If you collected RSVPs through a wedding website, your guest list already exists: every name, who came as a couple or family, who said yes, and often each meal choice. Typing it all again is how names get misspelled and a cousin goes missing.
Here's how to get that list out of Zola, The Knot, Joy or any other wedding website, clean it into a file a seating tool can read, and paste it in. The cleaning matters most.
Step 1: Export the guest list
Wedding websites change their menus often, so we won't give click-by-click paths that may be out of date by the time you read this. What stays the same: the export option lives in the guest list section of your account, usually as an Export or Download button on the guest list page or in the guest list settings. It gives you a CSV or an Excel file.
A few things to check before you export:
- Export the whole list, not a filtered view. If you're looking at "Attending" or one event's guests when you press export, some sites export only what's on screen. Clear the filters first.
- Pick the reception. If the site tracks RSVPs for several events (welcome drinks, ceremony, reception, brunch), the export may have a separate RSVP column for each. You'll keep only the reception one.
- If there's no export option, select the guest list table on the page, copy it, and paste it into Google Sheets or Excel. It's messier, but the cleaning steps below still work.
If your list was never on a wedding website and lives in a spreadsheet already, skip to step 2. The Google Sheets and Excel seating chart guide covers setting up those columns from scratch.
Step 2: One row per guest
This is the part that trips people up. Some exports have one row per guest. Others have one row per invitation, with the partner or children in extra columns such as "Guest 2 first name", or a single cell like "John and Jane Smith".
A seating chart needs one row per person, because each person takes one seat. For every invitation row with more than one person on it:
- Insert a new row under it for each extra guest.
- Move each extra name into the name column of its own row.
- Copy the household value (see step 3) onto every row from that invitation.
Unnamed plus-ones need a row too. Write "Guest of Sam Patel" as the name, so the seat is counted and the name is easy to fix later. The plus-ones guide covers where they sit once you know who they are.
Check for two guests with exactly the same name, such as a father and son. Add a middle initial or "Jr." to one of them so both rows stay distinct.
Step 3: Rename the columns
Delete the columns you don't need and rename the rest. Seatwise reads the header row and matches each column by its exact name, so "Party" and "Party Name" work but "Invitation Party" doesn't. These are the names it recognises:
| Column | Also accepted | What goes in it |
|---|---|---|
| name | guest, full name, guest name | The guest's full name |
| first name + last name | first, firstname, given name / last, lastname, surname, family name | Use these two instead of name if your export splits them |
| household | party, party name, family, couple, household name | The same value for everyone who must sit together |
| group | tag, side, category | Bride's family, Groom's friends, Work and so on |
| rsvp | status, attending, rsvp status | Yes, No or blank |
| meal | menu, dietary, entree, meal choice | Chicken, Fish, Vegetarian |
| notes | note, comments | Wheelchair, high chair, anything else |
| table | table number, table name, assigned table | Table 5 or Garden; leave blank if not seated yet |
| seat | seat number | 1 to the number of seats at that table |
Email, phone, address and similar columns are ignored, so you don't have to delete them.
Household is the most useful column. Many exports already have a party, invitation or household ID. If yours doesn't, make one: the family surname works ("Patel"), or "Sam & Priya" for a couple with different surnames. Everyone with the same household value stays at the same table.
Group is optional. A column for bride's side, groom's side, work or school lets Auto-seat mix tables sensibly and colours each guest by group on the plan. If you tagged guests on the website, rename that column to group.
Step 4: Clean the RSVP and meal columns
The RSVP column decides who gets a seat. Seatwise reads values starting with yes, accept, attend or confirm as Yes, values starting with no, decline, regret or not as No, and anything else (including a blank) as Pending.
So "Attending", "Accepted" and "Yes" all work, and so do "Declined" and "Not attending". Before you import:
- Keep only the reception RSVP column if there are several, and rename it rsvp.
- Decide what to do with guests who haven't replied. They import as Pending and aren't seated automatically. If you'd rather plan a seat for them now, change their value to Yes and change it back if they decline. The late RSVP guide covers handling the last replies.
- Keep declined guests in the file if you like. They import as No and stay out of the seating, so you still have them on record.
For meals, make the spellings match. "Veg", "vegetarian" and "Vegetarian " count as three different meals when you total them for the caterer. Sort the column and fix the odd ones.
Step 5: Save as CSV and copy the text
Save the file as CSV. In Google Sheets it's File > Download > Comma-separated values (.csv). In Excel it's File > Save As > CSV (Comma delimited).
Then open the CSV file in a plain-text editor such as Notepad or TextEdit, select everything and copy it. Copy from the text file, not the spreadsheet: cells copied straight from a spreadsheet are pasted with tabs between them, not commas, and the columns won't be read.
The first lines should look something like this:
`` name,household,group,rsvp,meal Sam Patel,Patel,Groom's friends,Yes,Fish Priya Patel,Patel,Groom's friends,Yes,Vegetarian Guest of Leo Marsh,Marsh,Work,Yes, Aunt Ruth Green,Green,Bride's family,Pending, ``
Step 6: Paste it into the seating chart
Open Seatwise (free, no sign-up), and in the Guests panel press Import list. Choose "CSV with header row" and paste. The dialog shows how many guests it detected before you commit, so compare that number with the head count on your wedding website. If it says there's no name column, the header wasn't matched; check its spelling against the table above.
Below the list there's an optional rules box, one rule per line, such as "together: Aunt Ruth Green, Uncle Joe Green" or "apart: " followed by two names that shouldn't share a table. Use the names exactly as they appear in your CSV.
A few things to know:
- Table assignments come across if your export has them. Guests with a table value are seated at that table; "5" matches a Table 5 already in your plan, and a table the plan doesn't have yet is added. Everyone else stays unseated for you to place by hand or with Auto-seat, which seats every RSVP-Yes guest, keeps households together and follows your rules.
- Names already in the plan are skipped, so pasting an updated export twice won't create duplicates. New names are added.
- The list stays in your browser. Nothing is uploaded, which matters when your export also had addresses and phone numbers in it.
Planning and seating are free. Printing the table lists and floor plan, and copying the escort-card CSV (name, table, seat, household, group, meal and RSVP for each guest) for place cards and the caterer, is part of Pro: $12, one time.
When the website list changes
RSVPs keep arriving after you've started seating. You don't need to re-export the whole list each time. Add late guests in Seatwise by hand, or paste a small CSV with only the new rows, using the same header row. When someone declines, set their RSVP to No in their editor and take them off their seat, so the next Auto-seat can use it.
Keep the wedding website as the record for RSVPs and addresses, and the seating chart as the record for tables. For the order of everything else, the step-by-step seating chart guide picks up from here.
FAQ
Can I import my Zola or The Knot guest list into a seating chart? Yes. Export it from the guest list settings, clean it to one row per guest with name, household and RSVP columns, save as CSV and paste it in.
Why does my guest list import as one long name per line? The columns were separated by tabs instead of commas, which happens when you copy cells straight from a spreadsheet. Save as CSV, open the file in a text editor and copy from there.
Do table assignments from my wedding website carry over? Yes, if the export has a table column. Seatwise seats each guest at the table named in the file and adds any table the plan doesn't have. If there's no table column, you seat guests on the plan by hand or with Auto-seat.
How do I keep couples and families together after importing? Give everyone in the same party the same value in a household column. Guests who share a household are always seated at the same table.