Save The Big Bucks For Your Date!

Alas, this is a little out of order, being that you typically send the save-the-dates a good six months before you send out the wedding invitations. This is especially true for destination weddings or weddings that are over a holiday. There are many kinds of Save-The-Dates: Postcards, Crafty, Photo montage, and Magnets. Some are slightly more pricey than others, but it all depends on what your budget allows.

Some people opt for postcards, which save on the cost of not only postage but the price of envelopes. Should you chose to want to make your own, you can watch a video here. Make sure you check with your local post office about regulations on these postcards. because there is no envelope you should remember that extras are highly frowned upon and even not allowed in some regions. These extras include anything that makes it over a certain thickness. That can include any embellishments, like embossing, glitter, anything glued on (rhinestones, sequins, etc) Remember that your save the date sets the tone for your wedding so while it doesn't have to be a replica of what's to come, it should match your decor in some way. The save the date to the left was for my aunt and uncle, they had a very chic wedding with a few DIY sort of touches (You can take the girl out of the scrapbooking room but you can't take the scrapbooking out of the girl)... Their secret color was a royal purple! It was a nice surprise as I was expecting a black-and-white affair. <3

Another route to go is the crafty approach. I personally think this is one of my favorite routes because its, well crafty. And y'all know I'm a sucker for artsy fartsy sort of stuff. This one shown to the right, was one that I received. Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend this wedding as my dad was getting married the day before... (yes, a Friday, but we'll talk about that later) Anyway, the main theme of Maggie and Josh's wedding was fall (if that wasn't obvious enough) which was definitely portrayed in their save-the-date. It was a magnet also, but I'm sure it wasn't the easiest magnet to create. Paper to magnet, that's easy but silk leaf to magnet, that's gotta take skill. I'm bummed I missed out on your wedding, guys, but I've seen the pictures and it was beautiful.

While others opt for a collage of their engagement (or candid) photographs to show off their lives/happiness, helpful if you plan on sending them to lots of people who may not know the name but would know your face. Or if you've yet to show off your engagement photos. Montages like these are typically delivered via envelope, so you do tend to incur that extra charge, and if they are an obscure shape you can add another charge for that. This save-the-date was for my future cousin-in-law and her husband.

And still there are others who can't get past the idea of the magnet save-the-dates, like me and my husband. Magnet Save-the-dates are typically going to cost more because they involve more than just a little ink and paper, running as much as $8.50 PER MAGNET. Now we obviously couldn't afford to spend over $8 a person with a 275+ wedding invitation list, that'd be over $2,200 bucks just on save-the-dates... A bit out of our price range if I do say so. So I decided to make my own. Although we didn't send ours out six months in advance, (naughty naughty) we slipped them in with our invitations. We didn't really want 8 pieces of paper in our invitations so we simply cut a two by two inch square out of our ivory card stock that had our little "logo" on it. To save on the magnet cost we took a bunch of old magnets and cut hearts out of them and glued them to the backs. Eventually we did run out of magnets so we bought this magnet tape. A fabulous invention. Its got the stick already on it so we didn't have to glue it on. Just know the longer the magnet tape sits on the roll the less sticky it gets. Towards the end of the assembling (over the course of about 2-3 weeks) the stick on the magnet started to come off.

We made sure we took advantage of that multi-copy per page option and managed to fit 15 per piece of card stock. We cut each out and rounded opposite corners to give that look of classy. After we got all of them cut out we slipped them into our wedding envelope that we sent out. Probably saved a fortune on postage (Hello! 275 stamps more than once? No thanks) and we knew that of our guests (who needed that Save-the-date an extensive time out from the wedding) might not make it. It was a risk we were willing to take as we didn't have much choice... That six to eight weeks before the wedding sneaks up on you... Even with five years to plan.

Really though, if you are going to do the full fledge save-the-dates, six months out, make sure you do what you can to save yourself some green. Postage isn't cheap, I can assure you of that. But if you want to go the 'etiquette-correct' route and mail them out, I encourage you to slip in a picture somehow. Since we sent ours with our invitations, there was that picture in the packet, which also seemed to double as a save the date. My aunt didn't have to send us a picture (Hello? Aunt!), Maggie and Josh included a nice semi-formal candid shot, and clearly the cousin and her husband included a photo.

Last Thought: You know when your parents give you their lists of people that they want you to invite because they know your parent, but you have NO CLUE as to who they are? Yep, same thing. If only they'd send pictures back with their RSVP's!

Until next time: Happy Planning! :)