How to give your caterer a seating chart with meal choices

What the caterer actually needs from you

A caterer needs one list with a row per guest showing table, entrée, and dietary needs, plus a total for each table and each entrée. Everything else you send is extra reading for a person who is busy the week of your wedding.

The per-guest list is what the kitchen and servers work from. The per-table count is what lets them plate and carry the right number of each dish to each table. If your venue has its own coordinator, ask who actually receives the file, since the caterer and the coordinator sometimes want it in different shapes.

Ask two questions up front: what is the deadline for the final count, and which format do you prefer? Many caterers are happy with a spreadsheet or a CSV, some want a PDF they can print. Getting the answer early saves you from rebuilding the list at the last minute. Around four weeks out, the one month before the wedding checklist is a good place to put this call on your calendar.

The columns a caterer’s table list needs

The list works best when each guest has their own row and each fact has its own column, so nobody has to read a sentence to find an allergy.

Use the checklist below as your column headings. Not every wedding needs all of them: a plated dinner with three entrées needs the entrée column, a buffet may not. Keep the ones your caterer asks for and drop the rest.

A sample layout looks like this, one guest per row: Emma Carter, table 4, seat 2, chicken, no dietary restriction. Next row: James Reyes, table 4, seat 3, vegetarian pasta, tree-nut allergy (severe). Next row: Olivia Carter, table 4, seat 4, kids’ meal, high chair. Sort the sheet by table number before you send it, because that is how servers read it.

Collecting meal choices from your guests

The cleanest way to collect meal choices is to ask for them at the same moment you ask for the RSVP, so every reply arrives with an entrée attached.

If your wedding website is published, guests can answer online, by person or by household, and pick their meal in the same step. Those answers fill your guest list, your meals, and your seating chart, so you are not copying them across by hand. Online replies on a published site are part of the one-time payment, not something that comes with the free trial alone.

Some people will always answer by phone, text, or in person. When a reply reaches you that way, you enter it yourself, including the meal choice, and you can see who has not answered yet. Following up with those guests is on you: the app does not send anything to your guests. A short message works: “Hi (first name), we’re giving our caterer the final list on (date). Could you tell us your entrée choice?”

Marking meals at the table

If your servers need to know who gets which entrée without asking, put a small, consistent mark on the escort card or place card, and tell the caterer what each mark means.

Common choices are a colored dot, a small icon, or a single letter in a corner. Pick one system and keep it simple: three entrées means three marks, nothing more. Servers work fast and in low light, so a mark has to be readable at a glance.

• Color dots: easy to read from a distance, but make sure the colors still differ in dim lighting and for guests who see color differently.
• Icons or initials: a small “C” for chicken or a fish symbol takes no explanation and prints in black and white.
• Menu on the card: fine for two choices, but it gets crowded with more.
• No marks at all: workable if servers take the order at the table, which is common with a very small guest count.

Ask your caterer which method their team prefers before you print anything. Some serve from a table list and never look at the cards. If you are printing place cards or table numbers from the app, you can print them yourself; the seating chart prints to scale on Letter paper, which is handy for a copy to hand the venue.

Allergies and dietary restrictions: one specific line per guest

Write each allergy or restriction as its own specific line for that guest, such as “shellfish allergy” or “no pork, no alcohol in cooking,” rather than a loose “vegetarian?” that someone has to interpret.

Separate a preference from a medical need, because the kitchen will treat them differently. “Doesn’t like mushrooms” and “severe peanut allergy” should never look the same on the sheet. If a guest tells you about an allergy, note how serious it is in the same cell, and flag it so it stands out from the other rows.

Then ask your caterer how they handle cross-contact for allergies. Every kitchen works differently, and you want that answer from them directly, not from a guess. Keep allergy details in the file you send to the caterer and not on printed signs for the whole room.

Kids’ meals and vendor meals: separate lines, counted apart

Give kids’ meals and vendor meals their own rows and their own totals, so the caterer can price and prepare them separately from the adult entrées.

Children sit at tables with their families, so they need a table number and an entrée like anyone else, plus a note if they need a high chair or a booster seat. Vendors, such as your photographer, band, or day-of coordinator, often eat at a separate table or at a different time. Many caterers offer a simpler vendor meal, and some venues require you to tell them how many to prepare, so check the contract.

Counting them apart also protects your totals. If a vendor meal is mixed into the chicken count, you can end up short on chicken for guests. Keep the headcount for adults, children, and vendors in three separate lines at the bottom of the file.

Final count and late changes

Freeze your list on the caterer’s deadline, send one version marked with a date, and treat anything after that as a change to the file instead of a new file.

Late changes will happen: a cancellation, a new plus-one, a guest who switches from beef to fish. When one comes in, update your master list, change the date in the file name or header, and send the whole updated file instead of a text that says “swap one beef for fish at table 6.” One full file is harder to misread than five small messages.

• Ask your caterer for their cutoff and whether they accept changes after it.
• Name each version with its date, for example “Catering list, final, October 3.”
• Tell your caterer what changed in one line at the top, then attach the full list.
• Keep your own copy of what you sent, so you can check it against the bill.

Keep one planning document where the guest list, table assignments, and notes live together. If you are still building that, the wedding planning spreadsheet guide shows a simple way to structure it, and the wedding planning checklist helps you place this task in your timeline.

Doing this in MyWedding Planner

In MyWedding Planner, the meals section holds your menus, each guest’s meal choice, and their dietary needs and allergies, and it produces a caterer view you can export as a CSV by guest or by table.

You set up your menus, then record each guest’s choice, either from their online reply or by entering it yourself. Dietary needs and allergies sit alongside it on the same guest. From the caterer view, you download the CSV by guest for a named list with meals and dietary needs, or by table for a service list, seat by seat. The table export gives no total or count per table: you work those out yourself, or your caterer reads them from the list. You then send the file yourself, since the app does not send anything to your caterer or your guests.

Your seating chart has a share link for the caterer or the venue, and that link is included in the one-time payment. You can also print the chart to scale on Letter paper for a paper copy. The trial needs no card; publishing is included in the one-time payment of €69.