In the euphoric aftermath of saying "Yes!" to a marriage proposal, the one thing the bride-to-be—as well as her fiancé—rarely think of is the task of putting together a seating chart. And really, why would she (or he)? Making a seating chart is a time-consuming headache. But it’s a necessity of wedding planning and you can minimize the stress by preparing yourself for the task.

The first part of making a seating chart is narrowing down the guest list. Take a deep breath, sit down with your fiancé and write down all the people you want to invite. Don’t fret when the two of you come up with 200 guests for a 125-seat banquet hall. Believe it or not, the easier part of making a seating chart is narrowing the list down.

Wedding Planning Made Easy with Color-Coded Seating Charts

Once the list is whittled to something manageable, devise a color-coded system to divide up friends and family. Next, decide if the wedding party will sit with you on the dais or if you and your fiancé will sit alone at the head table. Then assign family and close friends to the tables closest to you and your fiancé. Whatever you do, make sure the parents and grandparents of the bride and groom are looking at you—don’t make them crane their necks for speeches, dances and toasts!

When seating friends, don’t seat strangers at the same table. Hopefully, your friends have come to know one another and interacted over the years, which makes seating at weddings far easier. But if your friends haven’t mingled before, a wedding isn’t the time to introduce the groom’s loudmouth fraternity brother with the bride’s quiet-as-a-mouse friend from church. Better to divide the friends up and ensure maximum comfort for all involved.

Lastly, decide if the children of guests will be seated with their parents, or at a table of their own. It can be a fun taste of being a "grown up" for children to sit together, but take into consideration their maturity level. Children screaming and running to and fro is a distraction nobody wants on their wedding day.

Seating at weddings can be one of the biggest challenges in wedding planning, but as long as you and your fiancé are patient and proactive, making a seating chart doesn’t have to be a nightmare. Best of luck!