A very functional little project

I was trying to think up stuff I can do during this lull in wedding planning. You know, the time where most big things are booked, but it's too early to actually start DOing anything (like seating charts or weekend itineraries or getting OOT bags together). I decided working on some paper designing that I had planned to DIY might be appropriate... which lead me to the wonderful world of escort cards.

Our caterer has asked that we designate on their escort cards what meal people chose (from our three options) or have specifically assigned seating. I was planning on assigning tables, not seats, so I wanted to try "color coding" their name to their order. I like the ideas of different colored grapes and found some various colored clip art from Microsoft online. (Classy, I know. But free, I dig that part.)

Into powerpoint I go, making little boxes 1x4" and inserting grapes & color coordinated names. I printed them out on cream cardstock, scored the top fold and it looked ok. Not great. Ok. (We're debating between the very creative "Table One" "Table Two" or the more cutesy "Cities that were important to us" for the table numbering. That's why Bridget's tag says Boston.)

Not loving this attempt, I headed onto the internet for inspiration. Our wedding is at a winery and the only alcohol we're serving is wine... glass labels/tags of some sort would be cute, no?

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Veryyyy cute. You could write/print the names on these tags and have the guests slip them on the wine stem, but the labeling-the-meal-choice isn't as obvious. And blue's not one of our colors.

This got me thinking though... wine charms! You could print the names onto a card (like the ones created by the Creative Memories tool, below) and attach it to the charm. Extra little favor! Bonus!

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They range from $5.99 for 6 for the Art Glass ones above to $15 for 6 for the pewter ones. Pretty reasonable actually. Except of course, I like the expensive ones better and was progressively feeling like the $6 ones looked cheap. And then, Michaels came to the rescue... DIY charms!

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Sorry for the poor quality, this is a blown up section of the image. But they have easy to follow DIY grape wine charm instructions on the webpage! Ok, so maaaybe they sound a little detailed, but it might be just the thing to keep my hands, and DIY/planning spirit, busy. I haven't gone to price check the components, but am pretty excited do that soon.

What projects have developed into something unexpected that is WAY better than your first thoughts?