Our DIY "Save the Dates"

I knew early on in our engagement that I wanted to send out Save-the-Dates. There are several reasons I wanted to send them out, with the most important one being that our wedding is over a holiday weekend. A lot of people travel for Labor Day, either to visit family, take a vacation, or just plan "down time" for themselves over the long weekend. M and I decided to send out our Save-the-Dates in the form of a postcard, since that seems to be a rather popular way of mailing them out. I also loved imagining our postcard Save-The-Date hanging on our friends and families' refrigerators (am I the only one who check's out other people's Save-the-Dates when I go to someone's house? no? okay, then.).

While we could have easily used a pre-existing design and simply put in our picture, we wanted to make our Save-the-Dates unique and one of a kind. It would also save us lots of money...So, I decided to design them myself.

Although I definitely don't consider myself a DIY-diva, I will admit to being pretty alright at Photoshop. Meaning, I know how to work with layers, add pictures and text, etc. Anything beyond that needs to be Googled, pronto. Luckily, these mad Photoshop skills came in handy when designing our Save-the-Dates.

We first had to decide on the picture we were going to use, which was a hard task since we loved ALL of our engagement pictures (coming soon!). Once we selected our favorite among the bunch, I searched high and low for inspiration via Pinterest, Shutterfly, and other printing companies. I wanted Mr. C's input when looking for inspiration, and together we decided we liked the simple, yet modern designs where the focus of the Save-the-Date was on the picture...

Image via Wedding Paper Divas

image via Wedding Paper Divas

Using these images (and others) as guides, I got to work designing our Save The Date. After playing around with the design for several days I finally, finally came up with a design that both M and I liked. It was simple, said what it needed to say, wasn't *too* girly, and we loved the image that we decided on...

front....

...and back!

After we finalized the design, I searched for a printing company that could print them for a reasonable price. I knew that I would only need around 50 Save-the-Dates, but I decided to order up in case I needed to re-write them (which, in hindsight, was definitely a wise choice!). I decided to go with Vistaprint, since they allowed me to upload my OWN design to be printed on their standard postcard-size cards. I was able to have 100 cards made (and shipped to me!) for less than $20. Score!

personal photo.

Overall, I'm super pleased with the experience I had with Vistaprint. The cards are printed on a thick, glossy card stock, perfect for postcards. I received my cards less than a week after I ordered them, and they came all bundled together inside a cardboard envelope. The only "gripe" I have with Vistaprint is that their standard postcards are not truly postcard-sized, as I realized when the cards arrived with a bit more cut off around the edges than I originally designed. Not a big deal, but I would have been bummed if words would have been cut off. Luckily, I learned to always design printable materials with more white-edge room than needed, just in case.

If you aren't as "Design-it-Yourself" inclined as I was, Vistaprint also has pre-made, pre-designed Save-the-Date templates (both with and without space for a picture). My money-saving tip for you if you are going this route...go through the "Marketing Products" section of Vistaprint for your postcards, NOT the actual Save the Date postcards under the "Invitations & Stationary" section. For some reason, the Marketing postcards are way cheaper. Like....less than half the price, cheaper!

I am so pleased with how these turned out! Sure, they are not the fanciest, most spectacular Save-the-Dates, but they're ours, so that automatically makes them my favorite. Our family and friends also love them and are already talking about how they can't wait to receive them. We also saved mad money on them and came in way under budget with them, which is a definite plus. I can't wait to mail them off!

Did you ladies send Save-the-Dates? Did you opt to use a post-card?