The last-minute guest

The seating plan is ready and the place cards are on the seats. At nine o’clock the private office of a dignitary who never replied rings to say they are coming. Another guest turns up at the door with a plus-one nobody mentioned. This is when a carefully built hall risks being redone in a hurry, and badly.

Leave some room

The best remedy is prepared in advance: a few free seats in the dignitaries’ rows, spread out, not all at the back. An empty seat in the third row can be filled without moving anyone. Creating a seat in a full row shifts everyone who comes after it.

Lock those who must not move

When you do have to make room, first fix the people who must not move for any reason: the place of honour, the platform party, the dignitaries already told where they are sitting. Then insert the new arrival and let only the others move along.

Keep track

Note every last-minute change, if only for the ushers’ seating list. A place card moved by hand without updating the list sends the guest to the wrong seat.

In CerimoniereWeb you can create a free seat in a row already composed and lock the guests who must not move, and the arrangement recalculates around them.