Weddingbee Blog

About STDs. (Because, of course, STDs are no laughing matter, hehe—I mean, really, who came up with that acronym?) And, by STDs, I mean save the dates, of course.

My wedding books, websites, newsletters, and checklists are all telling me it’s about time to start thinking about STDs (hehehe—the novelty hasn’t worn off yet). According to the wedding police, we’re supposed to send our STDs six to eight months from W day. We’re six-and-a-half months out now, but seeing as how we’ve passed on the news about our wedding to my out-of-town relatives via word of mouth, we’re leaning toward the six-month mark. (Oh, sidebar: Its totally unbelievable/freaky that there is even a six-months moment on the horizon.)

In order to avoid our STDs getting mixed in or lost among Christmas and holiday cards, we’re planning to send ’em out in November. That really isn’t very far away, folks, so it’s time to get serious.

Confession: looking for STD inspiration is completely overwhelming.

I do graphic design for a living, so I feel like I’m under so much pressure with our wedding stationery. Don’t get me wrong—I’m thrilled about designing everything, and I definitely could not picture anyone else creating something this important besides me, but…but I feel like there’s all this pressure on me to deliver with our save the dates (mail pun totally intentional).

I guess the best way I can describe it, because not everyone understands graphic design, is if you were a pastry chef and were baking your own wedding cake. No one would push you to do it, but you’d want to do it yourself because, simply, it’s what you do. You’d want a cake you’d be proud of on display for your guests, not to mention the coworkers who are also bakers, and your baker friends…your friends who are pretty arrogant about their work. (I think this is a pretty common trait among designers; this wasn’t a hit toward chefs, I promise.)

It’s kind of overwhelming, for sure. On top of this, the real problem is that I cannot decide what I want our STDs to look like. I have a million and one ideas in my head, but it’s so hard because I want something modern but informal. And I want something hip, but too hip wouldn’t be well received by our older guests. I want to use Helvetica, but Mr. Giraffe wants a more formal font. It’s super hard to find a balance and to pull myself back into this.

So what am I doing to avoid freaking out on this? Same thing I’d do for any other tough design assignment: research! I’ve been looking for some super hip and pop and fresh, modern-style STDs for inspiration. The only “requirement” I kind of had is that we 100%, for sure, want to do a photo STD, so I was on the lookout for that.

Here’s the goods!

I love the back of this one from Red Stamp.

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I absolutely love this one. I love how colors and shapes are use to break it apart and keep the emphasis on the photo of the couple.

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What I really enjoy about this STD is the full photo that bleeds off the card. It looks really swank to have such a large photo with a rock-star label on top.

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How ’bout another? OK! This simplicity of this one just emphasizes that lovely photo, and I love how the cropping of it makes it look so panoramic. It just looks like a rock-star STD, for realsies. Also, the generous letter spacing on the type just gives it so much character.

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That last one was from Minted. Has anyone ever seen Minted? It has some amazing designs! How amazing? Well, here—look at this save-the-date montage!

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Annnnnnnnd end montage! I know, gorgeous, right?

I’m not sure what I’m doing with our save the dates yet, and all this inspiration kind of makes it a little more difficult because it adds to my inability to decide on anything. Regardless, feel free to scroll back up and drool over those babies a little bit longer.

Anybody else gettin’ serious about their STD inspiration?