Wedding Styling

Ideas, advice and inspiration on how to create the perfect wedding theme

Stylish Seating Plans

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Posted in Wedding Styling

Unless you’re opting for a very informal atmosphere at your wedding, chances are you’ll be having a seating plan for your wedding breakfast. Your stationery designer will probably be able to create a table plan to match the rest of your wedding stationery, but there are plenty of other options that can add individuality to your reception and also reflect your wedding style or theme. So before you go down the traditional ‘plan on an easel’ route, take a look at some of my favourite seating plan ideas…

table cards on pegs Stylish Seating Plans

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I love the idea of using a collection of photo frames to create a table plan. It creates a nice focal point and is relatively inexpensive to do, as you can pick up frames fairly cheaply at car boot sales, charity shops or local markets. A collection of mis-matched, antique-style gold and silver frames would work particularly well for a vintage or shabby-chic theme.

vintage photo frames Stylish Seating Plans

vintage frame table plan1 Stylish Seating Plans

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For a rustic wedding reception, why not use wooden pegs to attach escort cards to a screen or string line? Incorporate your surroundings by tying the line around or between trees near the entrance to your reception.

table cards on pegs 2 Stylish Seating Plans

washing line escort cards Stylish Seating Plans

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Tie in your wedding theme by using natural materials or trinkets. For example, writing guest names onto flat stones and placing in a tray of sand or shingle can work really well for a beach/waterside theme.

stone escort cards Stylish Seating Plans

key escort cards Stylish Seating Plans

I particularly love how these miniature test tubes were used as escort cards in acknowledgement of the couples’ scientific background – as a former scientist, you’ve no idea how cute and quirky these are for me!

test tube escort cards Stylish Seating Plans

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I’m a big fan of seasonal wedding designs, so I just love the idea of hanging cards from branches for an autumnal wedding. You could easily amend this to reflect the time of your wedding – for example, by using blossom instead of leaves for a spring theme, or paper snowflakes for winter.

leaf escort card Stylish Seating Plans

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Finally, if you’re looking to economise, you can save yourself some money by doubling up your escort cards as favours or keepsakes. You could provide an actual gift, but I also really like the idea of using an engagement photo to illustrate the table number.

favour escort cards Stylish Seating Plans

photo escort card Stylish Seating Plans

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Photo Credits:

Country window box and table card washing line: Zoom Photography via SMP
Vintage photo frames: Vintage Flair via Charley Beard and Brides Magazine
Washing line escort cards: Kate Harrison via 100 Layer Cake
Stones and engagement photo: The Brides Cafe here and here
Keys: 100 Layer Cake
Test tubes: Lucida Photography via Once Wed
Leaf escort cards: IN Photography via SMP
Shot glasses: Gabriel Ryan Photography via Green Wedding Shoes

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3 Comments

  1. my future daughter-in-law saw a washing line with hearts on it for place settings – have you seen it on any website?

    Joan / 1:47 pm on November 1st, 2010

  2. Hi Joan

    There’s a heart washing line on the Valentine’s Gift website – http://www.valentinesgift.co.uk . Not sure if that’s the type of thing she’s after, but otherwise you could try somewhere like etsy (www.etsy.com), velvet wedding (www.velvetwedding.co.uk) or Cox and Cox.

    Hope that helps!

    Helen / 4:43 pm on November 3rd, 2010

  3. [...] Stones                         Keys                        Shells [...]

    » Blog Archive » Where in the world am I sitting? / 1:56 pm on November 16th, 2010

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