Review: Wedding Programs From MagnetStreet

A Bride On A Budget received these programs for review. All thoughts and opinions belong to ABOAB.

In order for us to get married in the church, there had a series of meetings we needed to have. There was the initial meeting with the church's wedding coordinator, a full day of marriage prep at a neighboring church, a meeting with a married couple in the church, and a meeting with the priest who was saying our mass.

At the meeting with our priest, the first thing he did was show us programs from other weddings. He liked the wording in one of the programs but hated the size (because it wouldn't fit in a man's pocket properly). He gave us another program because it contained a lot of information about the church and the priest thought we might want to add that since it was recently given the distinction of a Basilica.

So that solidified it.

We needed wedding programs.

I hadn't really thought of them during the planning process. I knew they were something we could hold off doing until the very end … and I left them there (along with the menus. Nothing was contingent on printing programs so I knew I wasn't holding anything back by taking my time with them).

I checked out MagnetStreet's website. I had heard great things about the company (I'm pretty sure my friend who was married two years ago used them) but I had never personally ordered from there so I wasn't sure what to expect.

I went to the website and was really impressed. You could sort by product, and that included sizes and types of programs. Because of our priest's comment, I knew I wanted to pick a tea length size (that's about 4x9, perfect for pockets). MagnetStreet actually had a ton of choices of tri-fold tea length programs, which was great. Programs require so much text but I was excited to see a tri-fold option because I knew I could fit everything we needed but still have spaces for blank sections.

After deciding on the size, I was able to filter by style. That part was easy. Beach wedding requires beach programs. (You can also filter by color or collection if you don't have a theme).

  

I absolutely fell in love with the Sunset Silhouette programs. The default colors didn't matter (although they were green, tan, and white). What MagnetStreet allows, which is a huge plus for brides, is that you can customize almost anything to your wedding colors. Ours were eggplant, lilac, and silver, so I changed the entire background of the program to silver and made the silhouette a dark purple. I used a pop of white on the cover and a little tan on the inside (because lilac was just lost on the silver background and tan and sand and beach all seem to work). It was so easy to just change the colors. There are a bunch that you can just select by a simple click, but if you know HTML and have a specific color code in mind, you can translate that to saturation and have a color that absolutely matches your theme.

Editing was super easy. I just typed in the information and positioned it where and how I wanted. I took a few days to work on it and just saved it in my account every time. When I was ready to work on it again, I just could pick up where I left off. That was really, really helpful for us because we ended up having a last minute personnel change. It was so easy to just go into my saved program, add a second ring bearer, and resave it.

You then choose what paper you want them printed on: Premium Smooth, Fine Linen, Pressed Texture, and Luxe Pearl. Different papers mean different prices though. Premium Smooth is the base price, Fine Linen and Pressed Texture are 10 cents more per program, and Luxe Pearl is 15 cents above Premium Smooth. You will get a price break if you order multiples (although you can order just one for $10 so you can check it out and that $10 will credit towards your final purchase).

Premium Smooth is a smooth, matte paper with an eggshell finish. Fine Linen is textured to appear like a linen fabric. Pressed Texture is a matte paper with very distinct texture (great if you're going for a handmade or watercolor look). And Luxe Pearl, which we went with, is imported from Italy and gives a pearl texture to the paper. I hadn't seen it prior to ordering, but I figured Pete is Italian so that was a nice throw to him (even if my parents were the only guests who knew it was Italian paper).

When I finally decided on the type of paper and made our last minute correction, I was ordering fairly close to the wedding. MagnetStreet assured me that my programs would arrive in time – and they arrived earlier than expected.

Thank goodness for that because when they arrived, we needed to “assemble” them. Okay, assembly only means folding on the creases. Even my dad commented on the ease of folding. It took nearly no effort to fold on the given lines. And if you look at the photo above, you can actually see the distinct creases. It was so simple to just fold in one side, fold in the other, and be done.

After we spent Tuesday morning folding, though, the programs weren't flat.

So my dad had an idea of piling books on top of the programs so they would lay flat. We started with one small book but eventually, we had six picture albums and two heavy books on top of the programs. It worked. By the time we were bringing them to the church on Saturday afternoon, they were so flat, it looked like we had taken an iron to them.

The programs were gorgeous, by the way. They had an iridescent pearl shine to them, which really made the silver and white pop. The purple was a little muted, which was good because it made the shine of the other colors seem so special. Inside, the majority of the text was purple and the background was silver so it was just gorgeous. Not that I'm bias, but these were the nicest wedding programs I've ever seen. Most are on printer paper or cardstock, but this Luxe Pearl was something special that I've never seen before. Absolutely worth the extra 15 cents per program (especially since that's only an extra $15 per 100 programs. And when you're spending so much money on your wedding anyway, you won't notice an extra $15 from your budget, but you will absolutely notice how much more regal your programs are).
I saved two programs for myself so that I could frame them. If you look at the program photos above, you can see how the program laying flat really does look like a beach scene with our names and date on it. It looks like art. I actually like them so much that I'm going to purchase a large frame, put both sides it in, and hang it on the wall. Honestly, there are so few keepsakes from your wedding that you can actually keep and display permanently. These gorgeous programs are ones that you really can display and enjoy for forever.
BRIDAL BABBLE: Did you make wedding programs?