We're thinking of having a U shaped seating arrangement but I don't want anyone to have their back to anyone else (not sure if this is gonna work out though, It'll depend on the space and the amount of people I suppose!)

But with everyone sitting on only one side of the table I don't know how centre pieces are going to work! Would it look completely ridiculous to still have them? I'll probably end up with having to have LOADS won't I? Argh, this may need a rethink.

I like smaller centerpieces better anyway - I'd just space them along the tables. We won't have classic round tables but various different sized tables - the big ones will get at least 2 'centerpieces'.

Why don't you have sashes around the table to decorate it in your colour scheme and at the parts where the sash joins the table put a couple of flowers to match your scheme into it and therefore you won't be taking up loads of space on the table or having things in peoples way? Then maybe put a long and low flower decoration at the top where you will be sitting. The cost probably won't be too high doing this. I'm having a organza decoration with two calla lillies crossing over on the stairs at my venue and paying £18 each for them and the florist is doing all the work for me. My long and low decoration is £85 but is also being used for the registrars table xx

I was thinking more like sashes running along the front of the tables, I'll upload an idea I've seen online to my pictures if you want to look. Obviously then you can change the flowers, colours etc to suit your theme.

I do love the long narrow ones though for the oval tables and will probably be doing that myself for my guests tables to tie them into the seat covers xx

I like that idea zowie, it gives a reason for the centre pieces to be spread out that way.

That's what I was thinking Holly, glad you have got an idea for it now xx

Damn that messed up when i posted it! Will do a print screen of my table plan from here when i get home xXx

I helped decorate a friends reception in October. She had a horseshoe and you can see how the centrepieces were layed out, they were small vases with foam roses. People have got their backs to people in the centre but like you said it depends how much room you have and how many guests.

here ya go holly, pic of my table plan that i did on here :-) hope it helps xXx

We're having a U-Shaped table as we're keeping numbers small. My idea was dot tiny centrepieces around the U-Shape then get a table in the middle of the "U" and have the cake there in the centre as a main focal point... if that makes sense lol

my brain does function sometimes

Thanks for the pic, it's very similar to what I had in mind! I think it'll have to come down to numbers in the end what we go with. We've got a min of about 40 and a max at 60. So it's a bit of a pain guessing tables plans when we really need to find out who's likely to come and who isn't!

i like the u shape idea!

ONe little tip for anyone- we discovered that chair sashes can fit some tables as table runners, and cost from 99p each on the bay of e!
we're going for pink satin, saves a fortune

I originally didn't want anyone with their backs to each other so I know what you mean, it started off with table 4 and 5 being twice as long and the seats were only on the outside. But what bothered me about that was the distance it put people on tables 6 and 7 away from us and the people in the middle of 4 and 5 would be pretty limited on who they can talk to! So in the end I decided I'd rather have a few people with their backs to each other (who were probably people they'd not realistically been able to talk to anyway with the lengths of the tables) than the table plan be not as intimate as we'd like.

Hopefully that makes an ounce of sense lol

That's genius! I've tried it out and posted another picture. It works really well! Thank you! :D xx

Not at all! You were a big help!

I had to revise it again cause I realised our venue is one long rectangle shape and not very square like the table plan is. But it looks amazing now I'm really happy with it!

Thanks again :D