Dead Wedding Place Cards

Twelve tent place cards on two letter sheets, one role each, for the guests at a wedding that never happened. The front of every card has a clock stopped at twenty minutes to nine and a line for the guest’s name; the back has a faded rose or the bride-cake under its glass, and the line “Seated at twenty minutes to nine.” They go with the Dead Wedding party blueprint and the Dead Wedding invitation.

The Roles

• Sheet 1, the wedding party: The Bride’s Side; The Groom’s Side; The Maid of Honour; The Best Man, Still Waiting; The One Who Objected; The Organist
• Sheet 2, the witnesses: The Keeper of the Cake; The Widow in Full Crape; The Cousin in Half-Mourning; The Last to See the Groom; The Letter-Bearer; The Witness

The roles are ours, and two of them have jobs in the blueprint: the Letter-Bearer brings the groom’s letter during the 7:30 processional, and the Keeper of the Cake guards the foam bride-cake under its dome. The mourners’ roles come from the stages of Victorian mourning dress, full black “usually made of crape” and then the “grays and purples” of half-mourning, as JSTOR Daily describes them (JSTOR Daily).

The time is from Great Expectations, Chapter VIII, where Pip notices “that her watch had stopped at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at twenty minutes to nine” (Project Gutenberg). On every clock the hour hand sits two-thirds of the way from VIII to IX, where it would really be at 8:40.

Cutting and Folding

Print at actual size. Cut along the crop marks at each corner, then fold along the dotted line so the clock faces the guest and the rose or the cake faces across the table. The lace strip runs along both outer edges, so it sits at the foot of the tent on both sides. Write names in white or silver on the dark version, or in black on the light one.

The Halloween table setting ideas cover the rest of the table.