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Keeping households and groups together

Use tags and Smart seating to draft tables that keep families, couples, and friend groups together automatically.

Last reviewed 5 min read

On this page7 sections
  1. Parties stay together on their own
  2. Tag your groups first
  3. Let Smart seating draft the plan
  4. Allergy and dietary review
  5. Refine by hand
  6. Common questions
  7. Related articles

The easiest way to keep the right guests together is to tag them — Family, College, Work — and let Smart seating draft tables around those groups. Additional guests always stay attached to the person who invited them, so couples and households never get split by accident.

Parties stay together on their own

When a guest brings additional guests, InviteBird treats them as one party. Seating the main guest with Seat all places the whole party at one table, and they stay linked unless you deliberately move someone. So the most common "keep them together" case — a couple, a family, a guest and their plus-one — is handled without any extra setup. See Assigning guests to tables and Allowing plus-ones.

Tag your groups first

Smart seating groups guests by their tags. Add a tag like Family, College friends, or Work to everyone who belongs together (you can tag guests from your guest list). Each guest is grouped by their first tag. A VIP tag doesn't form a table of its own — a VIP guest is grouped by their other tags and gets a small star on the card.

Tags are optional. Smart seating seats everyone who said yes, tagged or not. It builds a table for each tagged group first. Everyone else — guests with no tag, VIP-only guests, and groups of one — is seated next: guests who share an email address or phone number stay together, and the rest go in alphabetical order into any open seats, then onto new tables. Tagging the clusters you care about still makes the feature shine, but you never have to tag everyone.

Let Smart seating draft the plan

As soon as someone who said yes still needs a table, a Smart seating card appears in the Seating section (the Smart seating pane), headed "Based on RSVPs, tags, food choices, and dietary notes so far." Above the suggestions you choose two things:

  • People per table — 6, 8, 10 or 12. New tables seat that many (the default is 8). A table is never over-filled, and a party is never split to make it fit: a party bigger than your chosen size gets a table of its own, sized to fit.
  • Include guests who haven't confirmed — off by default, so only guests who said yes are seated. Tick it to seat guests who said maybe or haven't replied too. While it's off, the card tells you how many people are left out.

It then proposes tables, each shown with:

  • A title naming the table — the group's tag (like Family), a plain Table 4, or Join Table 3 when guests fit into open seats at a table you've already made.
  • A seat count showing how many seats the guests in that suggestion need.
  • The guests in the group, with a small star on anyone tagged VIP.
  • A one-line rationale explaining the grouping.

You have two ways to use it:

  • Seat everyone for me creates the suggested new tables and seats every suggested guest — including those joining open seats at tables you already made — in one move. It tells you how it went (for example "Seated 24 of 24", or how many still need a table). A complete first draft you then refine.
  • Apply on a single suggestion creates just that one table (or fills just that one table) and seats its group, so you can accept the ideas you like one at a time.

Each auto-created table is a round table named after its group, with the number of seats you chose under People per table (or more, if one party needs it). Everything Smart seating does is an ordinary draft — move guests, rename tables, or change capacities exactly as if you'd built it yourself.

Allergy and dietary review

If any guest is tagged around an allergy, or has a dietary note, Smart seating adds a separate review card listing them, with a note to seat them clear of shared food stations and to flag them for your venue and caterer. The review card has no Apply button — it's a prompt for a human decision. Those guests are still placed with their group in the suggested tables, so check where they land before you apply. You stay in control of the sensitive calls.

Refine by hand

Smart seating gets you most of the way; the last touches are yours. Drag a guest to a neighbouring table, split an older child onto the kids' table, or merge two small groups. Because additional guests keep their link to their host, nudging one person never scatters their family. For the full set of moves, see Assigning guests to tables.

Common questions

How do I make sure a couple or family sits together? If they're one party (a guest plus their additional guests), Seat all keeps them together automatically. For separate guest entries who belong together, give them the same tag and let Smart seating group them, or seat them at one table yourself.

Smart seating isn't showing up — why? It appears as soon as someone who said yes still needs a table, tagged or not. When everyone has a seat, it steps aside. If the only guests left are maybe or no-reply, the card still appears, with the Include guests who haven't confirmed tick box and a note of how many people are left out.

Does "Seat everyone for me" seat guests who have no tags? Yes. Untagged guests, VIP-only guests and groups of one are seated after the tagged groups: households (shared email or phone) stay together, and everyone fills open seats first — at tables you've already made, then at the new ones — before any extra table opens. Guests who haven't confirmed are left out unless you tick the box. Give people a tag first if you want them grouped a particular way.

Can I undo a Smart seating draft? Yes — it only creates ordinary tables and assignments. Delete a table to unseat its guests, or move anyone individually. Nothing it does is locked.

How big are the tables Smart seating makes? You choose: 6, 8, 10 or 12 people per table. It never fills a table past its seats, and it never splits a party across tables.

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