Escort Cards vs Place Cards vs Seating Charts

These three terms get used interchangeably, including by suppliers who should know better. They're three different objects doing three different jobs, and knowing which is which saves you from ordering the wrong thing.

The short version

A seating chart shows the whole room. It lives at the entrance or with the venue.

An escort card tells one guest which table they're at. It's collected at the entrance.

A place card tells one guest which seat they're in. It's already on the table when they arrive.

Guests find their table at the door and their seat at the table. Every decision below follows from that.

Seating charts

A single display, usually a large printed board or framed sign, listing everyone by table. Guests read it once on the way in.

Two ways to organise it, and the choice matters more than people expect.

By table looks better and photographs well. Table 1, then its guests, then Table 2, and so on. But guests have to scan every table to find their own name, which creates a queue at the door.

Alphabetically by surname is uglier and faster. Someone finds their name in seconds and moves on.

For under about 80 guests, by table is fine. Above that, alphabetical will keep your entrance clear. If you want both, some couples do an alphabetical list at the door and a by-table chart displayed elsewhere as decoration.

Escort cards

Small individual cards, one per guest or per couple, laid out alphabetically on a table at the entrance. Each says a name and a table number. The guest picks up theirs and carries it in.

Escort cards do the same job as a seating chart, so you don't need both. They cost more and take longer to lay out, but they scale better than a single board, they never create a bottleneck, and they give you a lot of room to be interesting. They can be tied to a favour, pegged on a line, tucked into a plant.

Worth knowing: escort cards go out alphabetically by surname, not by table. Every so often someone lays them out by table and creates exactly the queue they were trying to avoid.

Place cards

A card at each individual place setting with one guest's name on it. These assign specific seats, not just tables.

You need them only if you're assigning seats. Plenty of weddings assign tables and let people choose their own chair, which is less work and less risk.

Assign seats when you have a formal dinner with a set menu, a top table, guests who need to be positioned carefully, or a caterer who needs to know who ordered what. Skip them for a buffet, a relaxed reception, or a small wedding where everyone knows each other.

If your caterer needs to match meals to guests, place cards are usually the mechanism, often with a discreet mark or icon indicating the choice.

What most weddings actually need

Under 50 guests: no chart, no escort cards. Place cards only if you're assigning seats.

50 to 100: a seating chart or escort cards, plus place cards if it's a seated dinner.

Over 100: escort cards or an alphabetical chart, and place cards if there's a set menu.

You will almost never need a seating chart and escort cards both.

Getting them to match

The reason these usually look mismatched is that they're made in different places at different times: the chart from a template, the place cards from a stationer, the escort cards handwritten the night before.

If they're generated from the same guest list in the same style, they match automatically, and they match the rest of your stationery. That's most of the difference between looking planned and looking assembled.

The Seating Room exports all three from one plan, in one style, as print-ready PDFs. Choose from four designs, and change your mind after you've seated everyone if you want to.