Saving the Date

While more modern wedding enthusiasts may disagree with me, I still love the Save The Date. I love receiving them, its the first hint into your wedding and gives your guests a taste of what's to come! I think that they are especially important if you are having a destination wedding ~ it signals to your guests that they need to start planning in advance, and gives you an opportunity to share your wedding website, where you can include travel, transport and accommodation information.

Where I deviate from the Save the Date tradition is that it doesn't necessarily need to be done in an old fashioned manner, or relate to the rest of the printed goods that you will have created for the wedding {invites, programs, menus etc}. It can fun, whimsical, endearing, cute. Let your creative juices flow ~ a boarding pass for a destination wedding, a postcard from the city that the wedding will be taking place, a photograph of the bride and groom ~ let your imagination run wild!

Just keep in mind that you don't need to put a ton of money or effort into your Save the Date. This should be a low key project out of all your wedding planning!


{courtesy of The Stylish Scribe}

Day 17: The Written Word: Wedding Invitations

Days 17: 30 Days: A Guide to Stress Free Wedding Planning

When compiling your wedding budget, please do keep all your printed items in mind! Printing Save the Dates, Invitations, Direction cards, Reception cards, RSVP cards, Menus, Programs, Escort Cards / Place cards, Thank You Notes does add up, so make sure you've left some room in the budget for them all.

Keep in mind that the first bit of insight into the wedding that your guests will encounter is your Save the Date or Invitation. It sets the tone for the actual wedding and gives your guests a glimpse into the style/theme of the wedding. Whatever you've thought up for the printed items that get mailed, remember to keep the same style/tone in the printed items to be used on the wedding day.

Whether you prefer custom or pre-designed items, there are literally 1000s of choices to choose from! Cruise around the web looking at different stationers sites and save images (or clip from mag's) of materials, styles, wording, ideas that you love. Bring all of these with you when you meet with a stationer ~ it gives them great insight into what you are looking to create. Once you've picked a stationer or stationery company to work with, be honest with your feedback.

Lastly, keep in mind that you'll need to put postage on your Save the Dates and Invitation Suites + postage on your RSVP cards (this is a non negotiable {sorry} it must be done!) ~ these costs certainly do add up, so keep in mind when you are designing the size and weight of your suites.







{courtesy of the fantastically amazing ABCD Designs}

Sharing Information ...

As wedding celebrations have become larger and more detailed, so has the information that you need to convey to your guests. From out of town travel information, to directions, to fun weekend activities, your guests need to know alot. The best way to convey all of this information is to create a wedding website that includes all the pertinent information for the weekend celebrations and perhaps a few funny tidbits about the couple too! Along with your save the dates (if applicable), your wedding website is another glimpse into the style of the wedding, so make sure that it jives with the actual wedding day (i.e. if you've got a beach theme going, choose a beachy background for the page). These are all helpful hints to your guests about what to expect and how to dress.

How do you announce your newly created awesome website? A good place is the Save the Date card, you can just list the website discreetly on the card. Or, if you didn't do "STD's" then insert a card into the invitation with the information on it.

When we put together our Save the Dates with our wedding webpage on it, my mother's biggest concern was whether or not the older folks would be internet savvy enough to get all the information on the website ... we finally decided that they would be and that if not, they would probably call us anyways for the information and that was just fine!

If you want to peruse some wedding webpages, check out:
Wedding Window
Engage Page

Happy Webpaging!