Do I really need a floor plan for my wedding?
How a ‘Space’ plan saved the day for this Hawkes Bay bride
I get it. A floorplan is not the most glamorous investment, but they truly are the quiet hero of a smooth, stress-free event.
While marquee companies provide auto-generated estimates for capacity, they don’t tailor to your individual requirements or plan to industry-standard spacing, which can cause issues for catering and your planner if not caught in time!
Take this recent wedding for example:
This bride had made her marquee and furniture orders prior to getting in touch about 6 weeks out from her date, and had proceeded to plan her tables according to how she thought everything would fit…
With the big day getting closer, on the advice of her venue, she got in touch to confirm her layout selections and to produce a scale-floorpan for the furniture company to follow for ease of delivery…
Straight away it became very clear that the layout she was working to was NOT the one!
Odd seating distribution meant that some guests would be sitting on table joins or in their neighbours laps…
Key hire items like a dance floor and bar were missing from the orders, and some furniture wouldn’t have made it inside the marquee at all!
Sitting down with these plans, I came up with two possible alternatives that would be easy to switch to, and provided a list of essential items still needing to be ordered, with details of who / where to get these from.
With two revised options in hand, the cost of fixing the plan was a last-minute shuffle of her seating chart and reprint of her signage… not the cheapest, but also less traumatic than a layout that would have seen some of her guests originally sat outside in the cold, and no place at all to get a drink from!
Honestly, for peace of mind, a proper floor plan for your wedding or event goes SUCH a long way… Having one to hand really is the simplest way to ensure everything you want and need fits in your space.
Not only does it help you to determine your reception seating; if worked on at the very beginning, it can also help with planning your florals, feature lighting & draping / any other larger design elements!
It also guarantees your catering and guests have the room they need to flow seamlessly and it gives your venue + delivery teams a clear setup map so they’re not calling you on the day asking where things should go (and nobody wants that for their wedding day!)
A secondary wet-weather plan is also ALWAYS a good idea for avoiding last-minute chaos, so you’re prepared no matter what the forecast throws at you.
No matter how simple or complex a design; marquee or fixed venue, they are an absolute must for planning the perfect day.
