Place Card Question

supergirl377

So we are having a plated meal with 2 options (well, 3 with a few vegans). Our place cards will be colors coded to show meal choice.

 Do we need to specify on the place card where people should be sitting? Won't it be good enough to let people take their place card and set it at their seat? I am just thinking that this way, we don't have to have the nightmare of doing table-seating charts!  Right? Or am I missing something?

BostonBride919

Escort cards are typically used to tell people which table they should sit at. Place cards are already at the place settings, and those typically show the meal choice.

You can also put the meal choice on the escort cards if you don't want to use Place Cards, but you need to guarantee that people will put them at their place settings to show their meal choice and that often doesn't happen. people walk around with them during cocktail hour, set them down, and misplace them.

My venue required that place cards were already at each place setting for that reason - It's a confusing mess if you expect the guests to put their escort cards down at their place setting to show their meal choice and they don't do it.

Ana_2985

Have you talked to the people at your venue about this?  I've always seen it done this way: you tell the venue how many of each meal go to each table.  So table 1 get 4 chicken meals and 4 pasta dishes.  Then the waiters just hand out the dishes to the appropriate people like at a restaurant.

The problem with the color-coded guests cards is that people misplace them, forget to pick them up, throw them all in one place...

gottahavashorti

You should assign tables unless you have plenty of extra seating - a bit more work for you, but easier on your guests so they aren't the party of 4 looking for seats when there are only 2 seats at one table and 1 seat each at two other tables.  If you do have a decent amount of extra seating, your plan sounds fine to me.

MOBinFL2008

When your guests pick up their cards they'll be confused about which table they are to sit at.  Escort or table cards tell guests which table to sit at.  Only on rare occasions to people acutally use place cards to designate a particular seat at the table.  You guests will be looking at the cards wondering where they are supposed to go.

Do yourself a favor and look after the comfort of your guests.  Take the time and assign each guest to a table.  If you don't, what happens to the couple that comes in late and there aren't two seats together at a table?  How would you feel in that situation.....not pleasant is it?

For the life of me I will never understand why brides will spend 12-18 months obsession over every little detail of their wedding but when it comes to spending one hour working on a seating chart for their guests' comfort, they don't want to do it.