Wedding Blog

Source: just_JRM on The Knot

I bought these lovely red chargers after Linens ’N Things declared bankruptcy, so I got them for 20% off.

And then I went to work designing the menu cards. I bought some white imprintable cards from Paper Presentation. My first attempt was basically just to see how everything would fit on the 5×5 circular cards.

Then I started playing around with what I could do on the edge of the cards. Despite not having dots anywhere else in the wedding, I really liked them on the inspiration picture, so I used them in my designs.

Mr. Fondue and I had narrowed it down to these two:

However, then everything changed. We decided to have a sit-down dinner instead of a buffet, and we needed a way to indicate which dish our guests chose. With the choice of our table names, we decided to go a different route.

By this time, I had seen lots of photos of the long menu cards, either tucked in napkins or laying on top of them, and this was now my new favorite menu card style. So, I designed something that was similar to our invitation design; however, I’m not embossing these, just printing them flat.

At first, we thought we might let the menu card double as a place card. The menu would only list the entree that had been chosen when the guest RSVPed.

However, Mr. Fondue really wanted to incorporate a character for each guest from the game series their table was named after, and I also realized that I had left the side dishes off the menu. Mr. Fondue suggested leaving the names off and, instead, create a ribbon belly band around the napkin and the menu card. Then a card would be attached to the belly band listing the guest’s name and a picture of a character from the series their table is named after. Here are a couple ways I’m considering doing this (that’s not a real napkin, just a scrap piece of muslin I cut to size):

If we went this route, I’d probably add a black backing behind the name card:

We are actually doing something very similar to our invitations (the card on the outside of the belly band will serve as the inner envelope), so it really ties everything together nicely.

So the current incarnations look like this:

See how there is a different entree listed on each? This way the waitstaff will know what to bring to that seat. The kids will get something slightly different, along with a couple of crayons:

These are all a prototype and subject to change before they are actually printed. I’m probably going to make our Color-Me-Miis have slightly thinner lines and draw out their feet. Writing that out just made me want to change “Color Me” to “Color Mii”, haha.

Which of your projects went through many evolutions?