Wedding Table Numbers: A Review of Four DIY Projects

Sometimes Pinterest is a blessing, other times a pain in the backside. For example, a future bride searching  for wedding table numbers on Pinterest will get pages of DIY results. The real question is, are any of these projects realistic to take on for your wedding? We decided to test four DIY table number projects with a wine theme and give an honest assessment of whether it’s a good idea try them or leave them alone.

Custom Wine Label Table Numbers

This project involves buying bottles of wine for every table and purchasing custom Table number labels and applying them to the bottles. Super simple and highly recommended. Trader Joes, Total Wine or BevMo are good sources of wine that rank well but don’t break the budget. For table number labels go to this page and choose a design. The table number labels shown in the photos are 4 inches wide by 6 inches high. They fit many standard 750 ml bottles. Customize with your information and place your order. It’s pretty simple. When the labels arrive simply peel off the backing and apply over the existing label; the bottle is ready for the table.

Wine Cork Table Numbers

You’ll need to buy a lot of corks depending on how many tables you need for your wedding guests. Amazon is a good source for finding wine corks. They come in bags of various quantities and sizes. For example, a bag of 250 recycled wine corks runs $26.20. Be aware that these corks do have wine stains on them. If you don’t like that look you can find bags of 100 unused, all natural wine corks in an assortment of sizes for $10.99 like the bag in the photo below.

To test how feasible making wine cork table numbers really is we ordered the bag of 100 corks and set to work. You’ll need a hot glue gun and a protected surface to work on because glue will get everywhere.

TIP: Buy lots of glue sticks.  A straight edge helps keep the base of the number level.

To aid in shaping your numbers, print out a single number on a sheet of paper to use as your guide. Make sure you start at the base and align your corks on the straight edge. Start at the bottom of the number. This example shows us creating the number two, a curvy number, to see how difficult it might be. It took about 30 minutes to make one table number. Since it was the first go at it, subsequent numbers may take less time.

It took 35 corks to make the number two. This gives you a pretty good assessment of how many corks your project might require depending on if you only have single digit table numbers. Double that amount for double digit table numbers. The number two you see in the photo is 8 3/4 inches tall and approximately 6 inches wide at the base.

Glitter Wine Bottle with Card Holder

This is a fun project if you like glitter and spray painting. The only problem with this project is it’s messy and smelly. It can also be time consuming depending on how many bottles you need to spray.  You’ll need to have an outdoor space to spray the bottles so the fumes don’t make you sick. There are two ways to get your bottles; drink a lot of  wine and soak off the existing labels or buy blank bottles from your local wine making store. The spray paint we used negates any need for trying to sprinkle jars of glitter on glue covered bottles. The result is a soft glitter effect that makes the bottle shimmer.

TIP: The best way to avoid over-spray when spray painting the wine bottles, is to use a low, wide box to set your bottles in. See the example below. This method works great and confines the paint.

Once the bottles are dry you’ll also need card holders, corks, and table numbers. Getting the card holder spike perpendicular into the center of the cork can be tricky so watch out. Be careful not to stab yourself in the palm of your hand.

TIP: Mark the center of the cork with a dot of ink beforehand. Set the cork on a cutting board and push straight down with the card holder spike making sure not to push at an angle.

Chalk Painted Wine Bottles

This table number project seemed like a piece of cake. We used the same method for spray painting as we did on the silver glitter wine bottle. Everything was going well until it came to writing the chalk number on the chalk painted bottle. Maybe it was the type of paint used that was troublesome, or maybe it was the chalk or chalk marker (we tried both), but it wasn’t easy to get a good looking number on the wine bottle. The stick of chalk scraped the black paint off the bottle, and the chalk marker simply ran white liquid down the bottle. Acrylic paint or stick-on numbers may be the answer. For this reason we rated this project a bit tricky.

Summary of Results

Hands down, the easiest way to make table numbers was creating custom table number labels. The other three projects were fun and the results were pleasing, but they took more time than we expected. We hope this review of DIY table number projects was helpful to you. If you would like help creating your own table number labels please give us a shout out at info at bottleyourbrand.com or chat with us live online weekdays from 9 am to 4 pm Pacific time.