Your wedding table may be a league position

Attendance at weddings could next year be governed by a running score, under a scheme being trialled by one of the larger wedding-planning apps. Guests would be ranked on gift value, reply speed and photo uploads, and the seating plan would be generated from the table. The bottom three would sit by the toilets.

Wedding costs have risen sharply over the past decade, and the cost of attending as a guest — travel, accommodation, outfits, gifts and hen or stag events — has risen with them, to the point where some invitees decline for financial reasons. Couples increasingly use planning apps and online RSVP systems that track guest responses, dietary requirements and gift contributions, and cash funds have largely replaced physical registries. Weddings are heavily documented on social media, with couples hiring content creators alongside photographers and choosing venues partly for how they will look online. Seating plans remain one of the most contested tasks in wedding planning, and several apps now offer to generate them automatically.

The wedding outlook for the coming season, issued at 0600. Home Counties, Cotswolds, Lake District: guest supply southwesterly, five to seven, veering plus-one later. Gift envelopes moderate, becoming thin. RSVP visibility poor. Sea state at the bar rough, occasionally very rough after the speeches. Peak District: ceremony delayed by weather, reception proceeding as planned. All areas: a leaderboard is expected to develop overnight and persist for the rest of the year. Guests are advised to check their standing before travelling. There are warnings of gales in the marquee.

Under the scheme, every guest would carry a score from the moment the save-the-date arrived. Points would accrue for replying within 48 hours, for booking the recommended hotel, and for paying into the honeymoon fund above the suggested amount. Points would be deducted for dietary requirements submitted after the deadline, for bringing a child not named on the invitation, and for asking whether there is parking. The app would publish the table weekly to the couple and, in the premium tier, to the other guests. A spokeswoman said the aim was “to reward the people who make a wedding possible, rather than the ones who make it long”.

The seating plan would be generated from the standings on the morning of the wedding. Top-ranked guests would be placed at the tables nearest the couple, with an unobstructed view of the cake. The middle of the table would sit in what the app calls the competitive zone, where a well-timed dance or a second gift could still move a guest up before the last call. The bottom three would occupy the table nearest the toilets, marked on the plan with a thin red line. The app refers to this as the relegation zone. Guests in it would be served last, and would know it.

Marcus Whitlow, 41, a guest at one of the app's test weddings in Shropshire, said he found out he was 63rd of 84 on the train there. “I'd given a hundred and twenty pounds and a slow cooker. The slow cooker was off-registry, apparently, and counted against me.” He spent the ceremony trying to work out who 62nd was. His partner, who had replied to the invitation before he did, was seated two tables closer to the front. “We watched the first dance from different postcodes,” he said. He did not stay for the evening buffet, which cost him a further four points.

Scores would not reset between weddings. A guest's standing would carry from one couple to the next, so that a poor summer at other people's weddings would follow a person into the autumn. The app describes this as form. Guests attending several weddings in a season would see their overall position published in a regional table, with promotion and relegation between tiers at the end of the year. A guest relegated from the top tier would lose the plus-one, the early-booking hotel rate and the option to give cash. They would be invited to the evening reception only, and would be told why.

Couples would not be exempt. Each wedding would be scored on turnout, gift yield, photo volume and the number of guests still on the dance floor at the last song, with the results published in a county table next to the venue's name. Couples said the pressure was already visible. “My cousin moved her date so she wouldn't be up against the barn in Ludlow,” said Hannah Peel, 29, who married in August. “The barn has an outdoor bar and a proper lighting rig. You can't compete with that on a Tuesday.” Her own wedding finished eleventh in Herefordshire, which she called respectable for a first attempt.

The first full season would end with an awards evening, at which the top-ranked guest in each region would receive a trophy and a guaranteed seat at the top table of any wedding they attend the following year, whether or not they know the couple. The bottom-ranked guest in the trial, Gordon Askey, 74, a retired plumber who had not opened the app and had brought cash in an envelope, said he learned of his position from a niece. He had been seated by the toilets at three weddings that summer. “It's nearer the bar,” he said. “And everybody comes past eventually.”