Saturday, September 21, 2013

Our Save The Date Cards

I had my heart set on our save the dates before we even set a date.

I knew from the very start that I wanted magnets. I just love the concept of save the date magnets because they make so much sense. I mean, if you mail someone a save the date, they're going to hang it on the fridge. It's just what people do. They have to find a magnet in order to hang your save the date. So it makes so much sense to just send a save the date that is a magnet and cut out the middle man.

I was looking at a bunch of sites for magnets and loved the float + celebrate magnets on Minted (which are $2.45 a magnet). I couldn't get them out of my head. Plus, I knew the exact photo that I wanted to take for the save the dates, and I needed a panoramic save the date rather than a square or rectangle one.




I edited our photo in PicMonkey, and then uploaded it to Minted. Online, the color choices were celery, robin's egg blue, and deep red, but Minted actually allows you custom coloring, so I was able to select celery to start and then choose plum (which is great because our colors are eggplant, lilac, and silver, and eggplant and plum are pretty interchangeable).

I was able to choose the fonts and colors too. I wanted to stick with a basic font. Actually, I'm lying. I wanted some crazy script, but it just sort of started getting illegible and text on one line was overlapping text on the second line, and it just looked like a sloppy mess. So then I decided I wanted a basic font.

At checkout, I was offered a "skinny wrap," which -- according to how it looks on screen -- is your name and address printed on the front and your date printed on the back. It was awesome. It added $45 to my set of 100 (so $.45 each, making the magnets $2.90 total), but it was worth it to me. It looked so incredibly coordinated -- and I wouldn't have to hand print or hand stamp our return address on every card. Plus, I could add special instructions to make sure the colors matched the ones on the actual magnet, so I was happy.

I wasn't happy, however, the first time I saw the digital proof. The return address text was black and was completely lost on the plum wrap. So I asked for it to be changed. And it was.

And that was the great part. The digital proof (and any necessary revisions) are free of charge. You do have to okay the proof before your order is created, which means you get to see exactly what your order will look like. You don't have to worry about getting a surprise (like the inability to read the return address).

About a week later, a huge box arrived at my door.

Inside were my 100 save the dates.

save the dates

They were wrapped like a gift from my buddy Jason (he's not my buddy; I actually have never met or spoken to Jason although, but it just felt so personalized to actually receive these with my name and his handwritten on them).

The stationery the cards came wrapped in was celery, which matches the original selection I had made when I created my order, so that was a nice touch.

save the dates

In fact, my envelopes came wrapped in the same celery color. And, instead of 100 envelopes, I actually received 104. It was great because the top envelope of one of the packages was dirty and I wouldn't have wanted to send that to anyone.

But the envelopes ... something was missing. They were bare. There was no address or date printed on them.

This, apparently, is because ...

save the dates

... the skinny wraps were stickers.

I received the save the dates about a week before my mom was visiting. And my initial thought was that I would just wait for her because there was no way I was going to affix 100 stickers to my envelopes.

And after leaving the cards in the box for a day, I decided to suck it up and just stuff them and stick them with Pete. So one Saturday afternoon, when we had nothing else going on, I decided we were going to have a stuff the save the dates party (and yes, since you've gotten this far without seeing them, now's the time for the big reveal).

save the dates

As soon as I opened the sealed packages with the save the dates and actually held one, I was in love. Absolutely in love. The magnets are matte, not glossy, which is amazing because glossy just looks cheap to me.

The coloring was gorgeous. As I said, I edited the photo on PicMonkey before uploading it, so I could optimize the color and add the text on the photo. Minted can optimize the coloring for you if you ask, but I was good on my own.

The font up top is as simple as I needed it to be, and our names on the bottom was in the gorgeous script that I wanted.

Our save the dates were simple and perfect and everything I wanted them to be.

save the dates

And they were printed on a great quality magnet. I can't even tell you how many compliments I got on the thickness of the magnet (as if I had something to do with the choosing of the magnet paper). But, actually, they are really thick. There's a magnet and then the top layer is a thick paper. Since the magnet is actually a separate entity, you're getting something that is automatically thicker than those save the date magnets that are just printed on the magnet themselves.

save the dates

The magnets fit perfectly into the envelopes. I asked at the post office to see if they needed to have a piece of paper (an envelope liner, if you're actually worried about this on your own) stuffed behind the magnet so they didn't get stuck and/or ruined in the sorter but I was told that they would be fine. No one mentioned any issues to me, so I'm going to thank the thick envelope for this.

We licked the save the dates closed, and then it was time to conquer the skinny wraps.

save the dates

Those skinny wraps, they ended up not being that much of a pain in the neck. You can see the exact spot that needs to be on the edge of the envelope. Once you get that aligned, you just stick the front down, and then the back, and that's it. It gave such a classy appeal to the save the dates, plus it made them coordinated.

Although I was one of the only people who noticed.

But you'll notice now (because I'm pointing it out so it wasn't completely in vain).

save the dates

The coloring on the skinny wrap is the exact coloring on the save the dates. The font that I used for the date on the skinny wrap is also the same font that I used for the date on the save the date magnet.

Oh beautiful cohesion.

save the dates

Our return address (which yes, had our full address but I blocked our address out because I don't have enough groceries in the house for everyone to see my address and surprise me by coming over for dinner) lacked our last names. I figured everyone would know who we are (if you don't know us as a couple by our first names only, you probably didn't make the cut for our save the dates. Plus, when you open it, you see our photo). Our save the dates had just our first names, as did the return address.

Oh beautiful cohesion. Again.

save the dates

The magnets are gorgeous, absolutely stunning hanging on the fridge (next to Pete's nephew's spin art).

I loved our photo. It's from our engagement photo session, but it was the one photo I refused to show anyone. I kept it safe, for me and Pete only, until the save the dates were mailed. Aside from our immediate families, I kept the date completely under wraps as well. I wanted everything about the save the date to be a complete surprise. It was so important to me.

People went nuts when they received the cards, texting and calling us. "You picked a date!" they exclaimed. "I love the save the date" so many said.

And then there were the ones who said, "I thought you forgot the M in married until I hung the magnet on the fridge." I'm not even exaggerating when I tell you half the people didn't originally realize that Pete and I are the M in married.

That element of surprise (for those people) gave one more surprise to our friends and family.

That trio of surprises, coupled with the fact that Minted created an amazingly excellent product, made these save the dates absolute perfection.

And for your save the dates, you need that. They are the introduction to your wedding and set the tone. If you do them, you want to do them right. And I know we did ours right (at least, in our opinion and that's what matters most).

BRIDAL BABBLE: Be honest: Did you realize we were the M in marriage before I told you?

4 comments:

  1. So beautiful. I love it. It is a great idea as well.

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  2. Love the card! The picture is beautiful and romantic and so clever to use yourselves as the M. I love the humor you inject into your reviews.

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  3. Very cute! So have you given any thought to where you'll be getting your invitations & stationery done? ;)

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  4. I'll be honest I took a double take and initially had a heart attack that there was a typo! But I noticed without reading the blog. I love the save the date!

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