Save the Date!

Just like with the blog, I’m totally behind on wedding planning.  Better late than never, I finally got {most} of our Save the Dates in the mail at the end of January.   Considering that the wedding is in June, and we’ve been engaged since August, that’s totally behind schedule.

There were so many beautiful save the date designs on Etsy, from modern graphic photo cards to catchy and unique boarding-pass packages that cost a pretty (but deserving) penny. I had a heck of a time deciding.

Finally, though, I found a design in the shop of PalmettoMama that totally fit the bill:  A tropical palm tree design, customizable in colors that suited our wedding, and with the option of buying either the printed cards, or just the digital printable file.

Dawn, the woman behind the Etsy shop, was wonderful to work with.  She was great at communicating, totally understood my requests, and was quick to respond.  Even though I was “only” buying the download file, I felt that she treated me just as well as she would a customer who was buying printed invitations.

Dawn tweaked the file so that I could print 4 of the save-the-dates on one standard sheet of paper.  We printed the sheets on a friend’s color printer, and then I cu them apart and glued the paper invites to pieces of coordinating card stock.  This not only added a bright, colorful border, it also beefed up the strength of the paper cards.

On each save the date that went out, I wrote a short personal note to the people it was being addressed to.  It took a little bit of extra time, but I liked adding that personal touch, which I know we won’t have time to do when the real invites roll around.

Thanks to Ryan, we were able to kick things up one more notch when it came time to address the envelopes.  Here’s how it happened:

Me:  We need to go to the craft store after our dinner date. 

Ryan: Ok.

. . . we get to the craft store, where I inform Ryan that we need to pick out “fun” paper cardstock to back the printed save-the-dates. Ryan looks bored and wanders off.

Me:  I thought you’d be excited about this! We’re doing our save-the-dates tonight!

Ryan:  How did you think that I’d be excited to go to the craft store?

Me: Um. . . now that you mention it, I have no idea why.  I could have done this alone. *giggle*

Anyway, after we determined that I was either drunk or crazy when I thought a trip to pick out “fun paper” would be a good part of date night, Ryan wandered off.  Again.  But then he suggested I get an awesome palm tree stamp, and his manly indifference towards colored cardstock was forgiven.

I stamped a green palm tree on the front of each envelope, and wrote the addresses in orange ink.  I created return address labels in our wedding colors too (Caribbean green, orange, pink) and voila – a totally coordinated, “fun” (if you’re a girl) save-the-date.

But wait, it gets better.  After seeing the save-the-dates, I asked Dawn if I could purchase a modified version of the design as a website header for our wedding website.  She was totally able to accommodate me.  The website is primarily going to be for our guests to get information, RSVP for things, etc.  But I love that it looks awesome in the process!

 And speaking of wedding websites, that’s the next project I need to tackle.