One of the most stressful aspects of planning a wedding is the thorny question of who-sits-where and – more importantly – next-to-whom at the reception!

Getting the mix of guests right to create a happy ambience can be difficult. Can you sit your prudish Great Aunt Zoe next to his loud and raucous Cousin Eddie?! Should you put those nice people you just met at the sports club in the middle? A familiar dilemma to many a bride and groom I am sure!

I have been to weddings where all his family was seated on one side of the venue while all hers were seated on the other. It was as if an invisible Berlin Wall had been erected in the middle and two separate parties were taking place – one solemn and gloomy, the other boisterous and loud!

When you get the blend right though, with a table or seating plan that encourages wedding guests to mix and chat, there is no doubt the reception is more likely to go with a swing.

There’s lots of advice on this on the web. Internet wedding experts hitched.co.uk have even come up with some useful online tools to make planning the big day that much easier.

With one million visitors each month, hitched.co.uk offers a wide range of advice to couples planning their wedding. One of their latest tools is a free table planner, which allows couples to seat their guests in a virtual venue. The bride and groom can specify the exact measurements of their chosen venue, and factor in where essentials such as the bar, cake stand and dance floor will be, so they can work around them. You then have the option if need be to add tables for the cake, guestbook and gifts.

Hitched.co.uk also offers couples an online Guest List Manager, Gift List, To-Do List, Budget Planner, Moodboards, Wedding Songs List, plus much, much more.

"The entire hitched.co.uk website is based on making wedding planning easier for the bride and groom,” said Francesca Cribb, Site Editor, hitched.co.uk “The guest manager allows couples to add their whole guest list to the site, updating it as the wedding draws closer and as guests accept or decline their invitation. We’ve also recently launched a wedding songs tool to help couples choose the music for their day.”

The table planner allows couples to choose between circular, rectangular and square tables, and can name each table and specify the number of seats on each. The seats, once assigned to a guest, are colour coordinated, differentiating between male, female and child guests, so it’s clear to see who is sitting where. All you have to do to change a place is to click and drag the guest to another seat.

A list of those guests who’ve ‘accepted’ on the Guest List Manager tool, runs alongside the virtual reception room, so the bride and groom can see who they still have left to seat. They can then filter between genders, ages, seated and unseated. Users can create more than one plan at a time to compare and contrast so they can be sure what is going to work best. They can also print out the finished product or transfer it to an Excel spreadsheet. Visit www.hitched.co.uk members area for more information.