Weddingbee Blog

So far, my favorite posts ever have been the three related to our save the dates. Weddingbee introduced me to the world of DIY and it totally transformed our wedding.

The Save the Dates were our first DIY wedding project and I was really excited about them. This project shaped our whole wedding and ended up being our inspiration for other details. When I originally started them, I just assumed I’d totally do it myself, but Mr. Starfish was just as excited as I was. He came up with most of the magnet designs, while I worked on the details. I love thinking back to how one little detail shaped our wedding day and how we created it together.

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Mr. Starfish hasn’t had too many demands or even requests when it comes to the wedding, but he knew for sure he wanted magnets for our save the dates. I don’t know what it is with guys, but it seems like it’s always the guys who want the magnets. I’ve had guy friends come up to me so proud that they “found” this great wedding idea, and by found, I mean they received one from someone else’s wedding. I think Mr. Starfish found this idea on my brother’s fridge.

I wanted an excuse to share our engagement pics, so I was all for the magnets.

I was also super excited to use one of my favorite quotes from When Harry Met Sally. Thus came my vision for our save the date magnets.

I was really excited about them. I showed them to Mr. Starfish and Starfish Mom. Starfish Mom loved them, but Mr. Starfish wanted try and design one. He started playing around on Picasa and came up with a few of his own designs.

First came one of my favorites. We call it the Newport. I love the sailboat and it displays the destination and date clearly.

He then came up with the idea of “Get A Room”, which was somewhat a play on words and pretty direct, if you ask me. I thought it was funny and I called this my new favorite.

Then came the “Getting Closer” magnet. It lets guests know the date is getting closer—after a two year engagement it’s starting to get close with less than a year to go. I thought it was cool that he chose a blurred out photo. Again, it became a “favorite”.

His last design is called “Cold Feet”. I think it’s funny, since it’s such a guy thing to think. Again, I had a new “favorite”.

Our Save the Dates are complete and have been sent!

When we were figuring out what to do, I turned to Weddingbee for inspiration. Through different bees on the site, I realized I wanted to incorporate a few things: tie in our theme/color scheme (navy and white with starfish accents), create a look that is simple, clean and classic Newport, incorporate some fun/humor, and special details. I think we did a pretty good job of getting the exact look we were going for.

We decided against calligraphy for the envelopes. Our wedding is a little more casual, so we didn’t want super fancy save the dates. We’ll save calligraphy for the invitations to make them a little more formal.

I created envelope liners using the Paper Source templates. I absolutely love envelope liners. I feel like they are an added surprise when you open a letter/note/invitation.

We wanted our save the dates to be informative with a personal touch. We included a “mission statement” explaining the importance of our wedding location, as it is a destination for most of our guests.

We made sure to include accommodations suggestions. The main reason we decided to send save the dates was to get the hotel information to guests. Hotel blocks end by the time our invites go out, and we want everyone to have the chance to get rooms that are convenient and hopefully a little cheaper. We also included our wedding website, which has information on restaurants, activities in the area, and information for wedding events.

We also added in magnets. Mr. Starfish really loved the idea of magnets, and I loved that we got to include photos from our engagement shoot. I say photos plural, as we couldn’t decide on one design and ended up with five magnet designs. We sent out specific ones to different groups.

And here it is all together:

The mission statement and information cards were completely created in Microsoft Word with some embossed elements. I think sending them out makes it all more real!

We originally wanted to keep our save the dates low budget, but they ended up costing more than expected. We realized DIY, doesn’t always mean cheaper. But, we are still happy we did go the DIY route. I love that the save the dates reflect both of us. They are sort of simple and classic like me, with a bit of humor thrown in, which is so Mr. Starfish.

The most expensive part of the save the dates were the magnets. Because of our indecisiveness, we ended up paying more. We ordered them through Vistaprint during a promotional sale. Free Magnets- the first 10. We ended up having to pay for 5 design fees. If we only had one design we could have cut down on costs.

So how much did they cost? Here’s a breakdown by the sites/stores we used:

VistaPrint

• Magnets (100): $88.00 with discounts and shipping included

PaperSource (All prices listed are with a 20% discount from a sale)

• Night A6 Envelopes (80 envelopes): $22.40
• Pure White A6 Notecards (150 note cards): $18.00 - we had technical difficulties and needed to buy extra
• White Oval Labels Sheets (100 labels): $8.32
• *Envelope Liner Template (multi pack): ($8.76) -already had from prior craft project
• Sketch Starfish Rubber Stamp: $4.80
• Save the Date Rubber Stamp: $7.96

A.C. Moore

• *Heat Embossing Tool- (19.95- 11.97 with 40% off coupon) - already had from prior craft project
• Navy Ink- $2.37 with 40% off coupon
• Clear Embossing Powder: $2.37 with 40% coupon

USPS

• Gulf Coast Lighthouses stamps (80)- $36.20, $1.00 service charge included
• Additional 17 cent stamps (80)-$13.60

*Other items needed, not included in budget breakdown:

• Computer
• Printer
• Color Ink
• Printer Paper- for envelope liners
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Double Sided Tape

Our Total Cost: $204.02*

* not including items listed in “other”, heat embosser or envelope liner template as we already had these.

At 80 Save the Dates, it came out to about $2.55 each. This was more than we originally wanted to spend, but we are happy with the results. These will be our guests’ first glimpse into our wedding, so we wanted them to be special.

We could have cut the magnets to save on costs. It would have brought the total to $116.02, or about $1.45 each—over a dollar less per save the date. They would have received this:

But we are happy with our addition, as it makes our set complete.

Did you splurge on your save the dates?

photos used for save the dates taken by: David Bibeault