Find Your Seat! Wedding Escort Cards or Seating Charts

ZMC Designs

My mother and I ran down to our venue yesterday on a whim to sneak a peak at what it looks like in summer. When my fiance and I booked the venue, there was still snow on the ground and it was hard to truly envision how it would look. We assumed the venue would be vacant since it was a Friday morning, but they were actually setting up for a wedding that night! This was actually a blessing in disguise because we were able to see the grounds with chairs and tables set up.

I pleasantly found we going to have a lot more room than I anticipated AND they have 18 tables instead of the 16 I was originally told (does happy dance inside). On our way home we got to talking about seating and the flow of the reception. I absolutely want the reception to have a flow and make sure that people are not confused about where they sit. For this reason I think we need escort cards.

Wedding Bee

Even with the discovery that we will have two extra tables and potential seating for 16 more people, I really think we might fill the venue to near capacity. Because of this I want guests to make sure they know where they will be seated after the ceremony. This is something that will not be easy for us given the layout of the venue.

We are essentially getting married in the back yard of a historic house with the reception taking place in the courtyard. My idea is that I want people to be "coaxed" into walking into the front door of the home where they will pass through the living room. My intent is to set up a gift table in this room and have the escort cards next to the guest book. I hope - hope - people will understand that they are supposed to pick up their card on the way to the ceremony....my mom thinks this will never happen in a million years.

Wedding Bee

I can only recall one wedding I attended that had a plated meal. In reality, the only reason you need an escort system is if you are serving a plated meal where people got to choose their entree. All other weddings I have been to had a buffet and people got to sit where they wanted. This would not be an issue for us either if I did not feel like we would need every single seat. Now, I have been to weddings that were filled to capacity and had no seating system - and it was a huge flipping nightmare.

What happens is a large group of people will want to sit together and just start grabbing chairs. Guests really will look at a table for 8 and decide on their own that they think they can cram 12 people at that table. Of course they will "steal" 4 chairs from other tables to make this happen. People who do not know each other will not sit together - they just won't - so more chairs will get moved and eventually you will end up with people who will claim "they cannot find a seat". This is the last dilemma I want to happen at my reception. Luckily, there are a few ways to inform or show guests where they are supposed to sit and each have their pros and cons.

Southern Weddings

Use a Favor as an Escort Card:

This is my favorite way of delivering an escort card because it kills two birds with one stone. You can set up a table next to your guest book with your favors and have a tag attached with a guests name and their table number. BUT - in order for this to work you MUST have a sign that lets people know "Hey, this is your favor BUT IT ALSO HAS A NAME ON IT." You know people will just absentmindedly grab a favor and not even look to see if there is a name on it until it is too late. If this happens, there is absolutely no going back and people will have to find their own seats. If great aunt Ethel has the favor/card for my father in law's cousin, there is no way on earth they will figure out who is who. I am leaning towards this approach myself but I will have a HUGE sign that says "Take a treat to find your seat!"

El Brooklyn Taco

Use Tented or Pick Style Escort Cards

Typical run of the mill escort cards are just folded pieces of paper that form a tent so they sit upright on a table. These are a nice option because you can DIY these yourself since most come on punch-out sheets that can be fed into a printer. Be weary of fancy fonts however because sometimes they can be very difficult to read. This can be especially bad if you have a family where there are several people with the same name.

These are also pretty simple to display on a table but PLEASE make it easy for guests and group them by table number. If you want three sets of your aunts and uncles to be seated at the same table, make it easy and group their cards together. This will help people move more quickly to get them to their seats. Make sure if you use simple tented cards that they are NOT left outdoors - the slightest breeze will send them sailing.

You can also attach a small piece of paper with a pick to something that is not a favor - such as a pumpkin, bubbles or a sparkler to be used at the end of the night, a small bag of candy, a cupcake, etc. I would shy away from anything that can be eaten and make a mess like a clementine orange or a frosted cupcake. If your guests get to the table and open an orange they will probably just leave the peels on the table - same goes for wrappers. Keep this in mind given that trash cans might not be put out until dinner is served.

Once Wed

Escort Cards at EACH Place Setting

Okay, I will admit it - I hate this method of letting people know where they are to be seated. Unless you are having a small wedding, it is really annoying as a guest to wander aimlessly from table to table trying to find your seat. This is made even worse if you as a bride think it will be *nice* to seat random people together. I was at a very large wedding once and I was seated with 10 people I did not know. I was not very familiar with the other guests either so it was not like I could ask someone if they saw my name. It took me over 15 minutes in a crowded dining hall to find my seat. So, unless you are having a 50 guest or under affair, I would not use this escort card method.

Planning Bio

Using Trees, Hooks, Shutters for the Cards

Instead of using something you can pick up from a table, some brides are hitting up Pinterest for cutesie ways of displaying their cards. You can tie the cards to a large tree and let guests hunt for their name, put keys on hooks on an old door, or tie luggage tags to chicken wire inside the frame. While these are all cute ideas and would look adorable in pictures, none of these methods are very practical.

If you use a large tree you are going to have guests looking at every single card for the one with their name. Keys on hooks look whimsical and vintage, but you will have guests removing every key until they find their own and they will absolutely leave the rest on the table. It will look junky and disorganized in no time. The same will happen with luggage tags - they will fall on the floor and get lost and you will end up with a few guests having no idea which table they are looking for.

I have also seen several posts about brides using wire with clips - one bump and every one of them will tumble to the floor. One post I read a guest pulled a whole bulletin board over on themselves when they tried to yank their card from it without removing the tack. The tree idea is cute until you get cards that are stuck on the branches and they have to be broken or torn to remove. You get the picture. Some things look better in an editorial setting than when used in real life.

Virtue Event Planning

Seating Charts

Another popular method is to whip up a seating chart. Have one large chart that features table numbers and the corresponding names. Notice I said a LARGE CHART. If you use this method, you need to make that baby big enough and high enough so that many guests can see it at once. You do not want a cue line a mile long with guests waiting to figure out their seat because they cannot see it from afar. You will also run into the problem of people who will see their name, walk away, and then forget their table number. This happens more often than you think (was I at table 16 or 18...hummm?). If you opt to use names for your tables instead of numbers (movie names, park names, sport's teams, etc.) you might want to avoid the use of a chart for the same reason - people will forget once they walk away and will need to return to the chart.

Etsy

Let People Sit Where They Want

In a perfect world guests from both sides of the family would all mingle and love to chit-chat like they were not complete strangers. In the real world - this - does - not - happen. People really dislike being stuck with people they do not know. Because of this, you will have people make a mad dash to the tables to stake their claim and you will end up with several people who then cannot sit together. To be blunt, this pisses people off because no one wants to be stuck at a table with "randoms".

If your venue is large enough that you will have extra tables or extra places to sit, then really you do not need to bother with a seating chart. A prime example of this is if you are getting married in a park and guests will need to sit at picnic tables, you will not need a chart for that. You will also not need a chart if you have seating set up for 140 guests but you know only 110 will show up. All inclusive venues will typically set up extra tables for this reason. On the other hand if you are like me and already know you will likely fill every seat for dinner, you best have a chart or card system to make sure everyone has a seat.

Oh, and don't worry if you feel your aunt will get fussy if she is seated with her sister, or if divorced parents need to share a table. They are only going to be "confined" to that seat for the purpose of dinner then they can get up and move elsewhere or go to the dance floor. I think a lot of brides forget about this when they start to fret about who gets to sit with who.

The Knot

What I think I will end up doing is set up a table with bagged cookies and use them as favor/escort card combinations. I like the idea of having something guests can take to their seat and have a "sweet" during cocktail hour. They can of course save it for later since we will have appetizers, but I like the use of something perishable over a trinket. This will also eliminate the need to put favors at each place setting and it will keep the table clean so I can showcase my centerpieces.

The bottom line is make sure you have a plan in place once you get your final counts in for guests. I would not recommend doing seating arrangements early because you really never know how many people will RSVP. Also keep in mind you will need to allow for a few extra seats for anyone who shows up and did not RSVP. Even if you think this will never happen in a million years, it does happen at most weddings.

Practical Wedding Place Settings on the CHEAP!

My focus of this post is to show the pros and cons of using certain types of plates for a place setting at a wedding and what I am personally choosing for my wedding.

My fiance and I decided early on to have an inviting, casual, outdoor wedding. Basically, my idea is to have "rustic elegance" as the theme but not have it so "frou-frou" that guests feel out of place. Most of the men at the wedding will be construction workers or farmers so the laid back atmosphere should go over well. The above image I found on Pinterest and I just love the moss/pine cone/bird decor with white plates! We are renting a massive tent for our big day and the reception will be held under it. I am hoping it will be sunny and 74 on our wedding day (hey, don't we all!?) so we can have an indoor/outdoor thing going on but October in Indiana can basically come with any weather condition you can imagine. Because of this, I did not want a caterer, guests, or any servers/attendants to be encumbered with dealing with china/glass dishware. My reasons for NOT going with china will be detailed below.

Now, all this would be different if we had wanted a sit down plated meal. If you opt to have a plated meal, generally a caterer will provide their own dishes and flatware and will deal with cleaning/storing them - some however offer this at an extra cost per person or per plate. When we looked into having a plated meal catered, it came out to about $25-$35 PER PERSON for the basic two entree/two side option. I am wanting to have this wedding as inexpensively as possible, so having a meal cost that much is out of the question. Instead, we are having a barbeque picnic style meal - which would better suit us anyway. The caterer we are going with does provide basic foam or paper plates. While this would be just fine if we were having a Super Bowl party or general get-together with friends, I feel that this sort of table setting would be too casual for a wedding.

This got me thinking of plate options. I knew right away I did not want paper plates. Despite the fact that you can get both round and square paper plates at Party City in any color you desire, I feel that most basic paper plates just scream birthday party and not wedding. Furthermore, when you are at a buffet piling on delicious eats the last thing you want to happen is for your plate to "sag" or bend. The inexpensive plates you get at the party store tend to be very thin and flimsy which leads to double or triple layering to make them sturdy enough. Not only is this wasteful, but impractical since the plates will be thrown away anyway. So, instead of each guest throwing away maybe 2 plates each, they are throwing away 6. Doesn't make much sense right? The "premium" plates pictured above I found being sold through an Ebay seller in "Embossed Citrus Green". While I LOVED these, they are $0.99 EACH when you add in shipping. Again, I do not want to spend $200+ on plates to be thrown away. PLUS, I would have to also buy dessert plates on top of the entree plates.

The next option is plastic. Again, like paper plates, with plastic you can run into the same problems with sagging and bending. Some of the cheapest plastic plates will also crack in the centers easily under the weight of food. Another problem with plastic plates is that they can get really hot if there is hot food on them - even more so than with paper. I remember being at a party last summer and I almost flipped a plate with baked beans on it because the plastic plate got so stinkin' hot in the center. Again, this will lead to people doubling or tripling the layers of plates creating unneeded waste. The plates pictured above I thought were SO cool - not really fitting with our theme - but SO cool nonetheless. They too were being sold by an Ebay seller and they are called "Luncheon Wedding Plastic Plates". I had a sticker shock moment however when I added in shipping, they were $1.60 EACH. The silvery lace on the outer edge commands a premium and they are beautiful - but really, if you are going to spend $1.60 on ONE plate, you might as well get china.

When I went to GFS with my mother and we were pricing out their plastic plates, I found their prices were comparable with online prices. They had "basic" clear plastic plates with a scalloped edge for $11.49 for a pack of 18. They were "OK" but with tax they would be about $0.65 each. The matching cake dishes were $5.99 a pack for 18 or about $0.35 each. I was pretty happy with the price being at about $1 per guest for dinner and dessert plates combined. But...well...the plates were boring, basic, and just not cute. They did not look elegant, or special, or interesting. And again, I was worried that they would be too thin and would need to be doubled and that would eat into costs unnecessarily. I was about to give up at GFS until I found THIS:

GFS sells these awesome packs of plates by Mozaik. The plates inside are quite sturdy plastic. They are white with a silver metallic edge, and you cannot tell they are not real china! At GFS, they have this 40 piece set for $9.99. It is a full service for 8 WITH "stainless steel look" utensils. There are 8 entree plates, 8 dessert plates, and 8 each of plastic knives, spoons, and forks. That comes out to about $1.28 with tax per guest. You can find these exact same plates online with a gold edge too, but they did not sell the gold version at GFS. Considering there are utensils with this makes it a great deal. BUT - I just knew I could get a better deal if I looked.

And I DID find a better deal on the EXACT same plates! I had a hunch that the Dollar Store might carry these...Some of the local Dollar Stores DO carry the entree plates - 4 for $1. They also sell the small dessert plates - 6 for $1 and they sell small packs of the stainless-look silverware. I priced it out compared to the boxed set at GFS and found that by buying the plates and utensils separate, it is about $3 cheaper for a 8 person place setting. The only issue with this is that often times, once discount stores like a Dollar Store or Deals run out of an item, they might not ever get more in. This month I am planning to visit all the local "dollar" type stores to see if I can score enough plates for everyone and get it out of the way.

One of the main reasons I wanted to go with these particular plates is because I really do not want people to throw them away per-se - but I want them to be thrown into a plastic bag where they can be dealt with later.

Allow me to explain. 

Initially, I had this grand idea that I would use mismatched vintage china plates for the wedding meal. I found this picture above on WeddingBee and it is pretty representative of my own vintage plate collection. This style of place setting is very on trend for rustic weddings and it would have gone with my theme perfectly. My every day plates are made of mismatched floral bone china that I have picked up over the years from yard sales and flea markets, so I had planned on just going on buying trips and picking up more plates here and there. But then I got to thinking...as a vintage dealer for 13 years I know the problems you can run into with vintage dishes. Here are a few problems you can encounter with using vintage plates:

Fragility:  

Vintage plates often have hairline cracks and crazing due to age. While this can be very appealing as a display on a wall or in a hutch, if you use them for food you have to be very careful what kind and how much food you put on them. Very hot foods can cause hairline cracks and fissures to open up and a plate can literally break in half as it sits on a table with hot food. If you have a weighty pile of food it can also cause a sudden break right down the center of the plate. If you have foods with sauces or drawn butter, it can leak through these cracks as well and dirty your table cloths and mats. Vintage plates are also often made of English bone china or Japanese porcelain and the second they "tap" another plate or glass they will chip.

Practicality:  

If you have 150+ entree plates and 150+ dessert plates, someone will have to be in charge of taking them into the kitchen and washing them. Unless you have a wonderful family member or friend willing to stand in the kitchen for 2 hours washing dishes, this will likely be more of a pain for YOU as a bride than what it is worth. Vintage plates make this even more difficult to address. Vintage plates cannot be put into the dishwasher. The high temperatures of modern washers will cause plates to bust and chip during a cycle even if they are not touching each other. You also cannot stack heaps of vintage dishes together and carry them together for the same reason. So, you will have attendants making many runs from your tables to a washing area where dishes will pile up until they can be washed and properly stored. I would imagine this would cause breakage of probably three-fourths to half of the plates in all honesty.

Storage:  

What are you going to do at the end of the night with 300+ plates? No, even more importantly, where are you going to store these before the big day? Since vintage plates are so fragile they really need to be wrapped separately and stored in something like a big plastic tub with a lid. As you would be making endless trips to Goodwill and flea markets collecting your dishes, you would need to make sure they were being stored so they would not get broken in the meantime.When I was looking for Ball jars for drinking I did find that some vendors in the south rent out vintage plates.

The Verdict:  

Because of all these reasons, I decided that the white plastic plates with silver rim would work best for me and my guests. I am also thinking that just in case they may not be sturdy enough that I might see if a simple plastic changer would help dress up the table. My plan is for people to "discard" the plates into bins outside where they can be bagged up and tied off after the meal to avoid smells or bugs. I will have no problem washing them myself the following day and either reselling them or renting them out. As a bride on a tight budget, I am going to maximize the re-usability of everything I buy for my wedding to recoup some of the expenses after the big day.