Got our save the dates in already! Not sending them out until January, but I won a contest and had to get them printed by the end of September. One less thing to worry about!

On the left is the original, and then on the right is the final version after I used the corner punch (Fiskars “something old, something new”, purchased with my michael’s coupon of course!)

My mom did the drawing! The orange tree was meant to play off the whole Spain thing. I love what she did and I love the fact that my mom designed it!!

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The Save the Date dilemma is over! Hooray!!

Of course you remember my incessant indecision, here and here regarding our save the dates. I promise this is the last you will hear about it.

After pulling my hair out over which “look” to go for, I finally came to and realized that most people who will receive these won’t think twice about them.  Our guests won’t care if they match the style of wedding we were going for or if they were the coolest piece of mail that they have ever received.  Why spend another few weeks mulling over them?

With that, I went online and ordered our save the dates!   We decided to go with the Wedding Paper Divas “Park Bench” style.  It was fun, non-DIY and completely us.

{Wedding Paper Divas}

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So it must be Save the Date week at EAD, I believe I am the third blogger this week to present hers!

I toyed with the idea of magnets, CDs and finally settled on postcards b/c honestly, it was easy.  I’ve been working like crazy lately and traveling nearly every weekend to visit my fiance in Texas (I am in DC), so I’ve had very little time to brainstorm.  But last weekend, I went to my faithful google reader and searched “save the date” ideas in the months worth of entries I had starred.  I came across a STD that I adored - totally urban, artistic, minimalistic and chic - precisely the vibe I was going for (and I am now hitting myself in the head as I can’t find my inspiration and I totally owe credit to it, so when I find it again, I will post it).   So I took my original inspiration but altered it and added personal elements and our fabulous photo from our engagement session with Missy in photoshop to suit our needs, and voila, this is what I came up with.   There was just no time to re-invent the wheel this late in the game.

Front:

Back:

I then ordered 100 postcards for ONLY $28 at www.printsmadeasy.com.  Unbelievable value.  I should get them by Friday so hopefully they turn out great!

After the church and reception venue were booked and the date was set, it was time to think about our Save the Dates.  Matt and I were talking one night and decided that we wanted to create a map chronicling the paths we each took to find each other and where we are now.  We both went off to college, moved across the country after graduation, and met as two midwestern kids in NYC before getting engaged and moving to Memphis. And now we were planning a wedding in Louisville. Whew.  It wears me out to just write it.  I mentioned our idea on Pretty Bride and soon Laura Hooper came to the rescue.

Our save the dates were a hit!  Now, it was on to invitations. Early on in the process I decided that I wanted us to create the invitations ourselves. Please note that I am not a graphic designer or a craft-maker extraordinaire. However, this seemed like something we could do and a great way to save some money that I could use on something else.

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By now you realize how indecisive I can be.  I’m afraid to make a solid decision because most likely I will change my mind.  This happened with my wedding dress and now my save the dates.

Remember my original save the date?

I made this months ago and loved it (until I tried to print it.)  When I went to print it, it never came out right.  The resolution of the photo wasn’t high enough, the sizing didn’t work, the colors were off.  After weeks of trying everything possible to make this save the date work, I gave up.  It wasn’t working and I was wasting A LOT of time.

So then…

I create a new save the date! The new one has a completely different look and feel and it ended up changing my whole color scheme.

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To save money, we opted to do an electronic save the date. Most people in my life didn’t even think that was necessary, but with 80% of our guest list being from out of town, and a family history of disorganization and lack of planning skills, I totally ignored them. I also thought it’d be a good way to get the word out about our website, which has a lot of information about our event and San Diego.

I used MailChimp, which is FREE for up to 3,000 sends, easy to use, and lets you customize an email campaign with your own artwork. I made a banner with our laid back red/pink/green theme in mind:

I highly recommend MailChimp if you are considering an electronic save the date. It lets you create lists, import them from an excel file, and gives you impressive stats (pie charts and graphs anyone?) about how often your email was opened and by whom. If you’d like to read more about my experience with MailChimp, I’ve written probably more than you need to know on Pink Argyle. This was the final email campaign, sent to about 100 of our guests (sorry, I had to break it into two!):

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After thinking about it and talking about it and thinking about it some more, our wedding date is finally set!

It feels amazing to have our wedding venue booked and a date to look forward to.  Until recently, everything was up in the air but now, it all feels real.

I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this but I’ve had my Save the Dates finished for a couple months now!

When thinking about the Save the Dates, I wanted the design to reflect our venue and vision. They had to be colorful, unique and a bit modern.

I played around with Poladroid Image Maker before and had so much fun!  If you remember, Mo also tried her had at Poladroid to transform her Engagement Photos.  Poladroid is so easy to use and thought that it would be really unique to incorporate it into our Save the Dates.

Without further ado, here it is!

The photo in the picture is one of the dining rooms at The Cliff House.  Isn’t it just so fun!?

Currently, I’m trying to find a good way to present these to our guests.  I don’t think printing them out and stuffing them in an envelope would quite work.  Then, I thought why not transform them into postcards!

I’m excited to be home in Pennsylvania visiting my family this week so me and mom are going to be working on this little project together.

Do you have any suggestions on how to present these to guests?

Ed Note: Everyone give a big welcome to Meredith, who is going to be guest blogging this week about the planning leading up to her 8.8.09 wedding!  We’re thrilled to have her here this week and can’t wait for her to come back to EAD and recap her event!

It’s pretty amazing what happens after you get engaged. I floated on cloud nine for about 3 weeks. I remember putting my ring on my bedside table at night and randomly waking up to “check on it”. Like it was a baby. Yeah - I am a bit of a freak (control, neat, clean, you name it).

I am lucky enough to have my proposal from Bill on video. I was caught WAY OFF GUARD. I mean he got down on one knee in front of 40 friends and family at my surprise 30th birthday party!! Shocked? Yes! Surprised? You betcha! Did I cry? I didn’t stop.

We are getting married 08.08.09 and I can’t wait! Ever since I as a little girl - I have always wanted to get married at my Aunt and Uncle’s house in Rochester, New York. They have the best yard, garden and trees - it’s so beautiful! Who wouldn’t want to get married here? (I guess if you didn’t like the outdoors or have allergies - this venue isn’t you)!

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When it came time to think about our save the dates, I knew I wanted something casual yet classy that tied into the vintage feel of our wedding. But the most important thing to me? The budget, of course!

I didn’t want to spend a ton on our save the dates. We looked at some invitation websites and the prices were simply higher than we wanted to pay.

Then I remembered MOO cards. Have you heard of them? MOO is this great printing company out of England that prints business cards, postcards and greeting cards. They’re probably best known for their mini cards that a lot of people are using as business cards nowadays.

We decided to do postcards through MOO but needed a nice picture of ourselves to use. Not having done our engagement session yet, we needed to use one of our own photos. But looking back on all the pictures we have of the two of us, none of them seemed right for the save the date.

So we asked one of my bridesmaids’ boyfriend, Rob, who dabbles in photography and graphic design, to help us out. One freezing cold February morning, we met them for breakfast at our favorite diner in Brighton, and then drove downtown to the Boston Public Garden for our informal “photo shoot”.

It was awkward at first, being photographed in public, by a friend no less, but eventually we found a rhythm and ended up getting some lovely shots. Rob then took a few of the best ones, made them black and white, added our names and wedding date to them and voila! An easy DIY save the date that was cheap too.

60 postcards for $49.99 + plus one pancake breakfast = a classy and affordable save the date made with friends!

The past week or so has been a sort of unintentional woodgrain week over at Oh So Beautiful Paper - all starting with these DIY woodgrain save the dates.  Although woodgrain (also referred to as faux bois) has been popping up in weddings over the past few years, it really seems to be picking up steam as a trend - particularly in wedding stationery - this year.

In case you’re not familiar with the woodgrain trend, I’ve rounded up a few of my favorite examples to share with you.  Some choose to incorporate the woodgrain texture into their invitations or save the dates by using a blind stamp (no ink) letterpress impression or embossed paper, like these:

{winter invitation suite on woodgrain embossed paper by Spark Stationery}

{letterpress invitation suite by Alee & Press}

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This week I’m highlighting the work of one of my favorite calligraphers, Bryn Chernoff of Paperfinger Calligraphy.  Bryn’s calligraphy has a wonderful modern sensibility and is absolutely beautiful without being overly formal or fancy - making it perfect for informal and modern weddings!  So, just in case you aren’t familiar with Bryn’s work, I thought I’d gather together a few examples from her portfolio.

As you’ll see below, Bryn’s calligraphy looks fabulous whether addressing envelopes, guiding guests to their seats on escort cards, or even when providing the text for invitations and Save the Dates:

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If you’ve ever stopped by EA on a Thursday morning, than you know that I’m a huge paper freak!  I could spend hours upon hours in Paper Source; hand me a piece of sumptuous letterpress and I’m in visual and tactile heaven!  So when it came to our wedding and decisions concerning all-things-paper, I was as happy as a pig in slop.

I knew that my Inner Paper Maniac had to have letterpress for our formal invitations, but for our Save the Date Cards, I wanted something more fun and bright - I also realized that I needed to save some major coin on the STDs (don’t you just hate that acronym? ug!) to be able to afford the invitation suite my heart was set on (more on that in a bit!).  I toyed with the idea of a postcard but feared that half of them would either get lost in the mail or get lost in the shuffle of advertising postcards that invade our mailboxes everyday.  Snapfish provided the perfect (affordable, fun, & festive) alternative!  Using a 20% off coupon that I received after signing up for Snapfish discount emails, I created our Save the Dates, choosing a glossy foldover card, placing our favorite engagement shots by Stacy Sodolak in one of the many templates available, and sprucing the design up with our color scheme.  To top the entire package off, I dressed the envelopes up with coordinating ink and a custom return address stamp by Sweet Papery.

{Photographs from author’s personal collection}

I was quite pleased with how the entire project turned out, and I felt like the cards really set the festive tone for our wedding!

Now on to the Main Event…

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