Wedding Blog

Mr. Cloud and I have been engaged now for over a year an a half. I knew immediately I wanted to handle a LOT of the projects for the wedding myself. Up first was our save the dates, and I wanted to get them out as soon as possible. It made sense, considering about 80% of the people we are inviting will be traveling for the big day. I wanted to give plenty of notice of our date, as well as start directing people towards our wedding website (which I may or may not have set up within two days of the engagement).

I had seen magnet STDs before, and was smitten. I didn’t want anything cheap feeling though, so I figured my best bet would be to outsource at least that part of the project. That’s when I came upon MagnetStreet.com. When ordering from them, you can either choose from their super cute designs, or upload your own. We decided to go with one of theirs that perfectly matched our color scheme in the mini magnet size.

Photo Source: MagnetStreet.com

I have to say my experience with Magnet Street was wonderful. The first picture I sent in was a little washed out and I got a lovely call from one of the designers suggesting we try another, because she didn’t want to compromise the result. Then when I sent in another, she worked with me until it was just how I wanted it and the proof was perfect. The only complaint I have is that this was my first wedding purchase, and they may have left me with an unreal expectation of how easy this would all be!

Anyway, the magnets were perfect. They were sturdy and of fabulous quality, not those dinky magnets that can’t hold even a sheet of paper up. Not only that, but our date was right there in print. The moment I opened the box, it just made everything so real! Now I just needed a way to send them out in style. I knew I wanted black envelopes, again fitting with the theme, and after falling in love with Martha’s wrap labels, I was a woman on a mission.

All my supplies ready to craft!

I also knew I didn’t want to just throw the little guys in an envelope and send them off. So, I purchased some pretty basic gray cardstock from my local Kinkos, and had them cut it down for me to 4 bar size so they would slide right into the black 4 bar envelopes I purchased from PaperSource. I went back and forth on how to actually attach the magnet to the card. I decided to go with two “slits” cut with an X-Acto knife on the cardstock to slide the corners of the magnets into. I suppose a sticky dot or something would have been just as easy, but I was worried about a gooey residue or something, and just wanted to get them in the mail!

I whipped up my own version of the wrap around labels, modeled loosely after both Martha’s design and Mrs. Pomegranate’s stunning invitation wraps. Ok, I say whipped up, and that is just a flat-out lie. These things took me FOREVER. I made them in Microsoft Publisher, which I am fairly familiar with. So I figured, how hard could it be? A quick design and 100+ addresses imported in? No biggie, right? Not so much. My printer, as well as every other printer in the city that I tried, HATED my file. It just would not print correctly, no matter what I did and how many margin shifts and reconfigures I did. Finally they printed, and the color red was a bit off, but at this point I decided to just deal. I’m still probably the only one who has ever noticed.

I cut them all individually on my small paper cutter and ran them through my handy dandy Xyron (which also may or may not have been purchased for this project…). I think a glue stick would have been just as effective, and a bit more cost effective. I placed the label and added the standard “celebrate” stamp, and they were ready to go! I did crease the labels with my bone folder where I wanted them to fold around the envelope before running them in the Xyron. This made placing them correctly MUCH easier later on, and only took an extra second.

The whole project took just one night in front of the TV to assemble once the labels were printed. It was fairly easy, and we got a lot of wonderful reviews from guests! They were sent out about a year before our date, but guests really seemed to have appreciated the heads up. However, we did have a few people say they sat in their mailboxes for a few extra days; apparently those quality magnets were strong enough to attach to their metal boxes!

How did you let guests know of your big plans? How far in advance did you do it?