Missing one piece of the puzzle

Our wedding reception consists of a pretty densely-packed country club ballroom and a seated, multi-course meal.  Therefore, to make things as streamlined as possible, we're definitely going to be doing seating arrangements.  Maybe not specifically assigned seats, but at least assigned tables.  I don't like the idea of the doors opening up to our ballroom and our friends and family participating in a glorified cattle drive.  I crave order, predictability, and a low level of stress on the wedding day, so seating arrangements are definitely in our future.

There's an antique grand piano in the area we'll be using for our cocktail hour, and the coordinator mentioned that most couples place escort cards there.

 Image via TheKnot / Photo by LCD Photography

I don't mind that idea, but it just feels a little bit blah to me.  Although I want predictability for myself, I wouldn't mind a little bit of a curveball detail here or there to make our guests say, "Oh, cool!"  I've been wracking my brain, trying to figure out how I'd like to present who's sitting where, and then I came across the idea of putting all of the seating assignments on one giant poster to be framed or displayed outside the ballroom.  

Image via Gourmet Invitations

 Image via Alannah Rose

Image via Wedding Elegante

The names can be laid out by last name or by table assignment.  I'm leaning toward using last names, solely to keep the traffic jam at the poster to a minimum.  Realistically, everyone knows their last initial, so they can quickly scan the appropriate chunk of names, find their assignment, and move onto cocktail hour or into the ballroom; this may not be as swift if people have to check multiple table groupings to find their names.  I absolutely love this idea, and I think it's incredible do-able, even in the final days leading up to the wedding when the seating is being finally finalized.

However, for a long period of the planning, I was suffering from one major obstacle.  We've since circumvented it (by making it a non-issue... stay tuned!), but I'm confident I'm not alone in this quandary, so I'm hoping someone out there could lend a hand to other brides facing this issue.  For all the weddings I've attended, when the guests have a choice of entree, the meal choice is signified in some way on the escort card.  Here's my hang-up.  If there are no escort cards, then how does a couple communicate to the wait staff at the reception about food choice?  Some people suggested doing a chart and escort cards which seems like crazy-talk to me.  Surely there's got to be a way for multi-entree brides to also employ the seating chart!  Any ideas?