Escort Cards??

Yes, people typically know to take the card with them. That's one of the positives of the escort card instead of a seating chart: instead of crowding around a large sign and hoping you don't forget the table as soon as you walk away, you just grab and go and then you can save your seat at the table with it.

We’re doing both escort cards for guests to take at the welcome table and place cards at the table (in case some forget to take their escort cards). This is just because weddings are not something common in my family the last one was in 1996 and I was the flower girl (also was the last wedding I attended). So everyone is kind of learning what goes on at a wedding through my planning. So we are doing both and having extra signage to help our guests navigate. I guess it depends on your guests and if they are privy to the ins and outs of weddings.

People generally know to pick them up or you can have a sign that lets them know. You only need one per person. You can find solid colors of card stock tent cards on Etsy that all you have to is add the names and table assignments. Each entree option would be a different color card stock so the wait staff can spot it from a distance rather than a tiny symbol.

Another advantage is they are easy to read instead of large charts, less traffic jams and no worries about forgetting where to go.

Hi Margaret! We did the same for our wedding with escort cards. To keep the process as simple as possible, if the card had no symbol at all, that meant it was our chicken & beef option (most popular), if the card had a “V” discretely in the corner that was the vegetarian option, and a ⭐️ symbol meant there was an allergy.
Here is a picture of our escort card table (we had a coastal theme). In a perfect world, I would’ve loved to have the names printed, but due to a time crunch, we hand wrote the names, their table and symbol.
Instead of numbers for each table, we did island names and we had a layout of the tables in a frame. We also had frames with the table name at each table (since we were outdoors the frames were heavy enough to not blow away!). I put a photo of one of the tables “Rose Island”. Hope this helps ❤️❤️❤️

Most people will know to pick them up! If not, you could always do some cute signage like "grab a card and take a seat" (maybe not that bland, but you get the idea!).

We're doing ours as 2-in-1. Our escort cards will also be the guests' favors. It'll be a potted succulent! The "plant tag" will have the guest's name and table number!

For daughter's wedding, they used escort cards and, yes, guests knew to pick them up. We had two tables for parents & their guests, but there is/was a LOT of animosity between our SIL's divorced mom and dad, so we seated her & her sister with us and our friends (MOB & FOB). Based on SIL's concerns, we specifically wanted MOG to sit with her back to her ex-husband's table.... Because of that, we also had place cards for just the two parents' tables, so that his mom and dad ended up seated in positions that would, hopefully, reduce drama.... (It worked till MOG ran into FOG's date in the ladies room and reportedly "punched her"...luckily, the B&G didn't hear about it until after the wedding....) Unless you have anticipated "special situations" I wouldn't worry about place cards; as long as guests know what table they are assigned to, they'll figure out the rest! Good luck!

If you place the escort cards at the entry way of the reception, people will know to grab their card and take it to their table.

Our venue has a table outside the door to put the seating cards of its right in view people will see and take their cards.