Gloria Wong, the wonderfully talented San Francisco wedding designer, is one of the fabulous new friends we made last month at the Engage09Encore wedding conference. Gloria is delightful in person, and as you'll see from the following photos of her work, an incredible artist as well. As a designer Gloria focuses on the look and feel of a event, using ultra-creative decor design to make each wedding striking, personal and totally unique. As she says in her bio, she's all about "color, composition, style, and how visual elements can stir the heart." We agree! Today she's sharing her approach to a fun wedding decor extra, the escort cards. Thanks Gloria!

An escort card display is a great vehicle to showcase a couple's wedding concept. I always try to create something that reflects the couple's style and personality. Here are a few examples...

For the Backyard Chic wedding, the concept was taking old basement goodies and salvage home parts and using them for an eclectic backyard affair. Hanging escort cards with vintage keys on a white picket gate made perfect sense because keys represent home. A vintage key for each guest was a nice way to welcome friends and family to the couple's home. (Photography by Lisa Lefkowitz)

For the Old-Time Elegance wedding, it was all about silliness and sweets delivered in a classic manner for this fun-loving couple. Since sweets were such a huge part of their lives, they decided to offer escort cards in the form of yummy petit fours! Mini paper flags with each guest's name and table assignment were inserted into all the petit fours. The sweets were laid out evenly on a round table as spokes on a wheel. A sign next to the display read "A little something sweet for you to mark our sweetest day!" (Photography by Lisa Lefkowitz)

For the French Whimsy wedding, the concept was based on Chinoiserie art which features many paintings with branches and birds. We didn't want to use fake birds on the escort card table, so we decided to interpret the essence of birds with yellow flower balls in black lacquered birdcages. The whole look was very Viceroy-esque which the stylish couple loved! The Viceroy Hotel in Santa Monica has a wall filled with framed mirrors. The collection of lacquered black photo frames that sat on the table with the yellow escort cards was a nod to the Viceroy Hotel. (Photography by Anna Kuperberg)

For the Pop Modern wedding, this particular couple loved watching romantic movies together. So, we inserted a movie quote within each guest's escort card. The colorful cards sat on top of a bed of green mums. Across from the display of escort cards was a collection of signs each with a different movie title. Guests were encouraged to guess which movie their escort card quote was taken from. When guests were invited into the banquet room for dinner, the respective movie titles were revealed as each person found their table. The tables were named after the corresponding movies! (Photography by Karl Ko)