Wedding Wednesday – Save the Dates

I love making stuff for our wedding. I want it to have a homemade/crafty feel. And I think we've got a great start so far!

Our good friend Anne is designing invitations for us. She is a graphic designer in New York, so we feel really lucky that she offered her talents to us. And we went to high school with Anne, so it's fun working with someone who has known us for so long!

However, we let Anne off the hook for save the dates. We were a bit behind schedule, so we just decided to make them ourselves. I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted, but I had a few criteria:

• Postcards - The amount of paper used in wedding invitation "suites" kind of drives me crazy. I thought we could cut back by using postcards, and therefore no envelopes, for the save the dates. The fact that postage is also cheaper was like icing on the (wedding) cake. Har har.
• Not White - I had my heart set on paper bag-colored cards but was having a hard time finding some. I was about to settle on cream when I realized I could cut cardstock to size and use that. All of a sudden we had a world of possibilities in front of us!
• Stamped - We found an awesome date stamp while we were on vacation in Santa Fe. I love the look of stamps & ink, so I was really excited to use it.
• Crafty - I wanted it to be obvious that they were homemade, in a crafty sense.

So, wanna see what we came up with?! ... Ta-da!

I just love them! Laura was over when I came up with the final design, and I was literally bouncing up and down in my chair. I'm sure she thought I was crazy. (And there's more where that came from!)

As I mentioned above, these were made with cardstock. We cut 8.5" x 11" sheets into 4 cards. But first, we printed the words using our regular printer.

I didn't have a template for this, I just messed around in Word until I got the spacing right. (Printing on scrap paper so as not to waste cardstock.)

On the other side, we stamped the bottom of the card with the month/day stamp. Then we circled "June" with a colored pen and punched a heart-shaped hole over the 2.

Finally, we glued 5 triangle "pennants" as if they were strung across the top. And we used a felt-tipped pen to dash a "string" through them.

The pennants were made from scrapbook paper. I cut 5 sheets into about 1" strips, which made creating 1" tall triangles so easy - just cut each strip in a zig-zag manner!

And then we set up a little assembly line in the basement. I put each different color/pattern of triangle into a separate bowl so it was easy to grab what we needed. Then, over the course of the week, we'd glue on some triangles whenever we had a few extra minutes.

Pretty soon, they were ready to be stamped, addressed, and sent out!

Things to consider:

• Postcard Size - The USPS has some pretty strict rules on what is considered a postcard. They have to be rectangular, printed width-wise, and without anything hanging off the edge. They also have to be a minimum of 5" x 3.5" x 0.007" and a maximum of 6" x 4.25" x 0.016". The thickness of paper is not usually described in inches, so I had to find conversions. Turns out 0.007" = 65lb and 0.016" = 110lb in paper weight speak. (source)
• Text & Graphic Placement - You may have noticed that postcards you receive in the mail will oftentimes have a long, thin sticker at the bottom. Consider this when you are choosing your layout. We bumped up the placement of our stamp a bit so the dates wouldn't be covered up.
• Hand Canceling - I had never heard about getting mail hand cancelled until I started researching wedding invitations. Apparently, you can ask the post office to hand cancel (or stamp the date over the stamp by hand) as opposed to running through the machine. This should help delicate items make it through with less damage. We asked at our post office, and they were willing to do it, but we were then assured they'd have to go through the machine anyway. We ended up saying "forget it" and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, some of the cute little flags we glued on didn't make it very far... So if you're going to glue, use something strong!!
• Get Your Design Reviewed - Before we went through the process of making each postcard, my Mom took an example up to the post office to make sure it was mailable. (I was worried about the hole punched out.) They checked the dimensions for her and assured her that the small hole & its placement were just fine. Then she mailed it to herself to make sure it arrived in one piece and that the postal stamps didn't obscure any of the vital information. Smart!

Cost Breakdown (for 80 save the dates):

• 20 sheets of cardstock = $1.60 (I found a 50 pack at Michael's for $4!)
• stamp = $11.25
• ink pad = $9.99
• heart-shaped hole punch = $2.99
• 5 sheets of scrapbook paper = $2.95
• glue sticks = $2.99
• colored pens = $5.99
• 80 postcard stamps = $23.20
• Total Cost Including Postage = $60.96

Not too bad considering things like the stamp, ink pad, hole punch, glues sticks, and pens will get used again and again!

Did you DIY something special for your wedding? Please share!