How Big Should Wedding Place Cards Be?

Of all the tiny details you have to think of for your wedding, place cards are one of the tiniest! But what size place card looks best? And can you buy smaller wedding place cards to save a little on your wedding expenses?

How big should wedding place cards be?

On average, they’re a little larger than business cards at 10cm by 6cm. Flat cards are the same size on each side of the fold. Any bigger and they look unusual, and any smaller, your guests can’t see them. But size doesn’t matter: it’s printing that determines how much wedding place cards cost, anyway.

Another reason to keep your cards at this average size is that that’s how big most templates are. You may struggle to get a template to fit a larger card correctly; or, if there are larger templates available, there may not be as many.

What Are Wedding Place Cards?

If you’ve been to a wedding before, you’ve likely encountered place cards before. Their name is descriptive: they show which place at the table a guest is sitting at. The place card has the person’s name on it, and perhaps a small design to make it pretty.
Like all things wedding-related, they come in all sorts of designs and colours. This helps you match the place cards to your wedding theme.

Do I Need Wedding Place Cards at My Wedding?

Wedding place cards aren’t strictly necessary at a wedding; at least, not these days. There’s no hard and fast rule of etiquette dictating that they have to be used.
That being said, they make the organisation of your wedding easier. If you have assigned seating at your reception, then you’ll need a way of seating your guests in the right place. Place cards are the easiest way to do this: people may expect them from previous weddings, and will certainly understand them.

If you’re dead-set against place cards, there are other ways you can show people to their seats. A seating chart is the best way of doing that. It’s a large list or diagram placed on an easel or hung on the wall. It lists who’s on each table, and who they’re sat next to.

How Big Are Wedding Place Cards?

Wedding place cards aren’t big. They’re somewhere around the size of a large business card. 10cm by 6cm isn’t unusual (although a folded card would, overall, be 10cm by 12cm). This is the size that you’ll see available from most designers/sites with templates.

They’re designed to sit unobtrusively in front of a diner’s chair, along with everything else that’s needed for the place to be fully laid up (plate, cutlery, and so on). So, they can’t be that big. But they also shouldn’t be too small: otherwise your guests won’t see them!

There’s no need to play around with the size of your place cards too much. If they’re too big or too small it would look odd more than anything else. There’s also plenty of room for a design on them already, underneath and around the name. So not only would it look strange to play with the size of the card, but it wouldn’t add anything if you made it bigger anyway.

What Types of Place Card Should I Get?

There are two kinds of place card that people commonly use. These are the flat place card, and the tent place card. Flat cards are flat pieces of card that look like business cards. They lie flat on the table.

Tent cards stand up so that they’re easier to see. They’re folded along the middle so that they look like a tent from the side.

Flat cards are smaller than tent cards. That’s because to make a tent card, you have to fold them in half. So, they’re twice as tall before they’re folded. But this doesn’t translate into a bigger footprint, because they stand up. They’re usually the same price, unless they have more things printed on them.

Alternatively, you could make your own place cards by hand or with a printable template.

How Big Can a Wedding Place Card Be?

A place card could, theoretically, be as big as you want it to be! But because your card has to share the table space with plates, cutlery and glasses, they can’t be too big. Around 15cm by 9cm would be the biggest size that would look normal. This is 50% bigger than your average card, so it would mean that you could make the name much bigger, which would help your guests find their tables.

How Small Can a Wedding Place Card Be?

A wedding card must be visible to your guests. Otherwise, it isn’t serving its purpose. In truth, the size of a business card is roughly the smallest it can be already.
You could make the card a little smaller, and make the font bigger at the same time. But if you’re thinking this will save you a little on your wedding costs, unfortunately, it wouldn’t. That’s because you pay for the printing more than the cost of the card.

Can You Make Your Own Seating Cards?

Seating cards are perhaps the easiest thing you can make for your own wedding. All they are, are small cards with a name on them! If you like, the card can incorporate a design, but it doesn’t have to.

To make your own seating cards, all you’ll need are some cards and something to write with. You can pick a card of any colour that you like, and any kind of pens or pencils that you like, too. It might pay to learn a little calligraphy or print off some stencils to copy from, but this would take a long time when you’re already busy.

Alternatively, you could get your cards professionally done by a calligrapher (somebody who has excellent handwriting, and writes things for a living). But here, you’re at the mercy of the skill of the calligrapher. Somebody affordable is also likely to not be very good!
But if you want to create your own cards—with your own colour scheme, your own designs, and of course, the names of all your guests—you don’t have to break the bank. You can buy personalised place cards for little more than regular cards, if you know where to look…

Where to Buy Wedding Place Cards

At Bride & Groom Direct, we have been printing place cards and wedding stationery for almost three decades. As part of the CCA Occasions group, we have traded in personalised stationery for more than a century. All that is to say that we know what we’re doing—so our online shop is the perfect place for you to find your perfect wedding place cards!

We have over a hundred different varieties available in lots of different themes, including: 

• Contemporary
• Rustic
• Traditional
• Vintage
• Watercolour
• Butterfly
• Hearts
• Shabby Chic
• Floral
• Ribbons
• Funny
• Bunting

Many of our place cards come in lots of different colours, so that you can match your place cards to the overall colour theme of your wedding. Some have tiny ribbons or strings attached so that you can tie them to wine glasses or cutlery. And every single one can be personalised with the names of each of your guests!

Besides wedding place cards, Bride & Groom Direct offer every piece of wedding stationery you might need, from RSVPs to Thank You cards. So, why not check