Save the Date
October 3rd, 2008 @ 12:34 pm by Miss Ballet Flat
Before joining The Knot, I had never heard of Save the Dates before. In fact, when I started lurking on the Knot’s forums, I remember seeing a lot of talk about STD’s, and I was just really confused as to WHY these brides were comfortable talking so personally on the internet about an STD. I didn’t click on a link for a while to avoid the potentially NSFW (not safe for work) talk. By the way, did I mention I’m a blonde (naturally, and also with some salon enhancements)? However, when I read someone’s wedding blog using the acronym STD, I quickly realized what it stood for on The Knot: Save the Dates.
I loved the idea of simply letting people know way in advance that you are getting married on xx/xx/xxxx date. It’s a great way to announce the big day to your family, and ours being a Memorial Day weekend wedding, people can make the necessary arrangements more than a couple of months in advance. 
So, I stumbled upon a site called Wedding Paper Divas and fell in love with all of the designs. SO many cute possibilities, but wow, they were a little out of my budget. So, I used them for inspiration and we made our own.
Here was my favorite, and Mr. Ballet Flat seemed to like it as well!
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I remember reading about the affordability of VistaPrint on the Knot forums one day, so I knew we had to DIY these postcards. Mr. Ballet Flat got to work on Photoshop (since I have NO Photoshop experience, whatsoever) and after working really hard on finding the right font and getting the formatting to work, he made a beautiful STD postcard for our guests!
It’s almost the same, really. We added in the fleur-de-lis graphic, since we will be using that a lot throughout the theme of the wedding.
200 of these postcards, with shipping, cost us **drumroll please** $14.95. These postcards are of great quality, and these definitely do not look like I paid $15 for all of them. What a steal!
There’s another factor in this equation. You have to pay for postage, right? Now, a part of me doesn’t really care about stamps because people don’t really pay attention to what got the message there. I was not about to pay extra for Zazzle to make the stamps cute.
At the time I started thinking of our Save the Dates, I was fully prepared to use the weird panther postcard stamps.
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However, when the Post Office changed postage rates, they debuted some new postcard stamps. When I saw these, I don’t know why, but I got a little giddy because of how CUTE they are. Seriously, cute!
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Are you sending out Save the Dates for your big day? If so, are you going to DIY, or pay someone else to do them?
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22 Responses to “Save the Date”
those fruit stamps are adorable!
@Megan: I’m actually sending mine out either this weekend or the next one. For our date, it’s Memorial Day weekend and we want to make sure our guests know about the wedding before booking their vacations 
YAY for vistaprint and yay for yummy stamps!! I did the exact same thing!!! I’m just waiting for them to arrive in the mail. I was so excited about the cute and yummy fruit stamps. I know they are not all lovey dovey, but our colors are fun and bright so it will still fit nicely. Whoever says you have to pay extra for what you want obviously hasn’t looked very hard.
I originally wasn’t going to do STD’s, but have since decided to. We are getting married in a tourist town in the middle of the BIG tourist season and are having a hard time finding hotels to save rooms for our guests and I’m afraid if I don’t send out the info our out of town guests won’t have anywhere to stay! So I have begun crafting my own on my handy gocco.
Oh wow, they turned out great. I’ll have to remember that site!
Thank you for the post Miss Ballet Flat, I am also a May bride the week after yours! I love the new fruit stamps, they are adorable! I was thinking about using Vista Print too but didn’t really know how to go about it until your post!
Thank you for the post Miss Ballet Flat, I am also a May bride the week after yours! I love the new fruit stamps, they are adorable! I was thinking about using Vista Print too but didn’t really know how to go about it until your post!
Your post cards came out very classy! I’m so happy you didn’t have to use those silly panther stamps.
Oooo I really like the way those turned out, and you can’t beat the price!
Those are so lovely, I’m just wondering how you got that rate? When I looked at VistaPrint it was $125 for 250 invitations, even WITH my own design.
Any secrets for those of us not as skilled at VistaPrint navigation?
Thanks!
@Becky:
Becky, I didn’t buy the invitations. Rather, I purchased the postcards. To get the “free” deals (aka free with $6-$7 shipping), you have to sign up for their email deals.
They will spam you with deals everyday, so get a spam account.
Also, make sure when you order your postcards that you DO NOT join their Vistaprint monthly club (it’s a prompt during the ordering process and I hear it’s REALLY hard to discontinue). That’s the only con about it. Just read everything during your orderand you will be fine.
Thanks so much! I meant STD, but you cleared it up for me anyway!
I love the fruit postcard stamps as well. Our RSVP’s are postcards and I was so pumped when the lady at the post office pulled them out of the drawer.
Great save the date idea!
I did Vistaprint postcards as well (turned out great), and when I went to the post office I asked the nice lady if they had any cute postcard stamps. She got this huge smile on her face and said, “Honey, you will not believe how cute these are!” I loved stamping the postcards because they really are that cute We’re also using them for our RSVP replies!
Those are great! *sigh* my STDs are still lost. But I’m really happy for you - they’re really cute!
I love VP. Thats where I made my STDs as well.
We used the “weird panther” but since our wedding is in Florida, and that’s well…a Florida panther - we kinda liked the connotation.
I was so dorkily excited about the tropical fruit too!
We used printsmadeeasy for our save the dates (I too am still hesistent to say “STD”) and from your post, yours were cheaper. Oh well, ours look nice too, next time I do postcards, I will check out Vitsa!
great job on these! we used VP too and were pleased. did you send yours out as postcards or are you sending them in envelopes?
Hey Ballet Flat,
Just wanted to say we have the same date! Getting the Save the Date’s ready now to send out on Tuesday morning, soo excited to get them out the door!
[...] totally excited about pretty opal paper! Originally, our RSVP was going to be a VistaPrint postcard like our Save the Dates as well, but hey, let’s go a little crazy, shall [...]
Miss Ballet Flat, New Orleans
Age and Occupation: 24, Geographic Information Systems Analyst
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, IT Analyst
Engagement Date: March 16, 2008
Wedding Date: May, 2009
Blogging Since: September 25, 2008
Venue: St. Charles Borromeo Church/Jefferson-Orleans North
About Me: I absolutely love wedding planning, spending time with Mr. Ballet Flat, various crafts, watching football, baking, pop music, bargain hunting and ice cream. My idea of a great date night is dinner and clearance shopping with Mr. Ballet Flat! I currently live below sea level in the suburbs near New Orleans, where I make maps all day, everyday for my job. I'm slowly becoming more and more obsessed with anything New Orleans related for our wedding, and I can't wait for the big day!
miss ballet flat, when are you sending out your save-the-dates? I am getting married the weekend after you, and originally I was going to send mine out in october/november, but everyone convinced me to wait until the first week of january so they wouldn’t get lost in the hubub of the holidays!