Fresh Takes: Your Seating Chart

Wedding seating chart ideas have gotten so creative over the years. Yes, the traditional escort card tables with calligraphed name cards and a stunning floral design are still the norm. But I love how couples have started to more commonly abandon tradition to infuse their personalities in creative seating charts. Here are some the more memorable seating charts we’ve seen from clients:

Surfboards

The bride and groom got married at The Reeds in Stone Harbor, New Jersey. They wanted to bring the beach to the bay and used surfboards as the “shelving” units for bottles Corona beer outfitted with beach tags with individual names and table numbers. Add some florals to the base of the boards and perfection was made.

Photo credit: MLE Pictures, Event Planning: LoveHaus Events

Matchbooks

The bride has a matchbook collection from all of the favorite places she has been. The groom, knowing that she had this collection, asked her out on a date on the back of a matchbook. Naturally, they needed to incorporate matches into their special day. Their seating chart had hand-painted watercolor pictures of the bride’s favorite matchbooks. On the shelving units, were corked glass bottles filled with wooden matches with name tags with an imprint of a matchbook. The seating chart was titled “Let Us Match You To Your Seat.” Brilliant.

Photo credit: Emily Wren Photography, Event Planning: All About Events PHL

Bud Vases

Winterthur in Wilmington DE is the perfect garden setting for a wedding. To bring that garden-y feel to the wedding, the reception tablescapes featured very wispy floral arrangements with locally grown flowers. To add to the vibe, guests were greeted at the reception entrance by a three-sectioned shelving unit that the bride and groom’s family built. The seating chart was labeled as “Our Best Buds” and contained clear, mismatched bud vases with the guest’s name and table number on the tags. Each vase was filled with farm fresh flowers that the guests got to take home at the end of the night.

Canoe and Mirrored Seating Chart

Hotel du Pont is an iconic wedding venue with an old-world feel. The sporty bride wanted to bring in her and her groom’s favorite activity – canoeing. In fact, their first date was on a canoe! So, we decided to bring in an antique canoe to the entrance to the reception and fill it with florals which were designed to make it look like the canoe was going fast. Then, a beautiful 7-foot-high gilded mirror was calligraphed with “Find Your Waters”. Each table number was listed as a body of water that the bride and groom had canoed so that some guests were sitting at the Schuylkill River, for instance. So creative!