Printing for corporate dinners and awards in London

A dinner has one fixed hour and one list that keeps changing: the guest list. The table plan, the place cards and the table numbers all depend on it, and the menus and invitations have to match them in type and colour. Printing for a corporate dinner in London works best as a single job built on the guest list — when a name changes, the cards and the plan are re-run from the corrected list rather than redrawn. Our London print shop produces round the clock, so the evening of the event sets the deadline, and this page maps the pieces of the set to the pages that carry their detail.

What does a corporate dinner or awards evening need printed?

Most dinners need five or six printed pieces, and each has its own service page with sizes, stocks and file rules. The table below is a map of the set.

How do guest names get onto the place cards and the table plan?

Guest names are supplied as a spreadsheet and set into the template in a single run, exactly as written, accents included — one column of full names, or First Name and Surname in two columns, in Excel or CSV. Names are set from the list you approve, and spelling and accents are checked on the proof. For the table plan the same rule applies one level up: the seating list goes in as a spreadsheet with one row per table, not as artwork, so a late change is a re-run rather than a redraw.

A guest list is rarely clean on the first pass. In a mail-merge place card job there were two faults in the guest list, and both were caught at proof — which is the reason to send the spreadsheet early and to check the proof against it, rather than to retype names into artwork. Place cards and table numbers are printed as one job so the type matches across both.

How fast can place cards, menus and a table plan be produced?

Place cards ordered with the guest list and payment by 21:00 are produced overnight, without foil or lamination, for delivery before 9am, subject to that night’s capacity; menus, invitations and table plans are same-day products, subject to capacity, with the ready time confirmed at quotation. The overnight route has one condition: urgent overnight place cards are printed on 250–450 gsm card without foil or lamination, and those finishes are for jobs with a longer lead time.

Evidence from our own jobs: forty folded menus for a Super Bowl Sunday at a Marylebone restaurant were asked for at 13:09 on the day, a physical sample was printed and approved by 14:03, and the run left that afternoon; a 150 × 60 cm table runner for an event in W2 was quoted in fifteen minutes, paid the same afternoon and delivered a day before the deadline; and two A1 boards for a City reception were approved at 12:20 on a Wednesday and delivered that afternoon. For venues in Marylebone, Paddington and the City of London the courier run is the same kind of job; how the work reaches you is set out in how printed work reaches you in London.

Which stock and finish suit a dinner?

A tent-fold place card is normally 350 gsm, because it holds the crease and stands up firmly on the table; 250 gsm suits flat cards, and 400 or 450 gsm is for jobs that need more weight in the hand. The weight is a decision about how the card feels. Gold and foil-effect edges work best on 400 or 450 gsm, where the extra thickness holds the finish, and laminating suits cards that are handled repeatedly through a long event.

Menus are chosen by how they are used: a folded A4-to-A5 menu is the usual format, a tent fold stands without a holder on a crowded table, and laminated, waterproof or tear-proof finishes survive a service rather than a single evening. The table plan is matt as standard, which keeps it readable under venue spotlights; gloss is available on request. The detail for each piece sits on its own page.

What does a dinner order need before it is quoted?

The quotation comes back faster when the first message already holds the number of guests, the number of tables, the spreadsheet and the hour the set has to be in the room.

• The guest list as a spreadsheet — spelling and accents exactly as they should print, one row per guest for the cards and one row per table for the plan. For a first quotation the number of guests and tables is enough; the names themselves are needed for the print.
• How many guests and how many tables — that helps us recommend the table plan size, since A1 is the usual size for 100 to 150 guests and A0 for anything larger.
• The pieces in the set — cards, numbers, plan, menus, invitations, tablecloths — so they can be quoted and matched as one order.
• The hour the set has to be in place, not the date of the dinner, and the venue address with the name that signs for the delivery.
• Foil or lamination, if wanted — asked at the start, because those finishes need a longer lead time than an urgent overnight job.

Send the guest list, the number of tables and the hour the set has to be in the room, and the quotation comes back with a ready time and a delivery plan for the venue. The service pages above set out each piece in detail, and the case studies show dinner and event jobs from first message to delivery.