Saving The Date!

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photo by author

After 13 months of being engaged…our guests finally get a little glimpse into our upcoming wedding…our Save-The-Dates!  If feels so unbelievably good to have these out the door and (hopefully) hanging on the fridges of our family and friends.

Way back in the beginning stages of planning, I had high hopes of designing our own beautifully perfect STDs (sorry…it is just easier!).  Of course…that isn’t exactly how it all turned out.  One thing I knew for sure…after seeing several amazing STDs out in internet-ville…was that I wanted them to include a picture of Lance and I…preferably one of our e-pics.  So after we hired our photographer, and scheduled our ‘love-shoot’, I inquired about getting the rights to our images, so that i could use them to my heart’s desire.

While we will get all our wedding photos on disc to have and treasure forever as part of our package, our e-pics were a different story.  Sure we could get them…but for a price.  Bummer.  While I contemplated buying the rights to the images, Lance and I both agreed that in the end our wedding pictures will be the ones we look back on for years to come.  So having a disc full of our e-pics was not something we needed (or could justify fitting in the budget).

However…not all was lost!  Our amazing photographer also happens to dabble in design as well…so why not turn the reigns over to her??  Well that is exactly what we did!  I sent Khara an inspiration board I had made and explained the look and feel we were going for.

This is what she came up with (draft 1 – size/dimensions similar to a letter envelope)

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*all STDs designed by Khara

While this is very cute…it wasn’t exactly the “feel” I was going for…(yes I know…total Bridezilla!).  Plus Lance wasn’t too excited about sending a pic of us “making-out” to everyone we know.  So I told Khara that while I liked it…I wanted to see what else she could come up with…and after sending her a link to our wedding website…she completely revamped the design.

A color option…

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and a black and white option…

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oh how I LOVED both of these…my heart skipped a beat when i saw them!  I loved the simplicity of this design and the large photo of us that takes up the entire back side ( a little vain perhaps?  I promise I’m not)!  The little bird was an added bonus…somehow Khara read my mind that I suddenly love the “bird” theme and plan to use it in several other wedding details (remember the poster?!).  So yes…now all I had to do was ask Lance which one he liked the most!

Well…as it usually goes…we didn’t agree.  I liked the colored photo…and Lance…well he liked the black and white option.  (I think mostly because “Husker Game” is in the marquee above our heads….boys)  So in the midst of trying to make a decision…Khara sent us one last option

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And with that my friends…we had a winner!!  I mean there was no going back after seeing this one.  The relaxed look and fun feel of it is exactly what we are going for with our wedding day!  I got what I wanted ( a super cute pic of us) and Lance got the black and white look he seemed to have a thing for.

Looking back I am SOOOOOO insanely glad we chose to have Khara design these for us.  Not only did it mean less work for us (read: me) they also turned out much better than anything I could have ever attempted to put together.  We’ve already received so many great compliments on them!

Like I said…it feels so great to have these suckers out the door!!  It’s like this wedding-thing is actually going to happen now!

When did you feel like your wedding was for real?