Wedding seating plan, online and free

The venue is a canvas on your screen. Add a table, drag it with your finger or mouse to where it really stands in the restaurant, and it stays there. The chairs draw themselves around the table, round or rectangular, and you seat a guest by clicking a chair.

You can also add a stage, a bar, the entrance or a spot for the DJ, so the floor plan looks like a real room and not a spreadsheet.

Before you draw anything, ask the venue how many tables fit, what shape they are and how many people sit at each. That's the number everything starts from.

A round table usually seats 8 to 10 and is best for conversation, because everyone can see everyone. A rectangular one seats 6 to 8 and is handy in a narrow room or when you put together a long family table. The top table is for the two of you with your best man and maid of honour, and often your parents too. You need to leave a path between tables for waiters and guests, so a venue with 100 seats rarely takes more than 12 tables.

Parents sit close to the couple, but away from the speakers. If they are divorced, give them two equally good tables, apart from each other and about the same distance away. The best man and maid of honour sit with the couple, unless they would rather sit with their own friends.

Children up to eight sit with their parents, older ones are happy with their own table and some colouring books. Put grandparents and guests who find walking harder closer to the exit and further from the music. Seat single guests among couples and familiar faces. Guests always spot the table for everyone who didn't fit anywhere else, so don't make one.

Mix families by age and interests, not by side. Relatives from the same town, friends from university or colleagues from work will get along more easily than two families each sitting by their own wall.

When you seat a family of six at a table with four free seats, the app asks how many of them sit there. The rest go back to the list and you seat them somewhere else. Nobody disappears and nobody gets lost.

If people who aren't from the same family sit at a table, click an empty chair and type the new person's name. They are added to the list straight away as a guest who is coming.

About a month before, once the date by which guests should have replied has passed. Before that the list changes every week, so you would end up doing the plan twice. Expect 5 to 15 percent of confirmed guests to cancel, so leave one or two empty seats at each table.

The seating plan works together with your guest list and RSVPs. Whoever confirms they're coming is who you then seat.

When the plan is finished, you switch on the option for guests to see their table. A guest you send their personal link to then sees which table they're at. They don't see other people's names or the whole room, only the name of their own table. Fewer questions for you at the door.

While this is switched off, guests see nothing about the tables. On the shared link for all guests, tables are never shown.

One click gives you a floor plan of the venue and a list by table. That's what the restaurant asks for, and you don't have to copy anything out. The same list is your template for the welcome board and the place cards.

You drag tables with your finger, zoom the room with two fingers, and there's a button that brings the whole venue back into view. Still, a computer gives you a better overview when you're starting from scratch.