← Event seating chart optimizer
A guest who uses a wheelchair or a walker cannot be moved to "whichever table is left". The table has to be reachable, and the plan has to keep working when you move other names around it. The way through is to write the access need down once, as a rule, so no later shuffle can break it.
Open the free seating chart optimizer
1. Ask the venue which tables are step-free. Note the table numbers with a flat, wide route to the entrance, the restrooms and the food. The tool does not know the room; this is your list.
2. List them. Type the numbers in the Accessible tables box (1, 2).
3. Flag the guests. Walt Ferris @ accessible means that guest is only ever seated at a listed table. wheelchair, step-free and access work the same way.
4. Add the wishes and read what is left. Friends and family still pull toward each other, but the access rule wins. The plan names any wish it could not meet.
Twenty-four invented guests, three tables of eight, and eight wishes. Tables 1 and 2 are step-free; table 3 is not. Walt Ferris and Gus Holt need an accessible table. Walt wants to sit with Cora Bell, Gus with Abe Lindqvist, Nell Ferris with Dot Marsh, Ines Duarte with Ravi Nair, and three more pairs of friends and relatives want to be together. Tess Brandt is better apart from Pete Voss. The Ferris, Holt and Duarte couples are each listed as a party.
| Seating | Wishes met | Parties split | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| In the order typed | 4 of 8 | 2 | 12 |
| Optimized | 8 of 8 | 0 | 39 |
Even the plain list-order seating honours the access rule: it places Walt and Gus at the accessible tables first, then fills the rest in the order typed, which splits two couples and misses four wishes. The search keeps Walt at table 1 and Gus at table 2, keeps every couple together, meets all eight wishes and puts eight guests at every table.
It assigns tables, not seats within a table, and it knows only the rules you typed: not the width of the aisles, the route from the table to the restroom, hearing or vision needs, service animals, dietary needs or what each guest actually wants. Ask the guest. It is a starting point for you and your planner, not a promise that every guest will be content or that the venue is accessible.
Tables on a flat, wide route to the entrance, the restrooms and the food, with room to turn a wheelchair, and not behind a step, a dance-floor lip or a narrow gap between chairs. Only the venue can tell you which ones those are; the optimizer takes your list of table numbers and does not know the room.
Type the accessible table numbers in the Accessible tables box and add the guest to the wishes as Name @ accessible (wheelchair, step-free and access also work). That guest is only ever placed at a listed table, whatever their friends want, and the plan is rejected with a message if the listed tables are too small or a pin contradicts it.
Yes. Wishes and parties still count, but the accessible rule wins when they conflict: the rest of a party is pulled to the accessible table when there is room, and the plan lists any wish it could not meet so you can decide.
Related: the general wedding seating chart guide, seating divorced parents and late RSVPs and drop-outs.