Escort card/place card dilemma! Help please!

Ask your venue or caterer what they prefer here. I'm doing individual escort cards that will discreetly convey the guest's meal choice to the server. That's what my venue/caterer said they need.

Hi there! So to make it easy and less confusing for your guests... since this is a seated dinner, everyone should have an escort card with their name so that when they go to their seat, they can place the card in front of them. Each person at the table should have a card. It shouldn't be hard if you have them in alphabetical order on the table by first name and then have your wedding coordinator (you should have one) stand and greet guests there and help them find and locate their card/table to speed up the process.

Also, to make it clear to the servers who is getting what meal choice, there are meal choice stickers you can buy on Etsy that you can put in the corner of the card to indicate what they are having (fish, chicken, veggie, etc). Or many caterers/servers will ask the guests what they are having to verify. They should go around the table to confirm orders ideally. You may need to make a list on an excel sheet that has the guest name, table number and meal choice and give that to the chef/venue to keep track in the kitchen of who gets what.

It's best if you do a list of what people are having for the kitchen and make sure it's updated when changes happen as it gets closer so they have the most current version.. then I would just do escort cards on a table at the entrance to the reception with meal choice stickers on them and/or confirm with the venue/caterer if they will ask guests what they are having before serving meals. Give people the option on their RSVP card to indicate what they want to eat and then start keeping a list.

If you have children attending, you will need a chair for those that are able to eat by themselves but if they are babies or very young children you'll have to decide if you want high chairs at the table, or if they will sit with a parent or if you want them in a separate area with a babysitter during dinner while the adults eat.

I made a list of every guest and meal choice with according icon, and sent that to my coordinator and to the banquet manager at the restaurant. What you can do is still make one escort card per family, but have a list of meal choices the coordinator and banquets manager holds onto; the servers will know how many of each meal goes to which table .

On etsy I found mini meal choice stamps, and used that to stamp the back right hand corner of each escort card.

I like the different colored ribbons, another option is to give your caterer how many of each meal choice is at each table so they will bring them out and ask who ordered which. This can be tricky if people don't remember which they ordered, but I haven't seen it as an issue at the weddings I've been at.
put a line next to each menu choice on the rsvp, and people will either put an X or a number next to each option to indicate how many of each meal they would like to order, and if it isn't clear you can call them up to confirm. It's possibly an extra phone call and step in the process but I think it's the easiest way to achieve what you're going for. Will you have kids meals? That will help the situation if you give that as an option as well.

View Quoted Comment Ah okay this would make it MUCH easier on me...and I do have to provide them with the seating chart/how many people at each table, so I already have an excel list of the names/number of guests, just have yet to assign a table.
My DOC is with the catering company and included in their cost...she will be there the entire day of (she seriously is the best) so giving her that info will be a snap.

Still, how do I word the RSVP cards now? Every example I have found only gives a choice to indicate how many of each item, not a name list...should I have 2 cards for them to return? 1 with the RSVP of guests and one "info card" that has each person's name with a lot item to indicate which entree choice? Or do I just leave it as a normal rsvp card asking how many of each entree and then leave it up to them to remember?

The DOC did mention that they would have a few extra of each entree, just in case people changed their minds, but won't be enough if too many people get it wrong/change...

View Quoted Comment That was my original RSVP option until I had a mini freak out realizing I wasn't sure how to indicate LOL

Yes there will be a kids meal option, in addition to: Chicken Chardonnay or Filet of Sirloin or Vegetarian Rollitini !

View Quoted Comment I think you're ok not asking each person to write their name next to their choice in this case, especially if you know your guests well enough to guess which order is which. I know this is super sexist, but in my family the men always order the beef, no matter how delicious the other options may be.

if you give people instructions that are more complicated than they're used to, chances are they will either not follow them and send you back the RSVP the way they're used to filling it out OR they'll call and ask what you want them to do.

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On our RSVP cards, we said "Please initial each guest's meal choice" and then had a line next to each entree choice so they could place their initials. This worked great. I chose to do both escort cards and place cards. The escort cards directed the guests to their assigned tables (they were actually ornaments) and then the place cards assigned the guests to their seats. Since my wedding was Christmas weekend, I used trees in my invitation suite and carried this theme onto my place cards by using 1, 2, or 3 trees to indicate meal selection. My coordinator gave this information to the banquet manager.

You ask each guest to initial their choice of entree. There are a zillion ways to indicate the choice of entree on escort cards.

Contrary to a previous suggestion, the standard practice is to display the cards in alphabetical order by last name.

View Quoted Comment How big are these cards? Lol
I just tried editing my cards to include a line for "please initial" and they just look cramped to me... (also clesrly not end result here, just trying to get an idea)
Also, what happens when they all want the same but no room for the initials?!

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For me, I didn't have to worry about including "we have reserved _ seats in your honor" because they were all invited, so I didn't have that line. If everyone wants the same meal, then that's easy - no need to sort out who wants the beef or the chicken. But in our case, we did have a family of 6 where 4 wanted the beef, so they put all 4 initials on the line, or just below the line so it was obvious it was the beef.

This was the digital proof of our RSVP card

View Quoted Comment Thank you! That is helpful to see...

We need the number in some way because as I said, we have several large families so we need to know exactly how many of them are actually coming....I suppose we could instesd have a line that says "number attending", same idea, but we need the number somewhere so it is clear ...bah...just when I thought things were getting easier and all the "big" stuff is done, this part is more complicated than I thought it would be LOL

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You're welcome! Could you do the meal icons like my cards? The person who designed my invitation suite (on Etsy) did this, and not only was it too cute, but it saved space too!

View Quoted Comment No, the place that I am using doesn't have the icons.
I may end up having to get a different card though, so I will keep looking to see...I just liked the silver glitter border...but Vistaprint has sales often enough I could find a design there maybe and get them at a good deal!

View Quoted Comment What about this??1st pic is front, 2nd is back.
I actually like this - assuming people are like me and look at the front and back of things, then they will see the instruction and place for allergies, without further clogging up the front of the RSVP. And then at least I gave instruction somewhere, whether they use it or ask me or not?

View Quoted Comment I like that style better than the previous one. Though i don't care for the back. Instead, could you insert "Please initial a meal choice for each guest" where you have "Choice of entree" and then possibly remove the scroll in the upper center to create more room. Then add a line for food allergies. If you can't remove the scroll, then perhaps remove the child's meal option if your venue automatically gives children a certain meal.

View Quoted Comment Well..I ended up completely changing my invitations as well as RSVP...and place cards LOL we also decided to simply add an insert with descriptions of the entree items to help people decide and then added a note to the back of that!
So pictures going in order is:
Font of invitaions
Front of RSVP and back of RSVP
Front and back of the additional insert with rsvps showing entree details
And the menu that will be on tables the day of reception!

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If you haven't already submitted your order, it should be

please initial each guest's choice of entree (with an apostrophe)