Wedding Blog

Hello hive! I have missed you! Like some of the other bees, I apologize for being MIA lately. Work as well as grad school applications have taken over my life… I am eagerly awaiting the New Year so that I can once again resume wedding planning (and posting of course)!

One thing I have managed to do, though, is get our save-the-dates out to half of our guests! Thanks to all who weighed in on my post a couple of weeks ago – I went with the majority vote!

Today, I thought I’d provide a quick tutorial on how even a technologically challenged person can create a professional-looking HTML save-the-date with absolutely zero programming involved . Kudos goes to my bridesmaid, Fran, for providing me the tip!

What you’ll need:

• Your save-the-date image
• MS Outlook or MS Outlook Express

Step 1. Setup
Before you begin, make sure your Outlook messages are in HTML format. Go to Tools –> Options –> Mail Format. In the “message format” section, choose “HTML” from the drop-down menu. Choose “OK”.

Step 2. Inserting your Save The Date
Open a new email and choose Insert –> Picture.

1) Select your source file by clicking on “Browse.”
2) In the “Alternate Text” section, write a message you want people to see if they can’t see the picture, as some of your guests may not have enabled HTML on their email. For example, we wrote something like “Save the Date to celebrate our marriage! - May 2008 - Please reply with your March 2008 mailing address.”
3) Choose “OK.”

Step 3. Turning your Save The Date into a link to your website
If you want, you can set up the picture to be a link to your wedding website. Select the image in the email by single clicking on it (the little squares on the edges indicate it’s selected). Then go to Insert –> Hyperlink. Enter your website. Choose “OK”.

Step 4. Attaching the Save The Date image
If you want, you can also attach the image to the email. This way, your guests who do not have HTML email can still download the image.

Step 5. Send, or forward it to your email.
You can go ahead and forward it to your friends at this point, or you can forward it to another web-based email account you might have. For us, we forwarded it to our shared gmail account and then forwarded it on to our guests from there.

And the output…
Notice that if the images are not displayed, your guests can see your alternate text.

And the final product, complete with a link to your wedding website!