Question 1

How do I make a seating chart for a wedding?

Accepted Answer

Start with your confirmed guest list — Anvaya imports it from a CSV or pulls it straight from your guest dashboard if you're already using Anvaya for RSVPs. Pick the ceremony you're seating. Drop the tables you rented onto the canvas — round, rectangular, sweetheart, head table, or square — and label them by host family or table number. Drag guests from the unseated panel onto seats; everything auto-saves. A first pass for a 250-guest reception takes a couple of focused evenings, and the per-ceremony canvases keep you from redoing the work for each function.

Question 2

Do we need a seating chart?

Accepted Answer

For the reception, yes. Without assigned seating the caterer can't plate efficiently, and dinner opens with a long mill while guests negotiate chairs. For the mehndi and sangeet an assigned chart is looser — many couples seat only the family front tables and let everyone else mingle. Anvaya supports both: a fully assigned reception canvas plus a lightly assigned mehndi where only the anchor tables are placed.

Question 3

How many guests fit at a round vs rectangular table?

Accepted Answer

By the catering rule of thumb, a 60-inch round seats eight comfortably and ten tightly; a 72-inch round seats ten to twelve. A six-foot rectangular banquet table seats six to eight, an eight-foot rectangle eight to ten. In Anvaya, a round and a rectangular table both default to eight seats, a head table to ten, a square to four, and a sweetheart to two — and you can override the capacity on any individual table.

Question 4

When should I create my seating chart?

Accepted Answer

Hold off until RSVPs are roughly settled — for most weddings, two to three weeks before the ceremony. Earlier and you'll redraw the chart three or four times; later and you're arranging tables on the back of an envelope the night before. Anvaya lets you sketch tables and place anchor seats — head table, parents, immediate family — any time, then drop the rest once RSVPs land. If a seated guest later declines, the chart flags it so you can free the seat without rebuilding the room.

Question 5

Can I have different seating for the mehndi and the reception?

Accepted Answer

Yes — this is the whole point. Anvaya treats each ceremony as its own canvas with its own layout, capacity, and fixtures. The mehndi is its own room, the sangeet has a stage and a dance floor, the reception is round tables of ten with a head table at the centre. The same guest can land on a mehndi table, a sangeet seat near the stage, and a reception round near the parents — three independent placements, one workspace.

Question 6

How do I seat the bride's side vs the groom's side?

Accepted Answer

Every guest in Anvaya carries a side of family — bride, groom, or mutual. In the unseated panel you can filter to the bride's side or the groom's side, which makes it easy to fill the left of the room with the bride's side and the right with the groom's, then place the rest where the two blend. There's no single rule — your tradition wins; the filter just lets you work one side cleanly without scrolling past everyone else.

Question 7

Where should I seat single guests?

Accepted Answer

Group single guests by age cohort and shared circle where you can — the cousins-and-college-friends table is a classic move because the guests already know each other. Avoid the "singles table" trope that drops unmatched adults at a round of strangers; it reads as matchmaking and rarely lands. Anvaya lets you carry guests in groups and filter the unseated panel, so you can place a coherent circle on a table without remembering who knows whom.

Question 8

Where do kids sit?

Accepted Answer

Two common patterns. For younger kids, seat them with their parents and keep a nearby activity table with crayons or a sitter — the parents get to eat, the kids get to fidget. For older kids, a dedicated kids' table near the family group works well; they get autonomy without being unsupervised. In Anvaya, each child is a seatable person on the canvas, so you place them exactly where you want relative to the family tables, and over-capacity tables flag inline so a kids' table never quietly overflows.

Question 9

Can I import my guest list from a spreadsheet?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Anvaya imports a CSV and uses AI to read the spreadsheet and map the columns for you — name, email, phone, side of family, group, plus-ones, tags, and notes. It dedupes on phone and email, so re-importing an updated sheet merges new fields onto existing records instead of creating duplicates. If you're already using Anvaya for RSVPs, the seating canvas pulls directly from your confirmed-guest list — no import at all.

Question 10

How does seating sync with my RSVPs?

Accepted Answer

The unseated panel reads the same guest data as your RSVP dashboard — there's no separate sync step and no 'refresh the chart' button to remember. You can filter that panel to Confirmed, Pending, or Declined guests with one tap. If a guest you've already seated declines, the chart flags it for review so you can free the seat, and a confirmed late plus-one simply appears in the unseated list ready to drop on.

Feature	AllSeated	WeddingMapper	Prismm
A separate canvas per ceremony Each event gets its own tables, capacities, and fixtures — drawn from one guest list.			Unknown
Same guest, independent placement per event The guest at five functions is seated five times — each placement its own decision.			Unknown
Drag-and-drop assignment with auto-save Drop guests onto seats, swap seats, move whole tables — saved as you go.
Undo / redo history Step back up to fifty changes — experiment freely while you arrange.	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Plus-ones seated individually Every confirmed additional attendee gets their own chair and RSVP — a family of six lands six seats.	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Fork + side-by-side arrangement compare Copy a ceremony plan, A/B two layouts, promote the winner to active.	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
Linked to your RSVP / guest list The unseated panel reads your live guest list per ceremony, with Confirmed / Pending / Declined filter chips; a seated guest who declines is flagged for review.			Unknown
CSV export for caterer / venue Table, seat number, guest name, side of family, and RSVP status — plus-ones labelled by household.			Unknown
Printable guest-facing seat board A "Find Your Seat" index plus per-table listing for the venue entrance, in the wedding typeface.			Unknown
Free during early access No credit card required during Anvaya early access; AllSeated and Prismm are paid SaaS.		Trial

A separate seating canvas for every ceremony.

A South Asian wedding is not one room of round tables.

A different room for every ceremony

The same guest, seated five times

Family politics, made visible

Seat every ceremony from the same guest list.

Five table shapes, the real room around them.

Each ceremony is its own layout, edited on its own.

Every confirmed plus-one gets their own chair.

Try two plans, then hand the winner to the caterer.

Anvaya seating vs the tools couples already try.

Questions we hear a lot

RSVP & Guests

Multi-Event

Vendors

Mehndi tables.
Reception rounds.
One workspace.