Escort cards- help

I bought a template from Etsy and had them printed at Office Depo. Ours were not the standard escort cards though. Ours looked like hockey tickets. There are tons of online sites that sell escort cards including Etsy, Shutterfly, Zazzle, and Vistaprint. If you buy a template from Etsy, you would need to either print them on your own or have them printed buy a professional. I know for our save the dates, we designed our own then uploaded the image to Vistaprint. They turned out amazing and Vistaprint made it very simple to upload our own design. Ours were displayed in alphabetical order by last name. For the meal choices, you can have a photo in the corner that choose like a small chicken to indicate that the guest wants chicken or you could do color coded escort cards, but then you would need to make sure your caterer knows what each color represents.

Option 1 - they have a variety of different options for each meal type

Option 2

Option 3

We ordered ours to match our whole stationary suite from Truly Engaging by Magnet Street.

View Quoted Comment This was extremely helpful. Thank you so much!

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I bought clear labels on Amazon, and white/gold escort folding cards. I printed the names and put them on each card.

Have a color coded system for your cards. Still assign guests only to tables but take your wedding colors to assign each. Pretending that red, pink and cream are your colors, you might assign pink to beef, red to chicken and cream to vegetarian. Let your caterer know what system you're using so the wait staff can see at a glance who ordered what.

We coded ours on the back of the escort card with C for chicken, F for fish, or V for vegetarian. It worked very well

As someone who has done a lot of catering waitstaff work, Color codes are easier to see from all the way across a 10-12 person table at a station or cart where all plated food has been put down. Remember the shiny colored foil stars used in school? well, they sell it in rolls in stationery. put a stripe across the top of the card, folded over the top. It show from behind or in front, or off to the side, in variable lighting. And someone can look from any position and see, the first 4 plates I carry to the table, one fish, one chicken, 1 veggie lasagna, 1 special diet. And can start giving out those in order at the table, ending with either checking their special order list, if given one ( Table 6 R Ray kosher S Ray Kosher L Silvers 1200 diabetic.) Or, pause at their turn to be served, and ask, Ms. Dean ( name on card lets you politely address them by name), what is your diet tonight, or meal tonight? And the next trip to the service tray, their food and the next 3 people.
with formal plated service, the goal is to have everyone at one table served one right after the other, all in 5 minutes or less, and to serve all tables in the room in 10 minutes if possible. Not serving by asking, who is having fish, and getting them Then veggie. Then chicken. and takes twice as long, and always singles out as last the special diets. Wonderful hostesses give a list to the caterer, Table 10
R Carter fishL Waxman kosherP Ringold fish no dairyof all 8 to 10 per table, all tables, that caterer's who ask fir this print fort the kitchen. While people are making speeches, Waitstaff is assembling side dishes, rolls, special tools like nutcrackers for lobster or condiments in small cups on trays or carts, for their assigned 2-3 tables. So when hot foot comes, they get the right number of each thing for the first table, serve, get hit foods for second, serve, etc. For a less formal plated service, a Quarter inch stripe of colored marker at top on each side works. Guests pick up cards as they enter, put in placecard holders or placecard clips in front of their chosen seats. If you write or print cards in a bold font, with the correct title, not necessarily their full formal name, But always title and surname, with first names optional, then waitstaff, bar or drink servers, anyone calling to deliver a message, can politely address the guest properlt all night

You can also give a list to your caterer in addition that tells how many of each choice at each table in addition to the color coding system.

Sorry. properly all night. And if you want the best service, it helps to to check a sample placecard. In a holder, from 8 feet or more, front or back, can you see the color strip? From 4 feet behind a seat at the table, can you read a name?
Many colorcode those underage for drinks, too.
Pictures really are silly at a formal table. But at a very casual or theme one, just make sure the sticker can be seen from across the table ( waitstation) and behind a seat, front and back of card. And use really different ones. If a pork chop and piece of steak, or lasagna and filet minon, look like reddish blobs from a distance, they are useless, and all your work leads to no more efficient service. Placecards are not only read by staff. Many people make a point of using the familiar first name people are called, Rich not Richard, Kenny for John Kenneth Burke, . And the title. So when the couple, or parents, or hosts, or family rarely seen comes to the table, they have a memory aid. Who is this person? Looks familiar. Ah, Cousin Jeffrey, Aunt Sandy's son, all grown up . And greet them familiarly. As though they remembered the name. Likely, from the guest list, Bride knows who groom's favorite teacher is. But a strange face, is she the widow Uncle John married? Waiting tables, so many times I hear hosts or the couple asking someone, who are these peoole again? And the other person says, I thought they were your family? And really, they are groom's father's friends. Or worse, their own family, 8 years older. So do it with an eye to providing yourself and others with their title and surname for strangers. And the first name they prefer to be called, in case you should know it and don't. Saves you, the couple, from introducing your new spouse, and saying, This is my Aunt Sofie, and her husband Uncle Thor. (Whoops he died two years ago, what is this new guy's name?). So unless you know everyone, it is a small crown, and you can remember all 250 names on your guest list after 3 drinks, don't just be formal, Mr. Baldwin, or familiar and friendly, Skipper. Give title, first that is preferred name, last if you can. Formal for use by waitstaff, and people who are introducing others. Friendly first name, not formal, to act like you remember who they are.

I am looking at basicinvite.com to get ours! I want them to be printed, and we are using a color coding system for meal choices. I chose a card with a design in the corners that I’m able to change the color of. These allow you to choose exactly what you want printed on each individual card and preview them all!

I bought a pack of Avery tent cards for about $10 and then printed the names on my home printer. I didn't have to do the labels, but you can buy different colored labels or even labels in the shape of a cow, a chicken, a fish, etc. I'm sure even taking some sharpies and drawing a circle in the corner using a color coded system can work.

I got mine from Michaels... a pack of 50 cards was $5, and I got 2 packs.

I just got plain, tented escort cards and wrote on them myself. Name on the front, table number under the flap (we didn't have to choose food in advance but if we did, I would've put that on the card too of course). Honestly it didn't take very long to write them out yourself, which is a good money saver if you have semi-decent handwriting lol. It took me well under an hour to write them all out, and we had 100 guests.

We also bought ours from Michael’s.


Tip: whichever dish is ordered the most on your RSVP card, make that the default/plain place card. Then it’s a lot less work to add stickers to the others.