A stream of chasunahs tends to fill this stretch of the calendar — that period between the Yamim Tovim and school dinner season, which starts just as soon as your tuition agreement is finally signed.

In the spirit of the season, here’s a helpful note to baalei simchah, who will be investing so much time, energy, and resources (which is a classier word for money) to ensure that their guests enjoy themselves at the simchah.

So, before my children are old enough for this idea to actually mean anything on a practical level, let me put it out there.

Place cards are a downer.

Now, I know that on some level, it’s empowering for you baalei simchah to be kingmakers and move people around, deciding who really belongs with who else, paskening social status or level of learning based on whether you place us at table 11 or 12. I get that it’s geshmak, much as you complain about how much work it is to organize it.

But from a guest’s point of view, it’s unnecessary.

Because let’s be honest, it’s boring. Baalei simchah are always going to opt for the conservative path: they will place siblings, or neighbors, or close friends at the same table.

(Not long after we moved to Montreal, we were invited to a wedding. A friend of my wife’s told her, “I hope you like your table, because those are the people you’ll be seated with for the next 60 years, im yirtzeh Hashem.” If you’re from out of town, you’re laughing out loud because you get her joke. If you’re from in town, you’re not laughing — either because you don’t get it, or because you’re from in town.)

What I’m suggesting is only from my perspective, as someone who enjoys meeting new people. I know that there are people who much prefer sitting with their regular group sans the distractions of the office or children who want to be pushed on the swings. It’s nice to catch up with the old friends you have, but never get to see.

But maybe there are also some guests who don’t want to sit with the neat, safe, unadventurous group you’ve assembled for them.

Imagine if baalei simchah had the courage to blow it wide open. Guests get a random seat number and end up next to whomever.

Imagine how enthused you would be as a guest: You could meet a new person who doesn’t know your hang-ups and favorite vort on the parshah and the joke about the mother-in-law and the nurse. Think what a vibe a simchah would have if some hotshot lawyer ended up next to a guy who runs a closet-sized store near the mikveh where he sells kugel and seforim and CDs and gartels. Think about the possibilities.

(In the heim, back in Europe, there were shtiblach defined by the profession of the mispallelim: the Shoemakers’ Shul, the Tailors’ Shul. What could be the thinking behind that? Could pshat be that it was a means of making sure people didn’t talk in shul? After all, who has what to say when he’s in a shul with 25 people who do exactly what he does?)

Consider it. Your guests will be invigorated, they’ll meet new people, enjoy spirited conversation, use social skills they haven’t displayed since the last time they had to sit with new mechutanim. They’ll have fun. They won’t want to leave.

Worst case, it’ll flop, so they’ll have no choice but to go dance, so it’s win-win.

Make simchahs.

Originally featured in Mishpacha Issue 732