If you are doing a big event, you are going to need to seat people. But why settle for an ordinary tent card, when you can have something fabulous and fun? If it’s possible why not match your seating cards to your theme? Here’s a couple suggestions for you to ponder -- hopefully they will get your creative juices flowing...!

Football theme
This was super cute, and we had a fun time doing it. My team and I made a miniature football field on which we hung little squares of astroturf. Each name card was attached to the astroturf and had the image of a team football helmet. The football helmet corresponded to their table, as each table bore the insignia of a different team.

Baseball
This was a fun idea: the Bar Mitzvah boy was a huge baseball fan, and so, in the style of the theme above, each table had a different team pennant. To seat the guests we created a ticket kiosk, where each person received their own ticket. The thing I liked best about the tickets was that each one bore the image of the Bar Mitzvah boy in different baseball pose, since he was actually a serious player.

Fashion
This may be one of my favorites. It was actually done for an 8th grade father-daughter dinner dance. We took photos from each person (yes, it was a bit of a trick to do!) and placed their heads on high fashion paper doll bodies. We used them at the actual tables, which meant that guests had to walk around the room looking at all the fashions to find their seat. It was great fun, and gave the whole evening a fashion show feel.

Chocolate
This was so labor intensive I don’t even want to mention it… but it was also suuuuper cute! Each table was decorated with a beautiful container filled with the Bat Mitzvah gal’s favorite chocolate confections. To usher guests to their seats, I literally recreated 13 different chocolate bar labels. Where the name of the candy would have appeared, I placed the guests name (in the matching font, no less). The effect was adorable... Still, I wouldn’t recommend it, as it took me two weeks to do! I also had another client do a similar thing with a “breakfast for dinner” theme, and we used cereal boxes as place cards. However, in that case, the client opted just to put a label with the table number and name on the mini box of cereal instead of having me recreate each label. Another client did this with animal crackers.

Shoes
I loved this one; again, it was labor intensive, and goodness knows if you can even get these resin shoes anymore, but I took resin shoes, inserted a card holder in each one, and attached a standard table card. The effect was really cute, and everyone kept their shoes.

Glow-light bracelets
Neon was the theme, and so each person received a bracelet with a neon light stick attached. The kids ended up trading all night long to see who could get the most “glow on” by the end of the evening. It was cute, and since it was the Mitzvah kid’s idea, even more charming.

Tambourines
This was actually a very sweet idea, as the young lady was a dancer, and her Torah portion was all about dancing with tambourines. The client and her daughter conceived of using little tambourines as the seating cards. To display the tambourines, we created simple stands made from strips of one-inch wood with golf tees mounted every four inches. The golf tees allowed for the tambourines to sit at the perfect angle for the guests to see their names. The best part was when the Bat Mitzvah gal made her entrance, everyone shook their tambourines. It was quite magical.

Seating cards with charms
This was a simple idea that came from necessity. The waiters needed to know who had chosen meat, fish, and vegetarian dishes at each table. To make the process easier for the staff, we attached cute little charms to every seating card. The charms were a huge hit with the guests who liked them so much that they actually kept their cards instead of disposing of them. The charms matched the decor elements perfectly, so that everything blended together beautifully, and the seating cards actually became part of the table decor.

The ideas are endless, really, which is what makes creative party planning so much fun. I remember one Mitzvah (which sadly I don’t have pictures to share!) where we did centerpieces based on artwork created by the Mitzvah girl from age 2 to 13. Each person received a tiny little replica of the artwork on an itty bitty wooden easel. It was a great way to celebrate this young woman’s life in art as well as her entering adulthood.