The Top 5 Mistakes with your Save The Dates

We are often asked at what point should a newly engaged couple send out their save the dates, who should they send them to, etc! Here are about the top 5 mistakes that one should try to avoid with their save the dates! 

1. Sending them out immediately upon your engagement. You're all excited about the wedding plans, you booked the place, you made a guest list that includes everyone you've ever known. But as time goes on, all of those deposits for the band, the videographer, the photographer, the florist, and more add up. You could find yourself in a money crunch that requires you to cut down your guest list...but you can't if you sent everyone a Save-the-date. This is the #1 save-the-date mistake, because you must invite these people to the wedding now. It's bad form to have them reserve a block on their calendars, not register their kids for camp and so on...and then they don't get invited to the wedding. Major rifts happen in families over this one, so take your time, make sure you know the strength of your budget, and send them out when you're sure you can invite everyone on your list.

2. Going off-color. Your friends might think a wacky save-the-date card featuring a dog with cartoon-like eyes swigging from a bottle of tequila is fun, but your relatives will wonder about you. Keep the save-the-dates on the classic or classy side, and personalize them with a photo of the two of you, great colors, a border, and so on. There's a lot you can do to be original without crossing the borders of taste.

3. Not notifying guests that there's a magnet inside the envelope. The magnet save-the-date card is a popular choice now, but if you don't write on the envelope that a magnet is enclosed, the recipient could place the envelope on top of a computer disk and erase it. It's always best to put a 'magnet enclosed' note on the outside of the envelope.

4. Not putting enough information. Always make sure you include the wedding location, such as your hometown or a destination wedding locale, along with the date so that guests can make travel plans. Just having the date is not enough. Guests need to know how many days they'll need to take off of work.

5. Enclosing confetti. Or anything else that will fall to the floor and be a pain in the butt to vacuum up. A better enclosure is a sheet of vellum with a poem or something that can be kept - or tossed - with ease.

Todd and Kelly Save The Date Video

Tim and Jane Save The Date

press play... from tim and jane on Vimeo.
via here

Save. The. Date. Postcard Style

Save The Dates are a fun and exciting way to tell your friends and family the date of your wedding and also can help set the tone of how your wedding is going to feel! This idea was featured on Ruffled and I thought it was an adorable feel for a laidback, classic feeling wedding. Enjoy the idea!

- Vintage postcards – they can be found at most antique stores…some searching is required, but that’s part of the fun. Postcards that have never been used are most desirable, but those are pretty hard to find, so those written on with ball point pen or pencil are best as a second choice.
- Bleach
- Q-tips
- Rubber gloves
- Paper towels
- A pot used to boil water.
- Typewriter (optional).

The postcards before:

and after:

Instructions:

First, find your postcards. You may want to get a few more than you actually need. In doing this project I found that some of the postcards that looked like they would be the easiest to clean up were actually impossible to clean and were unusable. Save yourself a trip and just get a few extras at the beginning.

Secondly, the postcards need to be prepared. To remove the stamp: Boil water on the stove until it starts to steam. Hold the postcard over the steam to loosen stamp (this may take 5 minutes or so) and remove the stamp with tweezers. I suggest removing the stamps first so that you can avoid having the ink on your save the date message running!

Next, the postcards need to be cleaned of any old writing. Postcards that were written on with pencil are the easiest because they can usually just be erased. To remove ballpoint pen ink: put on rubber gloves, get out bleach, q-tips, and a paper towel which has been run under water and then rung out so that it is slightly damp. Dip one q-tip in bleach and run the q-tip along each line of text. The ink should start to disappear. After bleaching a few rows of text, wipe the postcard clean with the damp paper towel. Continue this process until the ink is gone. It may take a few swipes, and some ink may not come off at all. The postmark will not be removed, but I think having the old postmark is one of the best things about these save the date cards.

Finally, type out your message! You’ll need to keep it simple as there is not a lot of room on old postcards, but we were able to include all necessary information. The postcards don’t have to be typed out on a typewriter, although it does add to the authenticity of the postcards. I went out and bought a typewriter to do these save the dates because I knew I would use it in the future. Some libraries still provide usage of typewriters.

These save the date cards take time, but in my opinion, they’re worth it. Because most of them can be found for between 25 cents and 1 dollar they tend to be cheaper than normal save the dates, and they can be mailed for 28 cents instead of the usual 44 cents.

Video Killed The Save The Date Store

My original idea for our "std's" (save the dates Brian!) was to have all information uploaded on to a thumb drive that would be sent to all our guests. This way they could just plug in the thumb drive and have all information ready and at their fingertips. Needless to say....teaching 20 first and second graders AND doing things like this do not mix. SO I went with paper. Now as I see all these creative ideas, I hope that one of our brides decides to do something like this. It is just so unbelievably adorable and melts my heart.

Check out this one I found on Love And Lavender (very cool spot by the way)!

Paula + Jared | E-Fusion from Josh Gooden on Vimeo.