What I am about to say may make me a bit of a cad, but here I we go all the same…. I am over the standard escort cards & more so the same basic ways they are being displayed! My feeling on this particular element of decor, as they are indeed a piece of decor themselves, is that they are often an after thought, something that can be printed out on a card and crudely displayed moving guests onto the next thing. 
While it is true, escort cards aren’t typically something that command attention, however what if you could step out side of the basic & deliver something that will be yet another element that can floor your guest, adding a killer weapon to your decor arsenal?
Literally the sky is the limit on how you can create the cards themselves, & more so how you will present them. You are limited only by yourself, so take the time to get inspired, find ideas that have worked for other people, take various elements & combine them. There are so many paper options, DIY treatments to paper to get a special look & feel, to using floral, twine, ribbon, even nature to display your cards! Whatever you do, make sure it stays true to your theme/feel and definitely shows who you are.
Now for some eye candy inspiration!
Elizabeth Anne Designs is a site that I have recently stumbled upon that features some really lovely ideas for all aspects of the wedding planning process. She has a great DIY Tutorial on the above gorgeous wine box moss bed escort cards displayed on Billy Balls. Simple, clean & very lovely!
If you have access to old window frames, with or without panes, they make for some pretty amazing display opportunities! Believe it or not, we actually went this route for our wedding, using large storm windows, painting the guest names & table numbers onto the window panes. (Thanks to my amazing artist cousin, Courtney Kessel!) If you have paneless windows, string some twine/bakers twine along them, using clothes pins to place your escort cards!
When you’re able to incorporate a bit of nature as an element into your wedding, you lend an organic richness that you might not otherwise be able to achieve. The above image, designed by Armstrong Handmade Papers, is a gorgeous representation of just that. This particular idea actually caught my eye for my own wedding, but I ultimately went the window frame route simply as a result of some self editing. I absolutely love the moss bed idea, & whats more the use of off shaped mushroom caps serving as the card holders is pure genius! The entire set up felt like a mini world that I might see in a movie & is sure to be a conversation piece!
With all things creative & crafty, one is hard pressed to ignore the master herself, Martha Martha Martha! As it turns out, Martha Stewart Weddings has a wonderful image gallery filled with over 50 different ideas for various ways to display your escort cards. While some still very much lean to the very traditional, there are some really great innovative ideas in there as well. Perhaps the best part, this isnt purely an image gallery! They actually link to DIY tutorials on how you yourself can make these lovelies into your reality!
**Update 2-7-2012
Thanks to the fab Two Birds Wedding Planners & their great pins on Pinterest, they pinned this below grand idea from Martha for yet another wonderful take on escort cards, this time…with some libations! Let’s get this party started shall we?!
