Save that date!

Finally, we’re ready for the big reveal of the last few months’ labor of love! As with most DIY undertakings, we thought this would be a fairly simple process.

It wasn’t. (Surprise, surprise.)

But, after five months, about 23 proofs emailed back and forth, and a few emergency add-on info cards later, here are the save the dates for K + C’s wedding! Let me give you the tour…

The envelopes are the A6 navy version from Paper Presentation (love them!). The stamps were standard USPS fare. Our original plan was to write out the addresses in white ink, but we decided to save that for the actual invitations. Instead, I wrote each address in navy on an office-supply store white label. We stuck those labels on top of rectangles we cut from old nautical charts.

The return address stamp was from RubberStamps.net, and the service and price were great. It was a bit difficult to position the stamp since it came on a solid wood block, but other than that, no complaints.

The envelopes were also lined with nautical charts. Having a father who teaches at the Coast Guard Academy is a boon when planning a sea-worthy wedding! We chose charts from the Bay Area, as C grew up nearby.

The entire suite: chart lined envelope, save the date, wedding website card, and second reception card (which was only sent to some guests).

As you may remember, our design was inspired in part by one seen here. I designed the cards in Microsoft Publisher (often comes with the standard Microsoft Office suite and is very easy to use). We printed the cards at UPrinting, and though the quality was good, I was a bit disappointed when we got them back and saw there was less white space on the top and bottom than I expected. Oh well. It was likely my fault.

The rope heart was hand-drawn by my best friend, a multi-talented furniture designer at RISD. Thank you, Wanda! We plan to use it throughout the wedding. The cards were printed at Vista Print.

And that’s that! Here’s the cost breakdown, for those who are interested:

150 envelopes (plus s&h): $36*
White labels: $2
Return address stamp (plus s&h): $17.90 (we needed priority shipping)
Charts: $0 (Dad!)
Rope graphic: $0 (BFF!)
Printing of 100 save the date cards (plus s&h): $35.78
Printing of 250 reception cards: $13 (s&h)
Printing of 250 website cards: $4.99 (to upload custom design) + $13 (s&h)
Postage: $39.60

TOTAL: $162.27, or $1.80 per suite (We sent 90 envelopes to 184 guests)

Please let me know if you have any other questions!

*We could have saved here if we hadn’t over-estimated the quantity. But we’ll be using these in the future, so I don’t consider it a loss!