Q: I’m expecting 200 guests for my wedding, and I have no idea how to seat them! I have relatives who can’t sit with other relatives, and friends who won’t know anyone but me there. What do I do??

A: Seating arrangements can bring tears and tantrums of frustration to the eyes of the most serene bride. The best way to do it is to start with who HAS to be seated with someone and who CANNOT be seated with someone else. So, if Cousin Larry can't sit with Aunt Mary, but Aunt Mary MUST sit with Uncle Lou, put Larry at Table Z and Aunt Mary at Table NOT-Z then add Uncle Lou to her table. Go down your list, every time you find someone who cannot sit with Aunt Mary, put them at Table Z. For each new pair of “can’t sit with X and Y,” start a new table for each of them, even if it means you end up with 45 tables of 6 people each. Eventually, you can merge tables knowing exactly which tables cannot be merged and which should (Like Z and NOT-Z)). It's a tedious task but unfortunately necessary.

As for guests who won’t know anyone, generally, the most polite thing is to find out if they know any one other person at the wedding and try to seat them together, even if the connection is quite remote (unless of course the only other person they know will be someone they can’t sit with). If they know no one, it won’t really matter and seat them with people close in age when possible. It's usually best to try to find this out without actually asking the person in question (hard to work up enthusiasm for a wedding at which you're sure you won't know anyone other than a key player who won’t have that much time to spend with you).