Weddingbee Blog

Guest list? Check. Table arrangements? Check. Seating assignments? Oh, how we wanted to leave people to work things out for themselves! Without getting into the murky details, let’s just say there are enough delicate relationships amongst one of our families that motivated us not only to have assigned tables, but assigned seating as well. We’re hoping the extra effort will prevent explosive combinations from coming together while simultaneously taking some pressure off our guests: couples are guaranteed to be seated next to one another, friends will be clustered together, buffers will be placed in between conflicting personalities, and hopefully no one will be the wiser. In between the ceremony and the cocktail hour, an easel with our framed seating chart will be placed in the room for our guests to peruse at their leisure over strawberry lemonade and hors d’oeuvres:

Our seating chart: still a work in progress!

Each of the rectangular tables we’re putting end-on-end to create the long, banquet-style tables will have a number assigned to it:

These holders were purchased from a fellow Hive member via the Weddingbee Classifieds, and the table numbers were made from 80 lb. cover weight paper in Natural Kraft that I ordered from Paper Presentation. The corners were rounded with the same medium paper punch that I used for the rest of our stationery, and the text was written using a white opaque paint marker.

At each place setting there will be a paper scroll indicating who is seated there along with their meal choice:

To make these, I used the same paper as our table numbers, menu set rubber stamps from Paper Source, a Color Box stamp pad in Frost White, my never-DIY-without-it Uniball Signo white gel pen, a glass of water, and a wooden kebab skewer (a chopstick is a great alternative). I also kept my list of meal assignments handy–we used the same Perfect Table Plan software that Miss Elephant shared with us to keep track of this information.

The card stock was sliced into strips with my handy-dandy Fiskar’s paper trimmer, lined up, stamped, and personalized:

Because this heavy weight paper was so stiff, at first I couldn’t get it to curl properly (it had a tendency to crack into an angular mess). Mr.Tartlet came up with the idea to immerse the ends in water for a few seconds to soften up the paper:

The damp paper was then malleable enough to roll smoothly around the wooden skewer:

Once I had a satisfactory curl, I held it in place while the paper dried a bit. Most of the time I ended up getting distracted by the TV, but I estimate that 30 seconds is a sufficient length of time to wait before removing the skewer and dipping the other end in water:

Repeat the rolling, but this time in the opposite direction of the first curl (you’ll see why in a sec):

Same thing here–hold the curl for a few seconds while the paper dries out a bit. Sometimes the curls would still loosen up a bit and I had to go back and manually roll them up tight again. While the paper was still slightly damp, I also wove the strip between my fingers to create a wave effect. Soon our coffee table was strewn with little place cards all ready to go:

As a side story, these table numbers and place cards almost didn’t happen. I had noticed that one of our fur-babies had been acting a little strange, but thought nothing of it as we wrapped the project up for the night (thankfully everything had been finished). I left the remaining stack of card stock on the floor along with some extra large sheets of paper that Mr. Tartlet had been using for our wedding programs (more on those later!). The following morning I went to clean up and stopped dead in my tracks when I saw the puddle of yellow liquid pooled on the paper.

That’s right. Buddy apparently had enough of being ignored night after night and decided to make his point, loud and clear. After a string of f-bombs and a severe scolding, I think he was sufficiently chastised:

Although when I was at the peak of my rage, I did briefly consider shipping him to a far off land where there are no wedding-related items to destroy.

At any rate, I have a feeling that no matter what we had chosen to do—open or assigned seating—there will be people who would have preferred it the other way. Which works best for you and your wedding?