The short version
- Add tables with real capacities, move them to match the venue.
- Drag guests from the tray; a family of four takes four chairs.
- The planner warns before a table overfills and shows who is unseated.
- Replies collected through the app seat themselves in the tray.
Step 1: lay out the room
Open the event, go to Planning and open the seating plan. Add tables in any of seven shapes, from round and long to square, a top table and a cocktail table, with 1 to 30 seats each, and give each one a name or a number. A dance floor, a stage or the bar can go on the plan too, or you can upload the venue’s floor plan. The capacity you type is the capacity the planner enforces, so use the venue’s honest figure. Drag tables around the canvas to match the floor plan; the floor grows to fit. Started in a spreadsheet? The seating plan template shows how to bring it across.
Step 2: seat people from the tray
Your online guest list appears beside the canvas as a tray, with each party’s size. Drag a name onto a table and it takes its chairs: a couple takes two, a family of four takes four. When a table would overfill, the planner says so before the drop lands. Guests still in the tray are the ones without a seat, which is the list you work down. Auto-seat can suggest the rest from your groups and from who should sit together or apart: it shows a preview first, never moves guests you seated yourself and never overfills a table.
Step 3: let replies fill the tray
If you collect replies online through Vowly Event, which is the paid guest side from €7.99 a month with a 14-day trial, confirmed guests appear in the seating tray on their own as answers arrive, with the number in their party and any dietary note they left. Declines never reach the tray. A guest who changes their reply changes their party size in the tray too. Once the plan is final, one button emails each seated guest their table, and their invitation shows it; that needs a published invitation, so it is part of the paid side as well.
Step 4: keep diets beside the seats
The menu and dietary planner lives in the same studio, as part of the guest portal with Premium. Dietary notes attach to each guest and stay with them on the table, so the kitchen list and the table list are one list.
Planning together
Invite your partner, a parent or a planner as a collaborator on the event. Team invites are part of the paid plan and not included in the 14-day trial; the people you invite need no subscription of their own. Editors can move guests and tables; viewers can look but not change anything. Edits on one device appear on the others.
What is free and what is paid
The seating planner, the guest list and the planning studio’s budget and tasks are free with no time limit, for unlimited events on one account. Publishing the invitation link, emailed invitations, online replies and the guest portal with its menu, music, day-of timeline and gift list are the paid guest side, from €7.99 a month with a 14-day trial. You can seat a 300-guest wedding without ever paying; the free plan lists everything it covers.
Questions people ask
- Does the seating planner work on the web?
- Yes. It runs in the browser at web.vowly.co as well as in the iPhone and Android apps, and the plan syncs between them.
- Can I assign specific chairs, not just tables?
- The planner assigns guests to tables, with each party taking its number of chairs. For exact chairs, at the top table for instance, note the seat in the guest’s notes.
- Can I print the seating plan from the app?
- Yes. The seating plan PDF is emailed to you: the floor plan, an alphabetical list for the entrance, the guests at each table, the meal counts, large table numbers and place cards to cut out, ten to an A4 page. It is free; if a trial ends without a subscription, it leaves out guests’ replies, such as meals, until you subscribe.
- Is there a limit on tables or guests?
- No. Add as many tables and guests as the room holds.