Seating your guests is a pain in the seat…but it’s a must if you want to maintain order during your fabulous affair.

Take it from me - I learned this the hard way.  When I got married six and a half years ago (I had no idea what I was doing), I decided it was too much trouble to seat my guests.   I thought, oh, they can just figure it out themselves.  Ha.  Not a good idea.  225 people roaming aimlessly for a seat.  Oh, and my new hubby and I along with the maid of honor and best man ended up sitting at a table right next to the buffet.  Nice.

Since you’re going to take on this daunting task of selecting who is going to sit at which table, you may as well have fun with it.  Name the tables after special cities, restaurants, or wines.  And create a lovely display out of the cards themselves.

There are so many creative ways to present the escort cards & table names/numbers.  I have decided to devote this entire week to seating your guests.

Today is Day 1:  Beach Wedding (photo from the Ritzy Bee Blog)

I love this natural, yet clever display of escort cards for a beach or lakeside wedding.  Line your cards up alphabetically in a large dish of sand. This looks gorgeous, and can do wonders for keeping the cards from blowing away in the wind.

This could also be done using dried peas (sounds funny, but looks really cool), colored sand from IKEA, candy (lemon heads are great for a yellow wedding), pebbles…

Take Your Seat.

xo, Cardgirl

Thank you Rachel Ray for this party trick.

She’s created cards which can be used as escort cards or place cards.  Simply add your guests names, print & cut!  Easy as pie.  There are several designs to choose from, but this is my favorite. Oh, and did I mention these are free?

You may be seated.

xo, Cardgirl

I found these table number stands on the Matthew Mead Style website.  He’s full of brilliant ideas.  These easy-to-make and inexpensive holders use lamp part accessories, including a brass vase cap, shade clip, bolts, and washers.

Check out lampshop.com for the supplies. Spray paint white and use to hold names, table numbers, or to identify buffet foods, etc.

Clever.  Very clever.

xo, Cardgirl

I was poking around on the Sash and Sugar website and came across these most adorable cupcake place cards.  What a great idea.  They are so pretty, yummy…and useful!

(Photo by Sara Remington at Anna Kuperberg Photography)

It’s a bit of an undertaking, but totally worth it.  And here’s how it’s done…..

• Lay out names in 1″x6″ strips (with name twice on each strip, so when folded you will see name  on both sides)
• Print onto sticker paper (you can buy this at most office stores - Kelly Paper Store and Office Depot definitely carry it).  Paper would also work, but might take more time because you’ll need to apply double sided tape.
• Fold strips before peeling off the back
• Peel back off, and stick in half over a toothpick
• Trim a triangle into the end to achieve that ribbon look.

How sweet.

xo, Cardgirl

Mmmm…milk chocolate.

This is a Hershey’s bar wrapped in decorative paper.  Simple & brilliant.  And I just so happen to love the paper used in the photo below found on i-Village.

Where to buy paper like this?

• Paper Source has a large selection of decorative paper - sold mostly in large sheets.
• Stampin’ Up has a fabulous designer line (double sided paper…fancy!)
• Paper Mojo carries some unique Japanese screen printed papers.
• The Paper Studio has all kinds of cool stuff!
• The eco-chic option?  Buy a roll of painter’s kraft brown paper (about $3 for a HUGE roll), some swanky stamps…and get busy!

Where to buy printed ribbon?

• Print My Ribbon
• RibbonWarehouse.com (they also carry unprinted ribbon)
• And if you’re not a fan of the printed ribbon (in my opinion, can be tacky if not done right), my favorite ribbon shop is always Midori.

Those little balls?  Adorable.  Not sure where they came from, but I bet they have something similar at Michael’s in the bead section!

Other great hanging items?

• Oriental trading has some fun ones:  gold leaf, wedding bells?, gold starfish
• Hanging tags: My Own Labels

Or maybe just skip the ribbon altogether, and go for a sticker: My Own Labels has some great ones, or you can upload your own design.

Tip:  You could also write your guests names on these & they could do double duty as favors and place cards!

I’ll do you a huge favor….and tell you to store those lovely chocolate bars in a cooler before the wedding.  You would be very sad if they melted.

xo, Cardgirl

Oh, how I wish I would have discovered these long ago…perfect for a beach event!

Fill your boxed invitations with tiny starfish, tie one into the ribbon you’ve wrapped around your invitations, create escort cards by writing your guest names & tables on a sand dollar, scatter shells on the table around your centerpieces, glue one to the top of each favor box…stop me, please.

I’d definitely shell out the cash for these…by the way, they are pretty inexpensive and are sold in bulk at Oriental Trading Company, Inc.

When she was planning her own wedding, she wanted to have “little touches” that would stand out as being creative and unique. Thinking back to the weddings she had attended, one thing always stood out as being less than spectacular -  those paper escort cards you are given to tell you where to sit.

She wanted her guests to be welcomed by something that represented herself and the outdoorsy, simple theme of her wedding.  There Jaime on the Rocks was born.  Jaime has turned these fabulous river rocks into an inspired business.

A perfect alternative to the ordinary.  So eco-chic.