The Politics of Tables

Your guests arrive at the reception, pick up their escort cards and discover to which table they've been assigned. To some guests, it's the magic moment. The lower the number, the higher the honor. "Am I at table two? Or dare I think it--the most exalted and revered TABLE ONE?" You might not think of it, but guests tend to automatically rank themselves in importance in your life based on what table number they've been assigned. So what do you do? NAME the tables instead of numbering them. Name them after cities you've been together, your favorite movies, constellations--anything but numbers. That removes the politics completely. Who's to say that the "Starfish" table is better or worse than the "Seahorse" table? Naming your tables is also a great way to carry your theme throughout your reception. Beach theme? Name your tables after beaches you've gone to together. No theme? Start with "Faith" "Hope" and "Love" and go from there. Come up with any set of names that mean something to the two of you. "But how will they find their tables," you ask me. Easy. There are two ways--alphabetize them around the room or provide a ballroom diagram outside. Then your guests can find their tables with ease and enjoy your reception.

Table name signs--starring--YOU!

I just did the coolest thing. I love challenges and pushing the envelope just a little bit past where I thought it could go. For this particular challenge, one of my brides wanted to have character line art for the images on her table name signs. That was the easy part. For her sweetheart table, she came up with the idea of putting a picture of the two of them on the sign. And although that sounds pretty easy--I've printed plenty of table signs with pictures on them after all, I wanted to give that envelope another shove. Especially because we weren't printing full color images on her signs. We were using character line art and foiling the artwork in gold to match her wedding. I did it! I turned Michele and Russell into line art from this gorgeous photo Michele sent. It looked great! I guess my next challenge will be to figure out how I just did that so I can do it again. :0 ) Best wishes to Michele and Russell!