Thank you everyone for your inputs and suggestions.

I selected a window seat for myself and the aisle one for my companion, the middle seat is empty. Hope it stays that way - with so many seats to pick I guess no one will want to seat between two strangers.

Besides overbooking cases, are operational upgrades ever given due to weight and balance of the aircraft on Emirates? I've seen some airlines blocking and assigning seats to passengers when they had like 40 passengers booked on a 100+ capacity A319/320. I guess they did it so the center of gravity wouldn't fall out of the acceptable range during take-off and landing, but I'm not sure.