Well, there are many, but seating arrangement is perhaps the trickiest task to handle. One has to consider numerous factors while deciding as to who will be sitting with whom and at which table; hoping that every body goes home happy.

Adam Leyton realised the importance of seating arrangements in events and launched his website called 'Top Table Planner'. So how does it make the task easier?


Adam developed a web-based tool which helps in planning seating for huge events, and Adam himself was Top Table Planner's first client for his own wedding.


1. Kindly give our readers a brief on Top Table Planner.

Toptableplanner is a web-based tool for planning the seating at events such as weddings, charity fundraisers, corporate functions etc. Instead of having to mess around with scraps of paper, guests and tables are moved around the screen instead, resulting in much less stress and hassle. Sorting out the seating plan is widely recognized as one of the most stressful parts of planning a wedding!

Toptableplanner was launched in February 2007 and has helped to plan the seating at thousands of events in nearly 50 countries worldwide.

2. How did you come up with the whole idea of online table planning?

Table planning was originally going to be part of a much broader wedding planning website. The table planning software was the first part that we built and myself and my wife actually used it to plan the seating at our own wedding! We realized first-hand just how beneficial such a tool was and took the decision to focus our efforts 100% on a niche seating planning website. The tool grew in popularity very quickly and has been our main focus ever since.

3. Before launching Top Table Planner, what line of work were you in and what motivated you to start your own business?

I used to work in research for Philips and was getting frustrated with seeing great concepts being developed yet often not making it to product. I decided to take the brave move of leaving to have a crack at a business idea that I'd been partially working on for a month or so in my spare time. Looking back, I didn't really know at the time whether this concept (that's pretty much all it was at that stage) would work or not but I knew I had the right skills to manage the whole product lifecycle and wanted to have a go at it!

4. This is my favorite question: How do you market your business, off-line and online both.

Being an online company most of our marketing is online. We run some Google Adwords but mainly we concentrate on search engine optimization (SEO) to ensure our website ranks as well as it can in the organic results. We try and participate in relevant online communities as much as we can too. We've written articles for numerous wedding related websites and blogs and tend to spend a fair amount of time on Twitter too! Our off-line marketing is mostly focused on networking at industry events.

5. People tend to get very fussy while organising an event, and I'm sure you must be receiving lots of questions/queries/doubts from your clients; so how do you manage a systematic customer support?

One of our main goals is to make our software as easy to use as it possibly can be. Consequently we get relatively low numbers of customer support emails. We are fully aware of how stressful planning any large event (particularly a wedding) can be and try to answer and resolve support emails as quickly as we can. Very often a customer will receive a reply within a few minutes and more often that not within an hour or so.

6. Tell us about the most craziest wedding that you have encountered or planned for.

We've helped plan the seating at some interesting celebrity events, but unfortunately client confidentiality means we can't really say any more.

Sadly, we don't really have any crazy wedding stories I'm afraid. The craziest we hear about are family arguments over who is or isn't sitting on a particular table. However, we also run a wedding insurance comparison website (http://www.compareweddinginsurance.org.uk) and we often hear about some crazy things there! How about the bouquet that was thrown out of the open door of a light aircraft that then got sucked into the engine and brought the plane down! - http://www.compareweddinginsurance.org.uk/articles/crashing-the-wedding-party-literally

7. The best feedback that you've received so far?

I think the best review had to be our listing in the Brides magazine "Best 75 Wedding Web Sites" last year - http://www.brides.com/engagement/engagement/feature/article/185372/

We regularly receive feedback from customers and we've put some on our testimonials page – http://www.toptableplanner.com/testimonials.php. It's always lovely to receive comments like "I just wanted to say how brilliant I thought Toptableplanner was - made planning my wedding reception a doddle." and "I would be lost without Toptableplanner at the moment! It's an absolute godsend for sorting the tables!!" Comments like that really do make your day!

8. What advice would you give to newbies in E-commerce.

Learn to be a "jack of all trades" and do so quickly! In the early days, you'll need to be Finance Director, Marketing Director, Product Manager, Technical Support and Developers all at the same time! It can be tough and sometimes you don't know which way you're being pulled but the rewards are incredible. Nothing beats the feeling when a customer purchases a product that was your idea and a product that you've built. We've sold thousands of licenses since we launched, but each and every individual purchase is still special.