Tell Lovely Seating who belongs together — then let it seat everyone
Add the relationships that matter: couples who must stay together, friends who’d enjoy the same table, and guests who should be kept apart.
Auto-Seat uses those rules — along with households, groups, table capacities and your locked decisions — to build a suggestion you can understand, review and change.
You set the rules·Auto-Seat explains the result·You keep final control
Describe the relationships that matter
A broad group is a good start, but real weddings have exceptions. Capture them as clear rules, and Auto-Seat applies them consistently.
Three kinds of relationship
Must sit together and keep apart are hard rules. Would-like-to-sit is a preference honored when there’s room. Keep-apart reasons stay private.
Households, plus the exceptions
Keep an invited household together, and add a cross-household must-sit — like seating a grandmother with the relative who helps her.
Every table comes with a why
Auto-Seat explains each placement from the facts in your plan — which rules held, which group filled the table, what couldn’t be met.
Your locks are respected
Lock the couple, parents or a reviewed placement and Auto-Seat arranges everyone else around them.
Seats the right guests
Attending guests are seated, declined guests are skipped, and you choose whether to include those still awaiting a reply.
How Auto-Seat builds your plan
Step 1
Check the rules
First it looks for impossible rules — a must-sit group bigger than any table, or keep-apart guests trapped in one household — and flags them instead of forcing a bad plan.Step 2
Keep your locks
Anything you’ve locked stays exactly where it is. Auto-Seat arranges around your approved decisions rather than rebuilding them.Step 3
Hardest units first
Large households and tightly-constrained guests go down before flexible individuals, so they don’t get stranded once tables fill.Step 4
Then preferences
With hard rules protected, groups and prefer-sit rules break ties between good tables — and anything left over is shown with a reason.
Understand why the suggestion was made
An arrangement is far more useful when you can see the reasoning. Every table Auto-Seat fills comes with a factual explanation drawn straight from your plan.
It tells you which household stayed together, which group shaped the table, which hard rules held — and, honestly, which preference it couldn’t satisfy and why (a full table, say). A missed preference doesn’t make the plan invalid; a broken hard rule stays clearly flagged until you resolve it.
It explains facts — not personalities. It won’t claim a table is “socially perfect”.
Review and adjust — the rules stay visible
Auto-Seat is a starting point, not a final decision. Move guests, swap seats, unassign, lock what’s approved, and run it again — the suggestion is always editable.
If a manual move would break a hard rule — like splitting a must-sit pair — Lovely Seating tells you, and offers to move both, keep it anyway, or cancel. If you keep it, the rule isn’t deleted: the plan simply shows it as unresolved until you fix it. Keep-apart conflicts get flagged the same way, and the private reason never appears on a guest-facing chart.
Example: seating Olivia & James’s reception
Fictional sample data, used to demonstrate the product.
Olivia and James have 126 guests across a head table and several rounds. They start with broad groups, then add the exceptions: Olivia’s grandmother must sit with Amelia, who helps her; Sophie would like to sit with Mia; two relatives should stay apart.
They lock themselves and their parents at the head table and run Auto-Seat. It keeps households together, seats Amelia with the grandmother, keeps the two relatives at different tables — and leaves one six-person household unassigned because no remaining table fits them all, explaining it rather than splitting them silently.
Olivia moves two flexible guests to free up room and runs Auto-Seat again, keeping every locked and approved placement intact. The final plan reflects what they told it — and they controlled every table.
Seat by memory — or with your rules applied for you
Both approaches have their place. The difference is whether you have to hold every relationship in your head.
Everything in your head
- Remember every relationship as you drag
- Re-check the whole plan when an RSVP changes
- Easy to overlook a conflict you set weeks ago
- No check that hard rules are even possible
- Great control — but no safety net
Rules applied consistently
- Households and rules applied every time
- Locked decisions always protected
- Impossible rules caught before they land
- Preferences used when there’s room
- Unresolved guests explained, not forced
Auto-Seat doesn’t replace your judgement — it applies the information you’ve already recorded and makes the result easy to review.
Made for couples and wedding planners
For engaged couples
Note the couples, friendships and the one or two tricky pairings — and get a thoughtful starting plan in a click, instead of dragging 120 names by hand.
For wedding planners
Encode each client’s must-sits, keep-aparts and locked tables once, regenerate as RSVPs move, and show the couple exactly why every table looks the way it does.
What to know about relationships & Auto-Seat
Hard rules and preferences differ
Must-sit and keep-apart are hard requirements. Would-like-to-sit is a preference that can go unmet when a stronger rule or table capacity makes it impossible — without making the plan invalid.
A lock is not a relationship
A lock protects a guest’s current placement. A relationship keeps applying even if you later move those guests to another table — the two do different jobs.
Relationships stay private
Must-sit, prefer-sit and keep-apart rules are planning information. They never appear on guest-facing seating charts or place cards — including the reason behind a keep-apart.
It’s a suggestion, not a guarantee
Auto-Seat only knows what you record — it can’t infer unspoken friendships, feelings or family history. It creates a valid starting point from your rules; it can’t promise everyone loves their table.
Continue into the complete seating workflow
Seating relationships & Auto-Seat questions
Can Lovely Seating automatically decide who should sit together?
It uses the households, groups and relationships you provide. It can’t know private friendships, family conflicts or unrecorded preferences — the quality of the suggestion depends on what you tell it.
What’s the difference between “must sit together” and “would like to sit together”?
“Must sit together” is a hard same-table requirement. “Would like to sit together” is a preference Auto-Seat tries to satisfy when it doesn’t clash with a stronger rule or run out of seats.
Can I keep two guests at different tables?
Yes — a keep-apart rule stops the two from sharing a table. The reason stays private and never appears on guest-facing charts or place cards.
What happens when two rules contradict each other?
Auto-Seat catches the conflict — for example a keep-apart pair caught inside the same must-sit household. It flags the affected guests and leaves them for you to resolve rather than producing an invalid plan.
Can Auto-Seat move guests I already placed?
Locked assignments stay put. Unlocked ones can be rearranged when you run Auto-Seat, and you can lock more placements between runs to build the plan up gradually.
Can I change the automatic arrangement?
Always. The suggestion is a starting point — move, swap, unassign and lock guests afterwards, and run Auto-Seat again whenever you like.
What happens when I manually break a must-sit rule?
Lovely Seating warns you and offers to move both guests, keep the change anyway, or cancel. If you keep it, the rule isn’t deleted — the plan shows it as unresolved until you fix it.
Does Auto-Seat consider accessibility needs?
For structured seating needs — like a wheelchair space or a spot near an entrance — Auto-Seat matches guests to a table that can meet them when a suitable table exists. A free-text accessibility note isn’t matched automatically; it stays on the record for you to arrange around.
Not sure who sits where? Read the guide — Wedding Seating Chart Etiquette.
Create a thoughtful starting arrangement
Add the relationships that matter, generate an explainable seating suggestion, and keep full control of the final plan.
You define the relationships · Locked decisions stay protected · Every suggestion stays editable