place card tables! This area of your wedding is often over looked by most brides. It is one of my favorite areas of a wedding, you can can have fun, be creative and show your personal uniqueness of you, the bride and groom as a couple.
Depending on ones budget, the sky is the limit. Most brides these days are still conservative especially in this area, it is a table your guest will only be at for a about 10 min to linger, look for their name and move on.
Lets start with typical place cars, Tent cards, folded in alphabetical order on the table. Word for the wise is you can put your names on the card by couple or family. You can imagine if your guest count is 200 plus, you end up with a lot of cards on the table it looks squished or even worse you run out of room. Also most couples assign them to table, not by chair. Save your self even more of a headache and assign them to just the table.
Below is a picture of a typical place card table.
Nice florals in the middle with the cards all lined up.
Suggestion for linning them up to, start in the middle and work out, that way its even on both sides, or expect it to take about a hour to line then up. Its a pet peeve of mine to see the cards laid out then, empty on the right side... and also your coordinator is the one to lay out your place cards. If we are all done with setting up your florals and I see the cards are looking "off" I'lll jump in and make sure they are nice, even and strait. :)
The photo below is florals form Green Leaf Designs is $50.00
Table's for place cards -rectangle 6 foot tables are standard, or you can use a round like this picture.
Flowers in the center and cards laid out in a sun burst pattern. This I like a lot, you don't see it too often. I like it because your guest can walk all the way around the table, and not be crammed trying to find their names. Florals on this round table from us is $120.00
Now on to more unique fun place cards designs :)
This past year we have done a lot of work with CCL Wedding and special Events. What a wonderful coordinator to work with!
Working with Catherine the owner and creator of CCL, she came up with some fun idea for displaying cards. Like the picture to the left. We did a square arch, or structure with fabric curtain style. A chandelier was hung in the middle with strands of crystals flanking with the place card for each guest attached down the stands of crystals. It was pretty and different, Really fun to do! 
Another design with CCL is this again an arch fabric curtain style chandelier again, but this time you can see the names were on paster board and in frames on easels. Wow, so simple and so stunning! I LOVED this one! Both of these designs run in the $200.00 price range.
Below is a manzanita branch display. The place cards were broken up into 3 groups to hang from the branches. We placed frames in front of each pieces breaking down the alphabet for guest to find their names faster. Like A-H I-Q R-Z. Loved the skeleton key attached to the card. This couple did use one card per couple and used a gem to indicate their meal. youk now beef, chicken, what not. :)
Another CCL design. We had nothing to do with this one, but we added florals around her lanterns.
It was so cute I had to share! 2 old rustic ladders, string and attached the cards with small cloths lines pins, and viola! Super cute rustic place card display, now go rummage threw grandpas garage and find some ladders, who else know what you can find in there! And remember Green Leaf Designs likes to barter! You might also find old window panes in there too. Use a sharpie to write your guests names on, really cute and rustic. ours go for $20.00 each and if we are not using them you can take ours to write on 2 weeks before the wedding. 
Having a beach wedding? Use our place cars box, it fits perfectly on a 6 foot table. We will fill it with sand, drift wood, cylinders floating candles and florals to match your wedding, and you have an instant beachey feel for your place cards. $75.00
Simple and pretty petals down the rows of place cards. $30.00. So simple but I still love this older idea. Who doesn't love a bed a red romantic rose petals? This couple had their wedding at Rancho Las Lomas. For those of you that don't know its a very upscale venue with their own zoo for your guest to walk and amongst. They had their invitation maker make and match the pace cards to the animals there at Rancho Las Lomas. Really cute idea!
So now you can see some traditional, and non traditional ideas for your place cards. Don't forget this table, it can be as a low as $30.00 or up to $200plus. So many ideas, so much can be done. Im always looking for new fun way to show off the cards too. Keep your eyes open too, who knows where you can get inspiration from!
