Escort cards, place cards, or neither?
Updated
Escort cards tell a guest which table to go to. Place cards, on the table itself, tell them which chair. A seating chart sign does the escort card's job for everyone at once. Most events need one way of finding a table, and only a formal dinner needs place cards as well.
Escort cards
An escort card has a guest's name on the front and their table on it or inside it. They are laid out on a table near the entrance in alphabetical order, and each guest picks up their own. They look lovely and double as a keepsake. The catch is the queue: a hundred guests arriving in ten minutes, all looking for their own card at the same small table, and the inevitable card that went missing.
Place cards
A place card sits at the setting itself and names the person in that chair. You only need them if you are assigning seats, not just tables. That is worth doing at a formal plated dinner, especially when the caterer has to know which guest ordered which meal or who has an allergy. Many caterers ask for a small mark on the place card for that reason. If guests choose their own chairs at their table, skip them.
A seating chart sign instead
One large sign by the door listing every guest and their table does the escort card's job with no queue. Sort it by surname, not by table, because a guest is looking for their own name, not reading through Table 7 to see if they are on it. Set it at eye level, with enough space in front of it for a crowd. For more than about 150 guests, split it across two signs, A to L and M to Z.
Or a QR code
A QR code at the door lets every guest look up their own table on their phone at the same moment, with no crowd at the sign. The planner makes one from your chart: guests type their name and see their table, their seat if you assigned one, and a map of the room. Because the code points to the chart as it is now, a guest you move the night before goes to the right table. Keep a printed guest list at the door as well for anyone without a phone.
Make the cards from your chart
Whatever you choose, make it from the finished chart and nothing else, so the cards, the sign and the caterer's list can never disagree. The planner prints a guest list sorted by surname for the door and a roster for each table with the dietary notes beside each name, and it exports the whole chart to Excel if your stationer wants a spreadsheet to print from.