Personalized napkins? How many?

TerriandJoe

How many cocktail hour napkins should we buy?

(the guides suggest 2-3 pp, but just checking. Besides, does that just calculate the bar? what about displayed and passed appetizers?)

We are having about 100-120 guests.

Also, if any married ladies are here, were the napkins worth buying?

Thanks!

jeanna85

i find them a little cheesy, so i'm sticking with the free napkins that the venue uses. if you do like them, i would say 3 is on target. i know that i usually use more than one napkin for a cocktail hour, and some people tend to accumulate them and take a new one with each passed appetizer they get.

danieliza1127

We had invited 150 guests so I got 300 personalized cocktail napkins.  After the wedding, we had more than half left over!  Over a year later, there's still a big bag of them in my closet.  We had them on the bar and the cake table, but I guess people just didn't use them. 

Since you'll have regular napkins on the tables, and most people don't take a cocktail napkin for every drink they get, I wouldn't get more than one or two per person.  They're not really a necessary expense, just a novelty.

trix1223

This is one of those things that I think of as a "budget buster".  If your venue gives you plain ones, I'd just use them.  After all~their purpose of for people to wipe their mouths or sticky hands.  Do you really need to spend $$ on personalization?

Probably not.

LauraW313

I got 200 for my wedding. We have having 100-120 as well.

pag41989

I got 100. But we are only using them at the cake table and we are having around 100 people.

ootmother2

I would estimate 5 - 6 per person if you are using them at the cocktail hour. 

IMO, the personalized napkins are a waste,  I doubt they guest even noticed if they had the couples initials or the initials of the country club

TerriandJoe

Thanks for the feedback!

I called our venue and was told 300-500 is about average. But since I don't like the idea of so many TerriandJoe napkins left afterwards, especially since we are trying to save money - we had decided to get 200 with our names, 100 "i do" napkins from Michael's, 100 burgundy from Christmas Tree shop and 100 damask napkins from Target.
 
It's a less costly way of napkins to match our color scheme and therefore look personalized, it just won't have our names on all of them. Thanks again!