Hostess for Reception

We didn’t have any one who didn’t RSVP show up, thank goodness. I just did a large seating plan - got a sheet of cardboard from Staples, then printed the seating plan at work on A3 paper and stuck it onto the cardboard, then put a pretty border around it. It looked fine and cost about $5. Guest numbers will play into it though - we had 75. More than about 100-125 and it might have been trickier.

Our DOC has 2 assistants, and one of the things I asked them to do is speed up the seating/help guests find their tables if the line got too long. We'll be having a lot of people there, so the line for people coming in could get long.

Edit: I thought the price was going to be ridiculous too, but I found Nation's Photo Lab (reputable, I've order prints from them before) has poster prints for much more reasonable than say, Kinko's or the UPS store. Just a thought, if you could design it yourself.

We did escorts cards, and printed them ourselves. We bought the blank cards pretty cheap off amazon, it worked out. We didn't have anyone show up who did not rsvp, but we did have no shows. I imagine it would even out.

Escort cards and table numbers will solve this issue!

Thanks everyone! I didn't think of escort cards. Seems like an easy thing to organize and help avoid a line forming. The decorator will be numbering all the tables too. We are having 90 guests.

I'll still look into diy a board myself if time allows.

Sheets of escort cards can be bought cheaply and run through your computer.

We didn't have a hostess or DOC. We had venue employees - banquet manager and she had 2 assistants; there was also a dining room captain and 2 servers assigned to each pair of tables. They all had nametags. WE numbered the tables and they were in numerical order. Seating was no problem - 225 guests.

Thanks everyone!

Do place cards, assign tables (not specific seats) and maybe have a chart that shows them where their tables are located. Having a person escort them to their tables is going to take forever and create the bottleneck from hell.

How is hiring a host/hostess cheaper than doing table assignments? I'm confused.

@Elizabeth- the hostess would be a family member so I would not have to spend extra money for them to do it. If I have the reception hall employees do the hosting for the tables, it would be an extra charge. I have a DOC but it is only for the ceremony.

The decorator I hired is doing the table numbers but to make escort cards or a board for the seating will all be extra charges. I was not aware of this all be separate services or else I would have did it all sooner but now we are a week out and I can't see myself spending $200 plus to have this done. After all your suggestions, it may be something I can do myself for less than $50 if that.

You don't need to spend 200.00 on escort cards. Buy them. Write them. Ten bucks.