Seat Your Guests in Style

I’m a firm believer that your wedding day is a wonderful time to incorporate and share your love story with all of your family and friends! Personal sentiments that represent you as a couple can be a fun, super creative way to sprinkle in meaningful elements of your relationship that double down as décor. It’s the little details that often stand out to guests and resonate long after your special day, and your table names offer the perfect opportunity to showcase your creativity—by theming your tables as opposed to using numbers!

Even doubling as ice-breakers, cute take-home gifts, or ways to further share your passions with your friends and family, let’s go through a handful of simple yet effective ways to organize your seating chart while making your wedding memorable and fun:

CITIES OR COUNTRIES:

This one I see often but never get tired of. Choose city or country names of where you met, have traveled to together, plan on traveling to…bucket list places. The options are endless along with unique styles for each. Have it written beautifully, post cards from these cities, map cut outs… Nick and I used this idea, and to keep up with the theme of travel our seating chart was labeled where in the world are you sitting? Nick and I are not from the same country, and met while traveling, eloped out of state and love to travel so we had lots and lots of options for names. Our wedding favors were luggage tags! And to go that one extra step, the luggage tags matched our color scheme and were map cut outs of our home town with a heart stamped at the venue location. I obviously can’t help but smile when I see my family or friends visit and they still have their luggage tags!

Real Bride Alexandra used this idea for her table names ( see full post here ) & look how cute their escort chart was!! 

All around the world..

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How to DIY a world map seating chart here

LANDMARKS:

Perhaps your proposal took place at an iconic landmark (Eiffel tower anyone?), but the list of historic, local, or sentimental landmarks that accumulate in many relationships makes for great names for tables! These can be places you dream of visiting, have visited or have significance in your relationship. You can print out the pictures of these landmarks and even a little history about the landmark or description of what it means to you for your guests to read!

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ICONIC STADIUMS OR SPORTS TEAMS

Maybe your first date was a sporting event, or it has become a common date activity to cheer on your favorite sports team but if sports are your thing, then this is the perfect way to incorporate it into your wedding! You can name your tables after iconic stadiums like Fenway park, Wrigley field, Madison square garden, The Rose Bowl, to name just a few. Or you can name your tables after your favorite sports team (this could make it fun for guests who might not know sports who could learn by talking to others at the table), and iconic sports players is a fun idea too. To pull the whole theme together you can have your wedding favor be something sports related. Nick’s cousins, as big baseball fans had cute cookie recipes in mason jars with the saying ‘Batter up” on it with their wedding date. This creates an awesome night for your guests to cook up some delicious cookie batter!

To complete the sports theme you could have your wedding cake as the winning trophy of your fav sport… Stanley Cup wedding cake woo!

TYPES OF WINE

Red? White, Rosé? Where my winos at! If you love wine… wineeeee-not name your tables after some of your favorites! This would also be perfect if your venue is a winery!

BEER / CRAFT COCKTAILS

While we have wine on the table, let’s talk about beer. Plenty of people enjoy their craft beers! If you love sampling new beers, visiting breweries together or just love your beer this is a fun idea for a table name! Consider even a flight of small tasting glasses to sample the beer your table pays homage to. Same goes for your signature drink you order on date nights, or your favorite cocktails!

SIGNIFICANT YEARS OR PHOTOGRAPH TIMELINE

I love this idea so much! Use significant years in your relationship as table names. For example: the year you met, the year you had your first kiss, started dating, year of your favorite trip, year of proposal, wedding year. You can also incorporate individual special years like the year you were born, graduated high school or college, the year your parents were married… basically any years that are special to you and you as a couple! I think it would be so adorable as the guests arrive to the special year, they will see a picture of that time (baby pictures, throwback pictures to your first date, your proposal) it’s like a storybook of your relationship, and people will want to get up and look at the other tables too.

FAVORITE MOVIES OR TV SERIES

Picking your favorite movies, even memorable movie dates, or tv series you’ve binged together or just classic iconic movies, regardless, this is such a fun idea! If you have a favorite series, name your tables after your favorite episodes:  Friends, “The One with Ross’ Tan” hahaha. For styling, distribute movie tickets, and it will say the movie you will be seeing (sitting at) or your seating chart could be “Theatre Number 8” and guests will be surprised with famous quotes from the movie to mark their individual seat. The sky’s the limit with the creativity for styling this. Along with movies or tv shows, consider favorite books!

MUSIC

Table names of your favorite bands, favorite artists, or musical instruments. This idea is for all the music lovers out there! If you’re favorite band has enough albums you could name the tables after your favorite albums with the year! Classics or newer music, it’s your pick! If a music festival has a significant meaning to your relationship (let’s say Coachella 2016 was an amazing time for the two of you) you could have the seating chart be like the set list for Coachella and your seat is where a certain band is performing. Styling this would be so cute if you just found vinyl or record sleeves!

DISNEY

For all my fellow Disney lovers, this is such a cute idea instead of table numbers. You can name your tables after your favorite Disney movies, characters, princesses, or favorite rides! And nothing goes better with happily ever after than Disney!

PETS/ANIMALS

A Love for animals can present a super cute idea. I have a friend who instead of doing wedding favors used that money to donate to an animal rescue shelter and left the guests a nice note that the money was used for a greater cause! As much as we all wish we were going home with cute little puppies like in bridesmaids, you can just write fun facts about the animals and who doesn’t love cute animal pictures/print!

PLANTS/FLOWERS

Plants have beautiful names, which make for beautiful and interesting table names. Showcase the specific plant or flower as your centerpiece and to complete the theme for a wedding favor you can give away a mini version of that plant or seeds for your guests! Thanks for watching our love grow! You grow girl! Aloe you very much… pot it like it’s hot… I’m a succulent for puns haha.

ASTROLOGY

The stars align when you fall in love. The universe is magic and brings people the right people into your life. Incorporating anything with the stars and moon give you lots of opportunities for good sayings like I  love you to the moon and back. If you are truly into astrology, your zodiac signs and the planet this is a great wedding theme for your table! Constellations! Maybe the the universe will have your guest sitting at THEIR zodiac sign. It also is a great icebreaker for guests!

Now don’t get me wrong, table NUMBERS are traditional, efficient, and always easy for the venue to set up the layout; I often find myself admiring the creativity behind the display of table numbers. I’ve seen beautiful calligraphy, laser etched cutouts, acrylic, agate, etc.. Let this be a part of planning your wedding that brings you closer to your soon-to-be significant other as you bounce around fun ideas and make something special for everybody in attendance.