Place cards or no?

You should assign tables (escort cards) but seats (place cards) aren't necessary. Let people pick their seats, as some might be lefties, want to sit on the outside edge for easier in and out for bathroom (or bar) runs. Also I might deal with sitting at the same table with my FH half brother but I refuse to sit immediately next to the guy. Let your guests arrange themselves.

I agree with Daria. At first we chose to do assigned tables and seats, but it was too much work and would have been way too many placecards and escort cards. So we’re just assigning tables and letting them sit wherever they want to at the table

View Quoted Comment That's how I see it. It just makes sense to me. I didn't know if there were any strong pros for place cards though. Any reason not to do more work, thank you lol I completely agree and hadn't even thought about the bathroom thing. Lefties, I thought of. As a bigger girl, I cannot stand sitting in the middle. I would hate to not be on the edge.

We assigned tables but not actual seats. Guests were able to pick their own seats.

Escort cards here. I've been to several weddings without them and it is exhausting. We have several friends that are coming from OOT and it keeps them from trying to figure out who looks cool, what they should do, and whether there are at an ok table.

Thank you for asking this! I have been debating on this too but I'm glad I can assign only tables and not worry about the seats

View Quoted Comment Seems to be unanimous! I wonder why anyone does place cards? Maybe if they were trying to match make? Haha idk. I've seen too many rom coms while wedding planning.

You dont need both. When i have gotten escort cards i've placed them in front of me at my table. You typically do either place cards already on the table for the guest and a seating chart guides them to that particular table. Or an escort card they get it and sit down with it. You can indicate their meal choice on the escort card or the place card thats usually the second purpose for having them when you have a multiple entree menu for the waitstaff. Some venues request at least escort cards or place cards for meal choices so that may be why some people have them.

Just escort cards for us..

I think the only time you need place cards is if you have really long banquet tables and want certain people close to you.

Originally we were going to only have escort cards. However we have to somehow indicate to the servers which entree each guest is getting. Ostensibly we could do so on the escort cards, but how do you make sure everyone puts it in front of their table setting? My wedding planner said to definitely use place cards. We don't have so many guests that it'll be a hassle for us, and we can be fairly sure of who will want to sit next to whom. Our venue is such that they won't be at the tables the whole night. (It's an historic mansion so we'll be moving into other rooms after dinner.) So if they aren't thrilled, they can be with others the rest of the night. Hope that helps!

If guests are choosing a meal, our venue requires placecards (with meal choice coded)....

View Quoted Comment That makes sense! We're having a buffet so I don't think this will be a big deal.

View Quoted Comment I can see that. I'll get with my planner and see what she suggests.

For our ceremony, I'm getting a printed seating arrangement poster. I saw this at my boss' wedding, and it was really helpful.

chart

For my reception, we're having small 'message in a bottle' with each name & table #. Our reception is a beach theme by the beach.

place cards

I'll be the only one going against the grain here I guess, but we are doing seating chart (like in @dancingwiththekumars photo) and place cards (but NO escort cards). We have long-ish tables of 7 or 8 people down each side and are mixing together three very different groups of people (my family from Canada, his family from Ireland, our friends and his family from France) and have to deal with language barriers (not everyone speaks the same language) and more. We talked about it and decided that it would be good to mix up these three groups at the dinner since they'll most likely be talking to the people they know during the cocktail hour. We are putting a lot of thought into it so that each person has at least one other person/couple they know at the table, and those that don't formally know each other before have common interests (for example, we have friends in France and in Canada who play the same Irish sport in both of those countries, so it's a common talking point). Place cards are also important to us because there are several choices for the main course and this will help the caterers with service. Finally, at the end of the day, they're all adults : if they really want to switch around to sit on the edge or next to someone else or whatever, I trust them to pick up the place card and move themselves. On my wedding day, I won't be bothered by small details like that!

Either way, talk it over with your partner and decide what works best for you. We chose to go this route, but there is no wrong way to do it in my opinion.

View Quoted Comment I had the same issue, and just did escort cards with the meal choice indicated. People took the cards and put them at their table in front of them. The wait staff had no issues getting the right meal to the right person.

We had a seating chart and also individual place cards at each seat! I actually got a lot of compliments about it from my friends, they enjoyed that there was literally no thinking on their part and said it just made everything that much more smooth and easy.

It's not a lot of work once you've already figured out who is sitting at what table! That's the hard part, then individual seats took me maybe 30 minutes total.

It's certainly not an issue to not assign seats, but I do think it helps in a few situations! I've been at weddings where the table is made up of two different groups of friends (for example - half groom's friends from college, half wife's co-workers), and based on who sat down first we've had to reshuffle so that I can sit next to my husband. It also saves a few people some of the awkwardness when going to take a seat and they see someone's wrap or purse and wonder "who's is that? do you know who is sitting there?".

It's not a big deal either way at all, but I thought assigning seats was easy and a nice extra touch! And there are some gorgeous place card ideas out there!

I don’t see the point of place cards or the point of assigning specific seats are. When you take your escort card to the table that is then your place card showing that seat has been claimed. You said people did both? Sounds weird lol

View Quoted Comment Lol my FSIL totally tried this and it didn’t work. She didn’t do place cards but strongly pushed her brother toward a friend of hers. I was oblivious and accidentally took the seat instead! Oops!