical questions:
how many actual tables do you plan to set up?
how many people will be seated around each one?
More stuff about tables that you may want to know
4' round table seats 6 people comfortably
5' round table seats 8 people comfortably
6' round table seats 10 people comfortably
6' banquet table seats 6 people (8 if you put guests on the ends)
8' banquet table seats 8 people (10 if you put guests on the ends)
note that I said comfortably - if you are setting up a 5 course dinner with all the stemware, china, silverware required, you may want to drop a couple people - for example 6 people around a 5' round table instead of 8. But the bigger error comes when facilities try to put more people around each table (10 people around a 5' round instead of 8) - as we often tell clients, if you plan to put more people around the tables than listed here, you better all be tiny and really like each other.
happy planning my fabulous peeps!!!
