Your wedding day is full of decisions — the venue, the flowers, the cake — but the guest favour is one of those details that can quietly say a lot about who you are as a couple. It’s the thing people take home. The thing that sits on a shelf or in a drawer and, if done right, makes them smile every time they see it.
Wedding favours with playing cards have become one of our most popular choices here at The Playing Card Factory, and after more than a decade of helping couples bring their ideas to life, we’ve learned a lot about what makes them truly memorable.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Start With a Design That Means Something
The most common challenge couples face when ordering custom playing cards is figuring out what to put on the back of the card. It’s the first design decision and, honestly, the most important one.
Our advice: make it personal to the point of being irreplaceable.
One of our favourite orders ever came from a couple who chose individual photos of themselves as teenagers — goofy, candid, completely them — paired with their wedding date. They left the suits and numbers side nearly blank, printing only the corner indices, and that open space became something magical. Guests used it to write signatures, messages, and well-wishes throughout the evening, turning the entire deck into a one-of-a-kind wedding guest book. No store-bought guest book could have done that.
That’s the kind of thinking that elevates a playing card from a novelty to a keepsake.
Avoid the Most Common Design Mistake
If you’re working with a designer or creating your artwork yourself, please do not skip the bleed.
Bleed refers to the extra design area that extends beyond the final cut line of the card. If your design runs right to the edge — a background colour, a photo, a border — and there’s no bleed built in, the cutting process can clip your artwork in ways that look unintentional and unprofessional.
We catch this regularly when reviewing customer files, and while we always flag it before going to print, it can delay your order and require design revisions you weren’t expecting. Build the bleed in from the start, and your cards will come out exactly as you imagined.
Why Guests Keep Some Wedding Favours and Toss Others
Here’s something we’ve noticed over the years: guests can tell the difference between something chosen with care and something grabbed in bulk.
A silly or generic image on the card back — something that has no real connection to the couple — makes the occasion feel less special. People don’t form attachments to things that feel interchangeable.
What people do keep is something that feels considered. That means a design that is clearly about this couple, on this day. It also means the physical quality of the product has to match the intention behind it.
A few things make a meaningful difference here:
- Card stock matters. Thin card stock without a black core feels flimsy in the hand. Cards that bend easily, that don’t have that satisfying snap when you shuffle them, simply don’t feel like a gift. We use quality stock because it changes how guests perceive the whole product.
- Custom boxes elevate everything. A beautifully designed tuck box signals that someone thought this through. It adds perceived value before guests even see a single card. If you’re on the fence about whether a custom box is worth it, it is.
How to Present Your Wedding Favours With Playing Cards
We recommend placing one deck at each guest’s place setting rather than one per couple. Not all guests live together, and a favour that two people have to share can feel a little awkward — especially for single guests or friends attending without a partner.
One of our most creative customers took this idea even further. They had a unique deck printed for each individual guest, with their name incorporated into the design, doubling as the place card for the evening. Every guest sat down to find a personalized deck of cards waiting for them. It was an unforgettable touch — though it does mean ordering one deck per person rather than one per couple, which increases the overall quantity. If you’re considering something like this, reach out to us directly for a custom quote.
One practical note: some card games require more than one identical deck. If your crowd loves card games and you imagine guests playing together at the reception or afterward, you might consider ordering extra matching decks for that purpose.
Plan Your Order Earlier Than You Think
Wedding season keeps us busy, and during peak periods, production alone takes approximately two weeks. Shipping is on top of that.
Here’s the part people most often forget: that timeline counts business days only. Weekends don’t count. A two-week production window that starts on a Thursday doesn’t end two weeks later on a Thursday — once weekends are removed from the equation.
Our honest recommendation is to build in at least three weeks total from the time you approve your artwork to the day you need the cards in your hands. That gives you two weeks of production and a full week for shipping, with a small buffer for anything unexpected.
If you’re ordering close to your date, contact us as early as possible. We’ll always do our best to work with your timeline.
The Bottom Line
Wedding favours with playing cards, done well, are one of the most personal, useful, and conversation-starting gifts you can give your guests. Done thoughtfully — with meaningful artwork, quality materials, a custom box, and a personal placement at each seat — it’s the kind of favour that ends up on a bookshelf instead of in a recycling bin.
We’ve been making custom playing cards in Canada since 2011, and we love being part of couples’ wedding days. If you have an idea, even a half-formed one, we’re happy to talk it through with you.
