Weddingbee Blog

“A good map is both a useful tool and a magic carpet to far away places.”

Ahhh, seating maps.

Since Mr. O’s and my big day would include about 50 of our nearest and dearest, our seating strategy was pretty easy and we knocked it out in one night. Which meant that it was time to work on the fun, number-free map we dreamed up when we first started planning this beach celebration, starring this fella:

seahorse watercolor painting by dimdi

Yep, I’m one of those number free table/escort card gals, and just like Mrs. Cowboy Boot’s sweet table names/escort cards, we knew from the get go that we wanted to incorporate our beach/sea environment in our reception.

And after finding dimdi’s dreamy watercolor paintings on Etsy, I purchased the paintings of my favorite sea animals. And while they’re not cheap—they’re original watercolor paintings—we’re framing these originals and hanging them in our humble abode…’cause they’re so lovely and amazing.

And when it came time to design the official seating map, I scanned in our dimdi paintings into my laptop and made mini versions of them. And using Photoshop, the same grey chevron pattern as our CD favors and signs, a few self designed hearts and Marcelle & Impact Label fonts….after a few hours of layering, free transforming and flattening, the Ostrich Wedding Seating Map was complete:

watercolor paintings by dimdi, seating map designed by yours truly.

We printed out this beauty on 14 x 20, with a 300dpi resolution, at Kinko’s for $11. I think this was our cheapest DIY project to date!

And when the map arrived in our awesome Wedding Coordinator’s hands, she framed it up with one of the silver IKEA frames we shipped over and it rested on an easel, by our reception table, by the sea.

Where are my fellow table number-less bees at? What theme are you using for your tables/escort cards?