Place cards that already know who sits where.
You spent weeks deciding who sits at Table 7. Typing those same 120 names into a card template, one text box at a time, is where a cousin ends up at the wrong table. Seat the Day prints your place cards and escort cards from the seating chart itself: name, table and meal, laid out for Avery card stock.
✓ From your seating chart ✓ PDF for Avery card stock ✓ Included when you unlock a wedding
The chart is right. The cards are a copy of it.
Every card is a second copy of a decision you already made. Copy 120 names and table numbers by hand into a design tool and you have 120 chances to get one wrong, and no way to tell which one you did.
Then somebody RSVPs late, and two people swap tables. The chart is easy to change. The cards have to be found, fixed and reprinted, and the meal on each one has to still match what the kitchen was told.
Printing from the chart means there is only ever one version: the one you finished.
Three choices, then print it
Open Print on your seating chart and choose Place & escort cards. Everything on the cards is read from the chart and the guest list behind it.
Pick your card stock
Avery 5302 tent cards or 5371/8371 flat cards on US Letter, or Avery C32011 on A4. Tent cards print the name on both sides, so it reads from across the table.
Choose what goes on each card
Names only. Names and table, for a buffet. Names, table and meal, for plated service. Or names and meal, when the escort card has already done the finding.
Choose a font and an order
Classic, script or modern, previewed on your own guests’ names. Order by table and seat to lay them out, or alphabetically by surname for an escort card table.
The server reads the card. The kitchen reads the same key.
On the Catering tab, give each meal an icon: a simple shape, or a cow, a chicken, a fish, a leaf. The same icon prints on the place cards, the caterer’s sheets and the day-of seating chart, so everyone serving dinner uses one key.
| Meal | Guests |
|---|---|
| Chicken | 31 |
| Fish | 19 |
| Beef | 12 |
| Vegetarian | 9 |
Icon, name, or both
Print the meal as its name, as its icon, or both. Icon-only keeps the menu off the guest’s own card, and the PDF ends with a meal key page you hand to the catering team.
No setup needed
A meal you never choose an icon for gets a shape of its own automatically. Choosing one for the fish never changes the icon on the chicken, so cards you have already printed stay right.
Three spellings of chicken is still one meal
Chicken, chicken and CHICKEN share one icon and print with one spelling, the same one the caterer’s counts use.
Three ways to write a name
The table and meal stay in a plain face in every style. Zoë, Łukasz and Nguyễn print as typed.
Two things worth knowing
Print one test sheet first
The PDF is laid out to Avery’s measurements, but printers feed card differently. Print one sheet on plain paper at actual size, hold it against the card stock, and then print the rest.
Missing details are flagged, not hidden
Guests with no meal choice yet still get a card, without a meal on it, and you see their names before you download. If the table is on the card, anyone not seated yet is listed rather than printed with a blank table.
Part of unlocking a wedding
Place and escort cards come with unlocking a wedding — a one-time $14 that also adds the catering plan, the shot list and the Who’s Who face sheet, invites for your partner and planner, and lifts the five-table limit. The guest list and seating chart are free, so your names and tables are already in place when you unlock. See pricing →
Answered
What is the difference between place cards and escort cards?
Which card stock does it print on?
Can I put the meal choice on the card?
What happens if some guests have not chosen a meal yet?
Are place cards included in the free plan?
Read more
Deciding which cards you need, and when to print them.
- Escort cards vs place cardsWhich one your wedding needs, and when it needs both.
- How to make place cards and escort cardsFormat, wording, layout and print timing.
- Escort cards vs a seating chartCards at the door, or one big sign.
- The catering planWhere the meal icons are chosen, and the counts the kitchen cooks to.
It starts with your guest list
Build the list once. The seating chart, the place cards, the catering plan, the shot list and Who’s Who all read from it.
Free to start. Place and escort cards come with a one-time $14 unlock.