{Wedding} Our Save the Dates

Since people are starting to receive our wedding invites, I thought I would share our Save the Dates with you.

In South Africa I don't think that many couples opt to send physical Save The Dates - considering the extra cost of making/printing/posting them (on top of the cost of the actual invites), but I'm a definite "paper" kinda gal and I knew that I wanted something fun, papery, textured and different to set the tone for our wedding.

{Side note: Me to Warren: We need to send these Save the Dates out pronto.
Warr: Why don't we just send them out with the invitations?
Me: what? are you serious?}

Boys. They don't get it.

So I set about mocking up a few ideas that were floating around my head and came up with a prototype that included a pencil to be sent to each guest with the Save the Date. I opted for the phrase "pencil us in" rather than "save the date" - ahem did you know the acronym for "Save the Date" is S.T.D - and nobody wants that.

{In fact, it became rather a joke between The Warr and I in our messages to eachother -
Me: Have you got the STD?
Warr: Yes, I'm giving it to Claire.
Me: haha lol.}

So anywaaaay,

I mocked up our first prototype using plain paper and black card and just drew up what I wanted them to look like - then I started on the computer with different colour ideas and combinations. If you are making your stationery yourself - you have the freedom to play around with ALL different options - so go wild!

{Making the wedding stationery yourself is also the perfect excuse to buy ALL the lovely paper. Not, that you need an excuse, obviously.}

I found some chunky pencils in one of my favourite bulk/bargain stores - the pencils had some text on them which had to be whittled off. It took a little guess work to figure out how exactly to attach the pencils to the cardstock and to get the size of the slits exactly right - making sure that there was enough leeway for the card to close, but enough hold to keep the pencil in tight.



{Above are two of the pics showing our very first mock-ups - playing around with different colours, different ribbons, different combinations etc etc - we didn't end up using any of these}


Eventually we settled on some basic colours - purple cardstock for the outer cover, turquoise text with pink highlighting the date and a colour photo. Behind the printed sheets we used a combination of pink tissue paper and bronze and gold textured paper (which was actually cut from sheets of wrapping paper).

It took a lot of work because there were lots of different elements that went into it - measuring and cutting the cardstock to the exact size, printing and cutting the text elements, cutting the slits in the cardboard, cutting the strips of pink tissue paper, the strips of bronze paper and the strips of gold paper and then pasting the pink paper, bronze paper, gold paper and words onto the cardstock, slotting in the pencil, printing and cutting and pasting the names of each of the guests and tying them up in a little package with pink ribbon.

oh yes, and Warren helped whittle the pencils.

I wrote our names on each of the pencils too so that it acted as a kind of caption for the photo. (I had to write our entire names out because our initials together spell W.C.
What is it with this wedding and toilet humour?)

The pencils could be removed from the card by the guests and kept near the phone or a desk or wherever as a very practical reminder of our wedding day.

Don't be afraid of a little extra work, in fact I remember sending a few pics to Warr while he was at work - of an option which didn't include the pink tissue paper (ie: less work)
Me: Which of these do you prefer? The one with the pink tissue paper in it or do you think it looks fine without it?
Warr: mmm... I like the one with the pink tissue paper.
Me: Damn. Me too.

It really is worth it in the end once you hear the reactions of the guests who receive them.

So, what do you think?

I can't WAIT to show you our wedding invites - they are too awesome. 

If I do say so myself.

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