Remember that Create a rule? checkbox when we were creating our groups? That's a handy shortcut that for automatically defining a rule at the same time as creating a group. Since we left that ticked for two of our groups, we've already created two rules so far.

Press Rules in the main navigation bar to view them.

Each rule has three parts:

• A group, guest or tag on the left
• A "condition"
• A group, guest or tag on the right

Our first rule, for example, specifies that people in the Peter & Sophie group must sit next to someone else from that same group.

Note: Rules can also be defined for individual guests, but using groups is often easier, especially when you have a family group with three or more people.

Although her parents are no longer together, she'd like both of her parents to sit next to her on the top table.

To remind ourselves how Sophie's family are organised, let's use the filtering feature on the guests page:

Press Guests in the main navigation bar.

Press the tag button in the top filters and select bride-family to see only guests that are part of the bride's family.

As you can see:

• Sophie's father (Mark Wood) was created in a group together with his partner (Emily Clark)
• Sophie's mother (Deborah Wood) was created separately and is not part of a group

Defining a rule based on groups won't work here (because Mark and Deborah are not part of the same group, even though we'd like them to sit together).

Instead, the solution is to create a custom rule. Let's look at how to do that.

What we need to do is create a rule specifying that Mark and Deborah should sit next to each other.

Press Rules in the main navigation bar, then press + to create a new rule.

In the first Guest/Tag/Group row, press the guest button and choose Mark Wood from the list.

For the Assertion, select must.

• must or must not are strong requirements. If the rule is broken, it'll be shown as an issue in the seating plan (we'll look at an example of this later in the tutorial)
• would like to or would rather not are less strict. If the rule is broken, it'll be shown as a warning in the seating view

For the Proximity, select next to.

• same table means that the guests should be on the same table, but not necessarily in adjacent seats
• next to means that the guests should sit directly next to each other

In the second Guest/Tag/Group row, press the guest button and choose Deborah Wood from the list.

Press Save.

The Rules page now shows our newly created rule.

At this point, our rules will help us to make sure that:

• Peter and Sophie (bride and groom) sit together
• George and Helen (Peter's parents) sit together
• Mark and Deborah (Sophie's parents) sit together

However, these rules don't enforce that the three couples are all on the same table. We'll look at how to achieve that next.

On the Rules page, then + to create a rule.

In the first Guest/Tag/Group row, press the guest button and choose Peter Smith from the list.

For the Assertion, select must.

For the Proximity, select same table.

In the second Guest/Tag/Group row, press the tag button and choose groom-parents from the list.

Press Save.

On the Rules page, then + to create a rule.

In the first Guest/Tag/Group row, press the guest button and choose Sophie Wood from the list.

For the Assertion, select must.

For the Proximity, select same table.

In the second Guest/Tag/Group row, press the tag button and choose bride-parents from the list.

Press Save.

Great, with all of these rules, we can be sure that the bride & groom will have their parents with them.

Note: You can add as many or as few rules as you like. We had quite specific requirements for the bride & groom, but most of the other guests will be much simpler (a single rule for each group is often enough).

Don't worry if the value of defining rules is still a little unclear at this point - the power of the rules system starts to show once you start seating guests and trying out different layouts / seating plans, which we'll get to soon.

Next, we'll move on to creating tables.