Table Plans

Also another quick question- when should you finalise your table plan?

I'm not sure what we're doing yet, either our stationer will do the whole thing or she'll just do the individual tables and i'll stick it on a large photoframe. You can easily just print on card and make it yourself. I think (hope!) our venue have an easel for it

You can finalise your table plan when you know final numbers, a couple of weeks before. It's a last minute job really which I hate!

Touching on what Bill said, some venues have their own mirror that they use too so it's worth asking.

Is making it yourself going to be cost effective? I know someone who does them for about £35.

I made mine. I bought a mirror for about £12 and used the venue's easel. I printed onto adhesive acetate.

Oooh, I can help with this one!

Went into Dunelm Mill last week, completely unexpectedly, and found this in the half price sale (£9.99):

We're putting the names / tables in the vertical frames (designed and printed ourselves), and old-fashioned 'saucy' seaside postcards in the horizontal frames (our wedding theme is 'great British seaside'). Perfick! We're going to have ours sat on an old-skool deckchair instead of an easel.

You could prob make something similar if you bought a load of photo frames and attached them to a board. If you wanted more of a vintage-y feel you could use a mixture of different colour / style / shape photo frames, maybe which match the 'personality' of each of the tables? I like the idea of hanging them from strings from a frame.

Love this frame - did it come in any other colours??

They didn't have any other colours at the one I went to, but I've been reliably informed by others that they have neutral and blue too...worth having a look on the website?

http://www.dunelm-mill.com/shop/home-furnishings/photo-frames/multi-photo-frames/

I suppose you could always sand / paint it to another colour!

It's perfect for us, cos we're only having 6 tables and there are 6 vertical frames!

Thanks Skeptical78, will have a look!

I made mine for no cost at all. I got the mirror from my mum, googled images of frames (i think i found a website which had all these on) and printed them off (on paper), cut them out then printed the lists off and stuck the frames on top! My venue provided the easel.

we did ours probably 2 weeks before hand

I would start with the theme of your wedding, e.g. if you are having a country themed wedding then use that as the 'basis' of the idea for your table plan- we've seen lots of different ideas, including one wedding where the tables where each table on the plan appeared as the covers of 'books' that were meaningful to the bride or groom- there's a lot of scope to do something really different here- good luck!

Matt at Foden Photography

Agreed with Matt, start with what your theme is. If it's rustic, I like the string and pegged table cards idea. From my experience people have had boards printed that they just place onto an easel

I am getting married in April (5th) and I have made my own.

I hunted down the carpenter in work and scrounged from him an offcut of wood - he eventually gave me an old cupboard door.

I ordered a sheet of upholstery foam - 1/2 inch thick and covered the old cupboard door with it.

Then I bought some yellow gingham material from the material shop down the road and covered the cupboard door/upholstery foam with that. (Using a Staple Gun).

Then I printed off the table plans onto photographic card, mounted onto ivory coloured foam and stuck them all onto the cupboard door. In the corners of each "table" I have got a lovely little yellow bow, which I got from Ebay for about a quid.

The whole thing cost me under a fiver and it looks fabulous.

We printed ours at home and just stuck it on a canvas (not the best pic)

Thanks for some great ideas. This is one of those fiddly jobs that I am worrying about but really shouldnt. Its great to see what others have done.

I love the idea for the book themed plan. which is something we are already thinking of. We love the vintage, antiquey look,however our venue is quite elegant so want to be careful to make it look too shabby chic.

I have considered getting a big antique frame and putting a sheet of wrapping paper in as our background and sticking the table plans to that, behind the glass. When I say wrapping paper it might sound tacky but you can get wrapping paper that is almost like a poster.

anyway I am sure I will update you when I have done it. I am getting married in September (end of sept), I have plenty of time right?

We brought a gorgeous vintage mirror way back last year its huge and planned to hang it in the living room. however it never made its way to the wall as i decided i want it as my table plan first lol! We are writing straight onto ours with a chalk pen

here is how far ive got, im using stencils to write the table names but will free hand guest names

Oops error in my last post. I meant we want to be careful NOT to make it look too shabby chic.

I am liking the idea of a beautiful old frame and then putting the plan in the frame. That way the frame/mirror can be used again, and we wouldnt have to make it too elaborate as the frame would already be so pretty.

Our venue has a beautiful hallway with stunning mirrors so this would really add to the theme of the venue.

For me, it was the actual making/printing of the table plan that was bothering me. I have plenty of ideas going round my head!

Thats a really lovely and quite simple idea. We are planning to find an antique/vintagey style frame- we are lucky to have some great antique stores near us, and then into the frame we are going to place a poster(well actually its wrapping paper) and then stick the individual bits of paper/card onto the background. It sounds easy when talking about it now, hope it will be when it comes to it. I think the key is practising it before hand to know if it will work before you make the final thing.

Some lovely table plans on here!

Ours is going to look something like this: