Place cards and table plans

Depending on the formality of your wedding banquet, you may opt for a seating plan to direct guests to their assigned tables and seats. Many people choose to have a seating plan to keep things organised and it also helps the serving staff. If you make the venue aware that a “Mrs X” on table 5 is a vegetarian they know to serve her the vegetarian option instead of putting meat down in front of her.



It also looks nice to have organised tables, the hard part comes when you start to plan the tables. Do you mix and match families? Are there similar people you can seat together? Are there divorced parents and stepparents to be considered? Often it is a good idea to have parents hosting their own tables, this can work out well as it makes them feel a very important part of the day.



The hardest choice you have to make as the bride is to decide if you want your place card to read “Bride” or “Mrs X”!!



Table plans come in so many designs and styles, often the hard part is picking what you want! It’s often a good idea to sit and work out what you want, the budget you have and take it from there. Many stationers charge roughly £70, but you can buy the bits to make your own from Confetti for under £30! It just depends on what you want from your table plan. My own table plan is being designed, created and perfected by Little Tiger Creations (well if you have a crafty friend you might as well abuse them!)



There’s some fantastic programmes for making your table plan up available on the internet. I used Top Table Planner to create mine and it was great to use, really straightforward and easy to use. But if you’re strapped for cash you can use Microsoft Excel to make a rough plan.

Stationery (part 2)

And so to continue, we've covered a few of the pieces of stationery you might need for your wedding, now let's review the others you may want.

* Order of Service cards - these are rather useful no matter what type of ceremony you're having. For a religious ceremony you can include the hymns, readings and any other information relating to the ceremony. For a civil ceremony you can detail the readings and any music you might be having for the ceremony.

For our wedding I decided to try and make these myself, so with advice from Jac at LTC I bought little bits and pieces (card, vellum, leaves for decoration and squares of cards) and gave it a go. I have to admit it was scary at the time, but thanks to Jac they've come out great!

* Photo Upload cards - these are a relatively new category of stationery. Basically they're little business cards or notes that you can have made up to put on the tables at the wedding reception to ask people taking any digital photography to upload the pictures on to a special Photobucket account, or other website. (Just make sure the cards have the weblink and any required password noted on them!!)

* Table plan and Place cards - Clue is in the name on this one! If you are having a formal wedding banquet then a table plan and place cards are a great idea. You can decide where to seat everyone to make things easier for the caterers (in case you have any one who has a special menu - vegetarians etc). It's also nice to try and "mix" both sets of families up so that they can get to know each other.

* Thank You cards - self explanatory really but an absolute must. These really are essential for any bride and groom to buy/order/make etc. It's polite to thank people for presents and for being generous on your special day, but I leave it up to you to decide whether or not you thank people for attending the event as well as those who gave gifts or whether you just thank those for their gifts.