Ask five couples what they spent on wedding signage and you will hear $180, $400, $900, $1,600, and "I genuinely do not want to know." All five are telling the truth. Signage has close to a ten-times spread between the cheapest sensible version and the most expensive sensible version, and almost none of that spread is about how good the design is.
Here is the rule that makes the whole category legible: you are not paying for the artwork. You are paying for square inches of substrate. The same Aria 01 welcome design, at the same 18x24 size, is $60 printed as a decal and $222 cut from gold mirror. Same layout, same typography, same proof, same file. The only thing that changed is what it got printed on.
Once you see it that way, a signage budget stops being a mystery and becomes arithmetic. What follows is that arithmetic, using live prices from our catalog, three worked budgets, and the specific places where saving money shows up in your photographs versus the places where nobody will ever know.
Three numbers set your total, and only one of them is fun
Every signage budget is count times size times material. Change one and the total moves predictably.
Count is how many signs you order. Most weddings land between six and twelve. A courthouse-plus-dinner day needs three. A 200-guest weekend with a welcome party, a ceremony, a cocktail hour in a second space, and a reception can genuinely need fifteen.
Size tracks area, not width. On the same poster stock, a cards and gifts sign is $20 at 5x7, $30 at 8x10, and $44 at 11x14. A welcome sign is $68 at 18x24 and $102 at 24x36. Going up one size class is usually a 40 to 50 percent jump, not a small step.
Material is the multiplier, and it is brutal. On one identical 5x7 sign: decal $16, poster $20, gatorboard $32, acrylic $52, gold mirror $64. That is a four-times spread on a sign the size of a greeting card.
Couples almost always over-manage count and under-manage material. Cutting two signs saves you $60. Moving eight signs from acrylic to gatorboard saves you $300 and nobody notices.
What one sign costs, five ways
Take a single design, Aria 01, at the standard 18x24 welcome size, rectangle, and price it across every material we make:
- Decal: $60
- Poster: $68
- Gatorboard: $110
- Acrylic: $188
- Gold mirror: $222
Move up to 24x36 and the decal is $92, the poster $102, the gold mirror $305. Choose a shaped edge instead of a rectangle and gatorboard goes to $128, acrylic to $206, gold mirror to $240. An arch is roughly $18 on an 18x24 sign and about $8 on a 5x7.
An unplugged ceremony sign at the same 18x24 runs $55 as a decal, $62 as a poster, $98 on gatorboard, $168 in acrylic, $200 in gold mirror. Slightly cheaper than a welcome sign because it carries less artwork, but the same ladder shape.
Two useful conclusions live in that list. Gatorboard sits at roughly half of acrylic and looks nearly identical from more than four feet away, which is every distance a guest will ever see it from. And gold mirror is not a material choice, it is a statement choice, so buy exactly one of it.
The seating chart is its own budget line
Treat the seating chart as a separate purchase from everything else, because it is the largest sign you will buy and the only one guests physically stand in front of and read.
At 24x36, Aria 01 runs $95 as a poster, $175 on gatorboard, $345 in acrylic, $395 in gold mirror. Push to 24x47 for a larger guest count and it becomes $145, $240, $455, and $510. A shaped edge adds about $26 at this size, and custom color on the poster adds $32.
That $95 poster to $455 acrylic range is bigger than most couples' entire signage plan, which is why this one decision deserves its own conversation. If the number frightens you, the honest alternative is not a smaller chart. It is escort cards, which spread the same information across many cheap pieces and let you print them the week of, once your count finally stops moving.
Find Your Seat
Names are listed alphabetically by first name
Please take your card to your table
You can also assign only the tables that must be assigned. Reserve the front two tables for family and let everyone else sit where they like, which turns a 24x47 chart into an 18x24 sign and saves several hundred dollars:
Tables One and Two are reserved for family
Every other seat is yours to choose
Dinner is served at 7:00
Small signs are where the count multiplies on you
Bar signs, cards and gifts, guestbook, favors, in loving memory, directions. Individually they are cheap. Collectively they are often half the bill.
At 5x7: decal $16, poster $20, gatorboard $32, acrylic $52, gold mirror $64. At 8x10: decal $24, poster $30, gold mirror $82. At 11x14: decal $36, poster $44, gold mirror $108. Custom color adds about $10 at these sizes.
Now do the multiplication. Six small signs in acrylic is $312. The same six on gatorboard is $192. The same six as instant downloads you print at home is under $60. Nobody at your wedding will photograph the cards and gifts sign, and if they do, it will be in the background of a photo of somebody else.
This is the single easiest place to reclaim $200 without a visible consequence.
Table numbers price as sets, so buy to the break
Acrylic table numbers are sold in quantity tiers, and the per-unit price drops as you go up: 10 for $120 ($12 each), 15 for $150 ($10 each), 20 for $175 ($8.75 each), 25 for $210, 30 for $260, and 40 for $350.
The practical move: if you are within two tables of the next tier, buy the tier. Eighteen tables priced as a set of 20 costs $175. Buying 15 and then discovering you need three more is two orders, two shipments, and two chances for the second batch to print on a different day. Spare numbers also cover the table you add in week two when three cousins RSVP late.
Three budgets that actually happen
These are built entirely from current catalog prices, not estimates.
The download-led wedding, about $149. The Juliette Complete Collection at $49 covers thirteen printable templates including welcome, seating, menu, program, place cards, table numbers, bar, guestbook, and cards and gifts. Add one printed anchor, an 18x24 poster welcome sign at $68, plus two decal 5x7 signs at $16 each. Total $149. Every piece guests linger over is real, everything else is printed at a local shop or at home.
The middle wedding, about $566. Gatorboard welcome 18x24 at $110, gatorboard unplugged at $98, poster seating chart 24x36 at $95, acrylic table numbers set of 15 at $150, two gatorboard 5x7 signs at $64 total, and the Juliette Complete Collection at $49 to cover menus and place cards. This is the version most 120-guest weddings land on, and it photographs beautifully.
The full-acrylic wedding, about $1,260. Gold mirror welcome 18x24 arch at $240, acrylic seating chart 24x36 arch at $371, acrylic unplugged at $168, acrylic table numbers set of 20 at $175, four acrylic 5x7 signs at $208, and a gatorboard order of events at $98. Everything is a physical object, nothing needs a frame, and the whole set arrives ready to stand.
Notice that the middle budget is not the cheap budget with fewer signs. It is the same number of signs on different materials. That is the lever.
The upcharges nobody puts in the spreadsheet
Three add-ons quietly move a budget by 20 percent.
Shape. Arch, circle, and wavy edges cost more than a rectangle because they are cut, not trimmed. About $8 on a 5x7, $18 on an 18x24, $26 on a 24x36 seating chart. If four signs go shaped, that is roughly $70.
Custom color. Off-catalog colors add about $10 on small signs, $22 on an 18x24 poster, and $32 on a 24x36 poster seating chart. Worth it on the welcome sign if your palette is the whole point. Rarely worth it on a bar sign.
The size jump you make at the last minute. Going from 18x24 to 24x36 on a poster is $68 to $102. On gold mirror it is $222 to $305. Decide size before you fall in love with a design, because it is the change couples make late and regret in the invoice.
Two questions that save money before you spend any
Before you buy anything, find out what your venue and planner already own. Easels, mirrors, frames, and sign stands are frequently sitting in a storage closet, and roughly half of couples buy them twice.
Hi [Venue],
We are finalizing signage for our [date] wedding and want to avoid buying things you already have. Could you tell us:
1. Do you provide easels or sign stands, and how many?
2. Are there any mirrors, windows, or glass doors we are allowed to apply a removable decal to?
3. Is there anywhere outdoors a freestanding sign would be at risk from wind?
Thank you.
And to your planner, a question worth asking before you build a single line of the budget:
Which signs are already covered in our package or by another vendor? I want to know specifically about the bar menu, the escort or seating display, and table numbers, since those are the three we were about to order ourselves.
Caterers frequently supply bar menus. Florists sometimes supply table numbers. Neither will mention it unless asked.
Where to save without it showing
Move to gatorboard. It is roughly half the price of acrylic and reads as the same object from any distance a guest occupies. It is the value pick and has been for three years.
Use posters inside frames you already own or can buy secondhand. A $68 poster in a $25 thrifted frame is a $93 sign that looks like a $200 sign. Buy the frame before you print so you can confirm it fits.
Put decals on surfaces the venue owns. A $16 decal on the venue's existing mirror is the single best value in the catalog, and it is the version people ask about in the comments of the photo.
Shorten your wording. This one is invisible and free. Long wording forces a bigger sign, and a bigger sign costs more in every material. Compare:
Welcome to the wedding celebration of Amelia Rose Fitzgerald and Daniel James Okonkwo, who are so delighted that you could join them on this very special day, the fourteenth of September, two thousand twenty-six
with the version that fits on a smaller sign and reads better from across a courtyard:
Amelia & Daniel
14 September 2026
Welcome
The second is 18x24 territory. The first needs 24x36 and still looks crowded, which is a $34 penalty on poster and an $83 penalty on gold mirror for words nobody finishes reading.
The same applies at the bar, where couples routinely order an 11x14 for something that belongs at 5x7:
The Bar
Beer · Wine · Signature Cocktails
Cash is not needed
Where not to save
Two signs earn real money, and they are the two where guests come to a complete stop.
The welcome sign is the first thing photographed and it appears in the detail gallery of every wedding, on every blog submission, and in the first ten frames your photographer delivers. The seating chart is where every single guest stands still for thirty seconds and reads carefully, at close range, in whatever light the room has.
If your budget forces a choice, put your material money into those two and let everything else be poster or gatorboard. A $222 gold mirror welcome sign next to $20 poster bar signs looks intentional. Eleven mid-priced signs look like a compromise, because they are one.
The download lane, and its three price tiers
If printing yourself is on the table, there are three distinct options and they are for genuinely different people.
Individual instant downloads, $8 to $18 each. Place cards and cards and gifts at $8, menu, table numbers, drinks, unplugged and advice cards at $10, program at $12, welcome, seating chart and vow books at $14, newspaper program at $18. Buy two or three if you only need to fill gaps.
The Juliette Complete Collection, $49. All thirteen templates, which come to $146 bought separately. If you need more than four pieces, the bundle is already cheaper.
A full digital suite, $327. This is the personalized lane rather than the template lane. Your wording, your names, your palette, laid out by a person across the full set, delivered as print-ready files. It is the answer when your wording does not fit a template, when you have three ceremonies, or when a template's fixed line count cannot hold what you need to say.
Downloads also compress your timeline dramatically, because nothing ships. That matters if you are reading this later than you meant to.
The six-foot test, which cheap signs fail first
Print your sign at actual size, tape it to a wall, and walk back six feet. If you squint, hesitate, or lean in, it is not finished. This is where saving money genuinely does show, and it has nothing to do with material.
Give the most important line at least one inch of cap height on an 18x24 sign. Keep 60 to 70 percent of the sign as empty space, which feels wrong on screen and correct in a room. Hold a welcome sign to five lines or fewer, a bar sign to six, a seating chart to whatever your table count demands and no decoration beyond that.
Contrast is free, so spend it. If you are choosing between a soft greige and a true charcoal on white, take the charcoal. Every material you can buy prints slightly lighter than your screen shows, and gold mirror in particular goes flat and grey when a guest stands off-angle.
Then read every line backwards, last word to first. It breaks your brain's habit of autocorrecting familiar text, and it is how you catch the misspelled surname that four people already looked at.
Before It Prints
Money problems in signage are almost always timing problems wearing a costume. The rush order, the reprint, the second shipment, the $95 poster bought twice because the count changed. A runway fixes most of it.
Eight weeks out, list every sign you need and assign a size and material to each, which is when you find out your real total. Six weeks out, lock the wording in one document and stop editing it. Four to five weeks out, approve your proofs. Three weeks out, everything is printing. The seating chart is the one exception and prints last, after your final count.
Every order includes a Proof Review at no charge. A real person checks your spelling, spacing, sizing, and contrast before anything goes to print, and flags the things couples cannot see in their own file after looking at it for three weeks. The cheapest sign in your budget is the one you do not have to order twice.
The Cheat Sheet
- You are paying for square inches and substrate, not artwork. The same design is $60 as a decal and $222 in gold mirror.
- Count times size times material sets your total. Material is the biggest lever and the one couples ignore.
- Gatorboard is roughly half of acrylic and indistinguishable past four feet. It is the value pick.
- Budget the seating chart separately. It runs $95 as a poster to $455 in acrylic at 24x47.
- Six small signs cost $312 in acrylic, $192 on gatorboard, under $60 as downloads.
- Table numbers price as sets. Within two tables of the next tier, buy the tier.
- Shape adds $8 to $26. Custom color adds $10 to $32. One size class up adds 40 to 50 percent.
- Ask the venue about easels and glass, and the planner about what a vendor already covers.
- Shorten your wording. Fewer words means a smaller sign, which means less money and better legibility.
- Spend the material money on the welcome sign and the seating chart. Guests stand still at exactly those two.
- Six-foot test everything: one inch cap height, 60 to 70 percent empty space, maximum contrast.
- Lock wording at six weeks, proof at four to five, print at three. The seating chart prints last.
Keep reading
If you are choosing between substrates, our full materials comparison covers how each one behaves in wind, sun, and off-angle light. Finding your sign style helps you pick one design family so the whole set holds together. If you are short on time, what you can still get two weeks out sorts every option by how fast it reaches you. For the list of what to order in the first place, start with the complete signage checklist, and for the wider schedule, the twelve-month planning timeline.
To price your own set, browse the welcome signs and seating charts, or start from a style: Aria, Florence, Moda, and Reina. The instant downloads are there if you would rather print at home, and the materials page lays out every substrate side by side. When you are ready to put your own names on something, the design studio is where it starts.