How to Create Wedding Place Cards (With Free Templates)

A place card is the printed name at each setting. It is not a menu, not a table number, and not a second invitation. Its job is simple: show the guest their name, in a typeface and colour that matches the rest of the room.

On the day, place cards help with three things:

• Seating — guests find their chair without asking the planner or the couple
• Spelling — long names, accents and hyphenated surnames are visible before anyone is rushed
• Tone — the table looks considered, even if the meal is buffet or family-style

If you already assigned seats in a seating plan, the card is the physical version of that assignment. If guests choose their own seats, you may not need printed cards at all — though many couples still print them for a formal dinner.

These three pieces are often confused. They solve different problems and you do not always need all of them.

Print after the guest list is stable and, if you are assigning seats, after the seating plan is approved. Names that change on the RSVP after you export will need a reprint — or a handwritten correction on the day.

A practical timeline:

• Collect RSVPs and dietary notes on the digital invitation
• Import or confirm the final guest list
• Build the seating plan when you know who is coming
• Choose the place card design and export once spellings are locked
• Print a proof, then the full run one to two weeks before the wedding

If you expect late confirmations, order a few blank extras from the printer or keep the PDF so you can print two or three more names without redoing the whole set.

The Wedy place cards work differently from “generate 100 AI images”. You choose one professionally prepared background design, set the font and colour, and the product renders every guest name with real typography on that artwork — accurate spelling, consistent sizing, ready to print.

That matters because guest names are not predictable. A model that invents a new image per guest can misspell an accent, shrink a long surname, or add decoration you did not ask for. Rendering names on a fixed background keeps the room visually consistent and the names literal.

The collection currently includes nine landscape designs — florals, minimal borders, stripes and classic serif layouts — shown on the public place cards page. All are included once you have a Wedy wedding plan (Wedding Invitation, Wedding Planning Suite or Wedding Atelier).

Pick the template the way you picked the invitation: by the room, not by the prettiest thumbnail. A heavy floral card in a minimal glass pavilion will feel loud. A stark modern border in a candlelit ballroom may look underdressed.

A simple decision path:

• Match the invitation palette — cream, navy, sage or gold should echo, not clash
• Match the meal — script suits a long lunch; caps serif suits a formal dinner
• Test one long name and one short name in the preview before you export
• Stay with one design for every guest — mixed cards look like a printing mistake

If the invitation and menu are already in The Wedy, open them beside the place card picker. The goal is stationery that looks like it came from the same table, not three different Pinterest boards.

After you choose a background, the workspace lets you set the typography without redesigning the card. There are twenty font options — serifs, scripts and clean sans-serifs — plus a colour picker and a size slider.

You also choose the physical format:

• Flat — artwork at its original height, ready to lay on the plate or slip into a holder
• Folded — double height with a blank upper half, so the name sits on the lower panel when the card stands

Default print size is 3.5 × 2 inches in landscape — a standard place card proportion. The PDF export tiles cards onto A4 with light crop marks so a home printer or stationery shop can run the full list.

Place cards in The Wedy pull names directly from the wedding guest list — the same list you use for RSVPs and seating. When you export, the product creates one file per guest, sorted alphabetically, with no manual copy-paste down a spreadsheet.

That connection is the main reason to generate cards inside the planning workspace rather than in a generic design tool. Change a spelling on the guest list, export again, and only that card changes. Your seating plan and printed names stay aligned.

Exports support up to 500 guests per wedding. Large lists may take a minute to prepare — the ZIP bundles individual PNGs; the PDF lays out multiple cards per page for batch printing.

Two export formats cover most weddings. Use the one your printer asks for.

Place cards fail in small ways: wrong paper weight, names too small to read from standing height, or cards placed where the caterer clears them with the starter. Solve those before the wedding week.

Once RSVPs are in and spellings are confirmed, the production step is short.

Lock the guest list first. Choose one design that matches the invitation and room. Set font and colour once. Export when spellings are final. Print a proof. Place cards should make seating effortless — not introduce a new spreadsheet the week of the wedding.