The random approach was exactly the one we chose eventually (after about 5 attempts at doing it in a planned fashion).
We worked on the principle that all of our friends are grown-up human beings with an innate ability to have a civilised and coherent conversation with anyone over the few hours that it takes to have a meal and listen to some speeches.
We didn't split couples or families, but with those groups just did a random selection "out of the hat" and then made two minor changes to avoid a couple of potentially awkward situations.
It worked absolutely fine for us (YMMV) and resulted in a lot of our friends meeting a lot of other friends for a couple of hours. Then when the ceilidh started, almost everyone was up and down dancing anyway.
no subject
We worked on the principle that all of our friends are grown-up human beings with an innate ability to have a civilised and coherent conversation with anyone over the few hours that it takes to have a meal and listen to some speeches.
We didn't split couples or families, but with those groups just did a random selection "out of the hat" and then made two minor changes to avoid a couple of potentially awkward situations.
It worked absolutely fine for us (YMMV) and resulted in a lot of our friends meeting a lot of other friends for a couple of hours. Then when the ceilidh started, almost everyone was up and down dancing anyway.
[journeyman]