Project Wedding: Place Cards & Table Numbers

I wrote a post many months ago about place cards and the endless possibilities. I did quite a bit of research here and there, looking at ideas, and finally decided to make them myself. I wanted to do something clever -- like attach the cards to vintage keys or coordinate the place cards with our wedding favors in some way -- but I honestly was running out of time, so I decided to go the simple place card route, with an added touch of my own personality and style.

I went to Michael's to see what crafts and supplies I could find, and discovered the endless variety of stock paper they had! Aisles and aisles of it...all kinds of different decorations, colors, patterns, you name it! I must have spent over an hour just looking through everything, trying to figure out my game plan. And if you know me, I am paper obsessed and take it very seriously. :)

If you're a bride-to-be, you may already know that Michael's has an entire aisle devoted to weddings — invitations, favors, candles, guestbooks, etc. They had their own place cards as well...and believe me, I was very tempted to just buy those and not make my own. But they were oh so dull, and I wanted a pop of color and creativity!

I finally found a book full of beautiful card stock paper — in patterns of black & white, seafoam green, lavender, deeper greens, and creamy whites. The best attribute? The paper was double-sided, which meant when folded, you could see two coordinating colors complemented each other perfectly. It worked for our color palette — natural hues that were understated yet elegant. I decided I'd buy white card stock as well, to adhere to the tops of the place cards so as to write guests' names and table numbers.

Arriving home, I settled all my purchases onto the dining room table — my craft table for this project — and started cutting out the paper to match the width and length of average place cards. After cutting out 10 or so, I realized this was going to take a bit longer than I had planned. We had around 130 guests coming, which meant my "craft hour" had just begun! After cutting all the different place cards in coordinating colors, I started gluing the white card stock onto the folded placecards. This was much faster than the cutting part!

Once I was finished, I placed them all in an empty stationary box (with the loveliest pattern), and they waited there until I was ready to write names of guests and table numbers. This is where it got tricky.

Mike and I sat down with his parents to discuss the seating arrangements....who would be sitting with our bosses? What about our beloved aunties? Should we seat the bridesmaids and grooms at Table 3 or Table 4? It took a good bit of time, but eventually we had a seating chart everyone was happy with. Here are a few photos of the finished product at the wedding. Bobby Hill and Mark Arrington of BobbyMark's Designs decorated this table with leaves and birch branches for a rustic, elegant look!

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As with any project, you never know just how it will turn out until the very last moment. With the placecards, I was thoroughly pleased — plus, they were handmade and took much more thought than simply buying pre-made cards! But I wasn't done yet...to go with these lovely place cards, I needed table numbers. My plan was to match the color palette and the card stock I had used for the place cards. Only that project took quite a bit longer....

Thank goodness for my sister Laura, who helped me create these bad boys. There were 16 tables in all, so we needed 16 table numbers. We started by tracing hand-drawn numbers onto the black & white card stock, then cut them out. Next we adhered the cut-out numbers onto a full piece of card stock that had a colored background — so the numbers would pop!

It doesn't sound that time-consuming, but it actually was! If I didn't have Laura's help, it would have taken double the time. To add to this, we started making these table numbers the day before the wedding! Ahh, wedding craziness....you gotta love it!

But the result was beautiful — we had 16 lovely, handmade table numbers that coordinated with each place card's color scheme. So that when a guest would pick up their place card, they would be directed to the table that a.) matched their table number (obviously), and b.) matched the colors they held in their hands. Delightful! Thank you, Laura, for all your amazing crafty help! Here is the finished product — displayed on the bride & groom's table!

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