Wedding Table Calculator: How Many Tables You Need

How many tables do I need?

Divide your guest count by the number of people per table and round up. Round up rather than down, because a slightly emptier table beats a cramped one and it leaves you somewhere to move a guest if the plan changes.

A 60 inch round seats 8 comfortably or 10 at maximum. So 150 guests is 19 tables at 8, or 15 at 10. Those four tables are the difference between elbow room and a tight reception.

Here's that sum done for the guest counts couples ask about most, on the three round sizes venues actually hire out. Read down to your guest count, then across to the size you've been quoted.

Every figure there is the comfortable count. Seat to the maximum instead and you'll drop a table or two, which is the trade-off the next section is about.

Take the head table out first

Work out your guest tables from the people actually sitting at them. A head table or a sweetheart table is usually a different shape and size, so count it on its own and take those people out of the number you divide. Skip that and you either hire a table you don't need, or you quietly add two guests to a table you'd planned for eight. Numbers also move in the last fortnight, so it helps to know how you'll handle a late change to the plan before you lock the hire order in.

Comfortable or maximum

Both numbers are correct. The difference is what the evening feels like.

Comfortable is usually one or two fewer than a table technically holds. It leaves room for place settings and a centrepiece, and it gives the caterer somewhere to reach in when they are plating at the table. Maximum fits everyone in and works for a shorter, less formal reception, or where the room genuinely will not take another table.

A cramped table shows itself in small ways. Guests hold their drinks because there is nowhere to put them down. Someone's chair backs into the chair behind. If you are close to the line, sitting one seat under the maximum usually avoids the lot.

How much space between tables at a wedding?

Leave at least 1.5 metres, about 5 feet, between tables, measured chair back to chair back. That gives guests room to pull their chairs out and lets staff serve without reaching over anyone. If you can stretch to 1.8 metres, the room feels more relaxed and the aisles do not jam when everyone heads for the dance floor at once.

That is why a room that looks big enough on paper often is not once the tables are in. If you entered your room size above, the calculator has already allowed for it.

What size room do you need?

Give each round table a square of its own diameter plus that 1.5m (5ft) gap. A 60in round then takes about 9.1 square metres, or 98 square feet, once the chairs are pulled out and the walkway is allowed for. The 19 tables that 150 guests need come to roughly 173.3 square metres of floor, and that is before anybody dances.

Which is where floor plans come unstuck. The dance floor, the bar, the cake and gift tables and a clear run for staff all sit on top of the guest tables. A room that takes 19 tables on paper often works better with three or four fewer. Put your room size into the calculator above and it runs that check for you.

Custom table sizes

If your venue quotes a size that is not in the list, enter it directly in inches, feet, centimetres or metres.

The calculation allows about 60cm, or 24 inches, of table edge per guest, which is the space a place setting needs without people knocking elbows. For a round table that is the circumference divided by the place setting width. For a long table it is the number of seats along each side, plus one at each end if you use them.

Round, long or square

Round tables are the most common choice. Everyone at the table can see and talk to everyone else, which keeps conversation moving in a way long tables do not quite manage.

Long banquet tables look striking down the centre of a room and suit a communal setting, but they need more floor space per guest and make cross-table conversation harder. Plenty of weddings mix the two, with long tables for the wedding party and rounds for everyone else.

Square tables are less common. They work for an intimate wedding, or pushed together in sections to build a long table you can rearrange if your numbers move. Once the table count is settled, the next job is making the seating chart itself.