- Seven columns: table, seat, guest, party, group, dietary needs, notes. Anything else lives elsewhere.
- Fill the table column last: names and groups first, tables when the replies are in.
- One row per person, not per household, or the dietary column stops working.
- Sort by table before you send it to the caterer, alphabetically before you print the chart.
What is in the file
The template is a plain CSV, which every spreadsheet app opens without a wizard: Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets and LibreOffice. There are no formulas to break and no macros to allow. The columns, in order:
- Table: the number the guest will see on the chart. Leave it empty until the reply-by date.
- Seat: the chair at that table, 1 to 10, if you assign exact seats. Optional for rounds, useful for long tables and the top table.
- Guest: one full name per row. A couple is two rows; a family of four is four rows.
- Party: a label that ties a household together, so 'Ahmed family' or 'Sarah + Tom' can be moved as one.
- Group: how this person connects to you: 'university', 'her work', 'his cousins'. This is the column you sort by when building tables.
- Dietary: vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, allergy, halal, kosher, child's meal. Exactly the words the caterer uses.
- Notes: wheelchair, near the exit, hard of hearing, do not seat with X. The things you would otherwise forget.
How to fill it in, in order
Start by pasting the guest list into the Guest column, one person per row, and filling Party and Group for everyone. This is the part that takes an hour and saves ten. Do not touch Table yet.
When replies come in, delete or mark the declines and add the dietary needs and notes as they arrive. On the reply-by date, sort by Group. The clusters that will become tables are now visible without thinking.
Assign table numbers to whole groups first, then place the remaining guests next to the group they fit best, checking that every table stays inside its capacity and that everyone has someone they know. Fill Seat only where it matters: the top table, long tables, and anyone with an accessibility note.
Sort by Table and send that version to the caterer and the venue. Sort by Guest and print that version as the chart. Save a dated copy each time; the file you are looking at should always be the newest.
What the spreadsheet cannot do
It does not know that table 4 is a round of 8, so it will happily let you put 11 people there. It does not know who has replied, so the declines have to be removed by hand. It does not tell the caterer when you change a dietary note, and it cannot be edited by two people at the same time without one of you losing work.
None of that matters for a wedding of 40. All of it matters for a wedding of 150. If you reach the point where the sheet has three tabs and a colour code, move it into the app: the free seating planner in Vowly Event takes the same guest list, knows every table's capacity, and keeps the dietary notes beside the seats.
The import goes the easy way round: bring your guest list into the app from a spreadsheet, then seat people by drag and drop. Exporting the guest list back out for the caterer is a button.
Printing the chart from the sheet
For the entrance chart, sort by Guest, keep only the Guest and Table columns, set the font to something readable from a metre away, and print in two or three columns. For a chart grouped by table (weddings under about 60), sort by Table and add a page break between tables.
For place cards, most stationers accept the sheet as it is: Guest, Table, Seat. Send the final version only, after the count is frozen.
FAQ
- Which spreadsheet app should I use?
- Any. The template is a CSV, which opens in Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets and LibreOffice. Google Sheets is the easiest if two people are planning together.
- Should each couple be one row or two?
- Two. One row per person, so the dietary and notes columns describe one person and the seat count is right. Use the Party column to keep the couple together.
- Can I import the template into Vowly Event?
- Import the guest list into the app from the sheet, then seat people by drag and drop in the free planner. The seating itself is built in the app; the sheet is the backup and the caterer's copy.
- How do I give the caterer a dietary list by table?
- Sort the sheet by Table, keep the Table, Guest and Dietary columns, and send that. Every dietary meal is now next to the table it goes to.