Once we took our engagement pictures, we debated for a while about which picture to put on there. I wanted it to show us equally - there were lots of pictures where one of us was more prominent, but I really felt that it was important that we were both equally a part of the picture (rather than CR kissing me or me nuzzling his neck). I just love the picture of us that we chooose, plus the lilacs in the background are just so beautiful!
Once we choose the picture, I probably spent a good week looking at and comparing different options on the Minted website. There are just so many beautiful cards to choose from, but I eventually narrowed the options down to portrait cards with gold "save the date" with our information under it, and our favorite in the end was the Modern Script Save the Date. I love the crisp white edges and print, with the gold script across the whole card. One of the amazing things about Minted is that you can really customize the card, so if you don't like the font on the information part of the card, you can change it or move it! We ended up going with a different font than the original design had, just because I wanted a bit more juxtaposition between the gold script and the white lettering.
The next step after we finally finished designing the card was collected addresses. I love that Minted includes free recipient addressing. Instead of hand writing all the names and addresses, you collect that information in an excel spread sheet, and then your envelopes are printed...for free! It's seriously amazing. Luckily there have been several engagements/weddings in CR's family recently, so it was really easy to collect a large majority of those addresses since his cousin just sent out their Save the Dates! As far as the return address, you can pay a bit extra to either have it printed on the card or pay for stickers. Since we had just moved into our new house, I actually chose to do neither, and ordered this stamp from Etsy with our new address on it! I figured sending out 80 cards was the perfect excuse to finally get one!
My sister, in her first official duties as my maid of honor, came over to help me stuff and stamp the envelopes. For the actual stamps, I ordered these boutonniere stamps from USPS.com. They are pretty and fit the general theme of the Save the Dates/our wedding, but didn't cost as much as custom stamps would have. And then we just dropped them off at the post office, because it's more fun to put them in this than in your own boring mail box:
We got such great feedback from our friends, and I loved seeing all of their snaps that they sent us! I love seeing my friends' smiling faces on my own fridge, so I'm pretty honored to be on someone else's!
Overall, the process of picking out, customizing, and finishing our Save the Dates was a really fun and seamless process. I'm so thankful that we got to work with Minted on such a personal project, and that we ended up with such beautiful cards to share with our family and friends. A huge thanks to Minted for working with me on this project. I couldn't be more excited to work with one of my favorite paper brands on such a personal project!
In the next Wedding Wednesday post, we're going to discuss bridal parties, and bridesmaid dresses...something I may have been putting off for a while....
