Wedding Blog

Part 1: I get a 2 day deadline to make and mail 60 Save The Dates.
Part 2: I suck it up and design them.

And now… Part 3: I print and address them.

I had to put my quickie Save the Date postcards through the printer a total of three times - once for the “Save the Date” information, once to print the graphics on the back, and a third time for the addresses (since I formatted them in Word, whereas all of the graphics were done in Photoshop).

Yes, I used the computer to address them. Hand-addressed envelopes are great, and calligraphy is awesome. But what about the girl with crappy handwriting who is also on the tightest timeline ever? The resounding answer from the wedding community seems to be: labels.

But, but, but… you still have to peel and stick ’em! And I’m a lazy woman with chewed-off fingernails.

Enter the miracle of modern technology. One of my required freshman classes in college was an IT 101 course in which they taught us how to use important components of a computer such as the web browser and Microsoft Office. As a self-described “computer nerd”, (and cocky teenager extraordinaire) I thought it was pretty ridiculous that they made me take this class and I spent most of my time in it either daydreaming, playing Freecell, or showing off my “superior” computer skillz. But one fateful day, I happened to be paying attention when the instructor showed us how to use Mail Merge.

Mail Merge is something you do with Word and Excel. You can take a word document, add what are called “Fields” to it, and Mail Merge will fill in data from an Excel document. The result is a set of personalized documents containing recipients’ names, addresses, or any other info you’ve told it to include. Ever wonder how your credit card company has the time to send you a letter personalized with “Dear Yourname”? They use mail-merge, or a similar program.

Fields, merging, data… kinda sounds complicated and technical! But it’s actually not. If you’ve got a printer and Microsoft Office (I’m using 2008 for Mac, but you can have an older version on Mac or PC too - it’ll just look a little different), you can do this. Here’s how you do it.

The first thing you need is an Excel list. Figure out what info you’ll need (name, address, etc) and devote a column in Excel to each category. For example, my column names are: Name, Name2, Address, and StateZip. They correspond to the lines you’d see on an envelope. Then, fill in the columns with your data and make sure you save the file.

Now open up a new Word document. Go to “Tools” and select “Envelopes”. Here you can enter a return address, give it a cool font, and play with the positioning. Leave the recipient address alone for now. Use the “Page Setup” or “Custom” button to tell Word how big your envelope or card is. Then click the “Mail Merge” button.

You should now have a document that’s the size you specified and has the return address on it. You should also have the Mail Merge Manager box open. (If you don’t, I think you can find it again under Tools > Mail Merge.) Click on Get List > Open Data Source. Then browse to the excel file you made.

Remember those “fields”? Once Word gets your Excel list, it’ll automatically take your column names and turn ’em in to fields. Then, it’s time to put them in your envelope. Each field is going to act as a substitute for whatever item it corresponds to in excel. For example, I would place “Name” wherever I want the person’s name to appear. Once the fields are in place, you should format them, making sure the margin, font and spacing all looks OK. When selecting fonts, keep in mind how long the names and addresses are. You don’t want them to run off the page or have any weird line-wrapping happening.

Though Isadora is the address font shown above, I ended up changing it to a different font (Diehl Deco from DaFont) because Isadora wasn’t readable enough. You can see Diehl Deco below (in the parts that aren’t blurred). The cursive font is CAC Pinafore, which I also used on the other side of the card.

When your file looks good, click on Complete Merge > To New Document. A new document will be created containing as many pages as you have rows in your excel document. Each page will be a personalized version of your original document.

Now, it’s a good idea to scroll through each page, skimming for alignment issues or other errors. I tend to look for the longest name or address on my list and make sure it looks OK. This will save you the headache of trying to reprint select ones later. You can reformat or change specific pages too, without causing changes to any of the other pages. (So if Joe Blow’s address was a smidgen too long, you could make his font slightly smaller without affecting the rest of the addresses’ fonts.) If there’s an overall problem (i.e. you don’t like the font), you can close this document and you’ll still have your template open. Fix the issue and “Complete Merge” again. I usually have to do this 3 or 4 times before I’m happy with them.

Now: the moment of truth. Print ONE. If you’re low on envelopes or don’t have a lot of extras to play with (like me), you can run a piece of paper through instead: just cut it to the correct size. Whatever you print, take note of how you put the paper in and how it comes out of the printer (tip: make a mark on it with a pencil before printing!), otherwise you might end up with stuff printed on the wrong side of your envelopes, or upside down. Just make sure you select the option to “Print Current Page,” or your printer might start spitting out all of them when you’re not yet ready.

I mock drew the locations of the graphics on this blank card so that I could see where the addresses should print.

When you’re happy with them, print away! I suppose it depends on your printer, but mine doesn’t print as well when multiple pages of thick paper (or envelopes) are in the tray. I feed them one-by-one (or in this case, Mr. MJ did). Tedious, but it’s not as tedious as peeling, lining up and sticking address labels!

Speaking of peeling and sticking… here’s what they looked like all printed up and stamped!

Kudos to Mr. Mary Jane; I asked him to take some pics of the finished cards for you guys, and he really went all out! It was a shame I had to blur so much (but I left bits and pieces so you could “experience” the fonts).

All in all, these Save The Date postcards took about 8 hours of my time and cost about $20 to make (since I used several tools I already owned). They aren’t 100% perfect, but I’m quite pleased with them!

Mail Merge is a fairly simple tool that saves tons of time. I keep my address “book” in Excel because when Christmas card season rolls around, Mail Merge is my best friend. You can use it to personalize envelopes, invitations, even thank tou cards (but take time and really personalized those! :)).

Would you be OK with mass-printing your addresses from the computer, or do you think I should have done the “proper” thing and written them out by hand?