Weddingbee

Our artist friend Cathy, the same one who will be marrying us, also gave us the incredible gift of helping create our Save the Date Cards. Because she works with paper, she has a ton of paper stockpiled in her Montana studio and offered to supply all of our materials and printing for free!

We hadn’t yet decided on a wedding theme or colors, so we decided to keep our design simple. I created a minimalist text template in InDesign with all of our information:

This design was printed on vellum and trimmed to overlay 4″ by 6″ invitation cardstock. The cardstock featured a 3.5″ by 5″ debossed rectangle in the center, into which we had glued an assortment of the following engagement photos:

That way, the matted photo would show through the vellum overlay and create a nice, frameable keepsake. It was a great way to share our engagement pics with people who might not have otherwise seen them! We had twenty each of ten photos printed so that we could send a random photo to each invitee. This was the basic look we were going for:

I kept the vellum separate from the cardstock because I thought our guests would discard the info overlay once the proper invites arrived but might want to keep the photo for later. I thought the vellum overlay might look odd by itself without a border, so to prevent the text from “floating away,” we tested a few border options:

The original idea was to use Cathy’s hand-drawn ivy, but that turned out to be waaaay too busy. A double-width rectangular border proved too boring, so we opted for the simple curlicue.

Cathy printed and trimmed the vellum and the photos, affixed the pictures to the cardstock backing, and sent us each stack of components vacuum sealed. All we had to do was assemble and mail!

We used clear matte labels printed with a matching serif font to address the cards, then stuffed and sealed envelopes while watching a movie. It only took us an hour and a half! Et voila, Here is the finished product:

Making our Save the Date Cards was a big milestone, and so tangible compared to booking vendors or talking with our wedding coordinator. It was a relief to send them on their way!

Unfortunately, I was a math idiot and requested that Cathy send us 200 cards to match the number of invitees plus a little extra. It didn’t occur to me that, at minimum, each card goes to two potential guests. So all told, we only needed around 80 cards and we have about 120 left over. OOPS!

I still have the extras in a box and I would like to try to reuse them in the wedding, rather than letting them go to waste. I haven’t been able to think of any really good ideas yet. Have any suggestions?