Save the Dates

Or STDs lol. Sorry I had to. It just drives me crazy EVERYtime I see that acronym. 

So this is where things really got real. 

Save the dates. Now technically I should’ve sent them out in December but unfortunately we just got them out in the mail yesterday. 

Aye! That’s one way to describe the process. 

So first you establish the guest list and then your family decides to say screw your list, you need to invite these other 20 people you didn’t think of. 

Queue the awkwardness of turning them down. Now of course if your parents or whoever are contributing to the wedding they should have some say but sometimes you just have to have a limit. 

For example, my grandma feels it’s necessary for me to invite her whole church congregation. Lol, not really but she did try to slip her pastors address in there when I asked her for her list. 

This really is a hard choice because you don’t want someone feeling left out but we all have budgets and the wedding industry makes it hard enough to cut corners. Cutting the guest list is probably the easiest way to save money. 

My strategy? I’ll put them on my ‘B’ list. 

This is a great reccomendation I’ve seen online. Sometimes people even create a 3 tier list. We luckily didn’t have that many people to worry about. 

Basically you send the save the dates to your ‘A’ list and then depending on how many no responses you receive for  invites you send out invites to the ‘B’ list. 

Hopefully if they are on that list they aren’t too close with anyone on the ‘A’ list and won’t find out you even had save the dates. 

Now do I have an intention of actually sending them to my ‘B’ list? Nope. But hey it helps get them off my back. Maybe if they suggest someone I actually know, I will follow through with sending them. 

Sorry but if I thought of 250 people before I thought of your suggestion, then they probably aren’t significant. 

So I got SUPER lucky because my mom is a graphic designer so I put her in charge of my website and print material. It honestly is pretty cheap to have things printed. I would definitely recommend buying a template off etsy or designing your own and having them printed vs ordering from a company.  

Envelopes can be pricy though. Who knew there were so many options for liners? 

The most expensive thing for us was postage. Now we went a bit overboard (thanks to my designer mom) and ended up with heavier save the dates that cost 71 cents a piece to mail. You probably should consider this before you decide to add an item with the save the date. 

Another thing to remember. Do NOT order your save the dates or invites based off your total guest list. You’ll end up with double or more of what you need. Make sure you order enough for each address/family. I think we ordered about 20-40 extra just to be safe. 

It’s always good to have a few extra for last minute pop ups and of course a scrap book! 

So here’s what we sent:  
 
Again. The carnival theme and that banner. The banners are cute but very very time consuming. –  I’m going to hang one in my office! 

We used our silhouette cameo machines to cut out each banner flag and then strung them together using twine. 

I ordered the custom stamps from Zazzle is was like $100 cheaper than other sites I found and I got them within a week of placing the order. 

We also used a sharpie with a holder in the silhouette machine to address the envelopes. Time consuming but much better than paying or doing them yourself. Not to mention my handwriting is similar to that of a three year old so I wasn’t even going to try to tackle that task. 

I’m so relieved they are done and sent out! They might’ve taken 8 hours and 6 people but we made it!!