Monday, January 16, 2012

Cournel's "epic" Save-The-Dates

Courtney here...

Ok, so I lied.  I guess I’m NOT putting out as many blog postings as I thought I would.  What’s been taking up a lot of my time lately is another man.  More specifically, this one:

 

 I definitely have to get my priorities straight!

Since my one and only blog posting where I celebrated finally choosing a venue, much has happened since.  I found my dress (Novella Bridal), we chose a photographer (Imagine Nation Photography) and videographer (Imperial Video Production) and photobooth (Say Ya! Photobooth) and engagement photographer (Letlove Photography), booked the emcee (Lawrence Lee) the band (Foreverland) and DJ (DJ Chickenskratch), met with the ring designer for our bands (Talron Diamonds), booked the transportation (Coach 21) and, of course, the church (St. Patrick). 
WHY DO I FEEL SO BEHIND?!? 

6 months to go… and for all those who have planned a wedding, you know we still have TONS more to do.  You ask my fiancé, though, and he’ll have no clue as to what comes next.  Uggggh.. MEN.

We were able to get our Save the Dates out around Christmas, so that’s one less thing to worry about.  Although I’m not quite sure that was the BEST idea.  Not only did they lag getting to the recipients having to fight for importance amongst hoards of holiday cards, I’m pretty sure some got lost in the mail as my maid of honor and sister haven’t received theirs yet! Note to self… for the next wedding =P 

The funniest part of the whole ordeal was actually mailing the envelopes.  The reality of it all hit us like a ton of… rice.  Sure, he proposed to me in the sweetest way and I’ve been wearing my gorgeous ring for 9 months.  Sure, we met with and booked all these vendors.  Sure, we spent a million years putting the Save the Dates together.  But it took feeding that big blue mouth to really say, “Crap. This is it.”


As we were pulling away we even said, “If we change our minds we just have to be here tomorrow at noon before mail pickup.”    

Anyway, my fiancé, still VERY useful when steered in a direction, did a lot of research on Save the Date/invitations and found a very clever one that consisted of a folded card with a red rope being tied when you open it (see below). 


We both thought this was BRILLIANT and want to give a shout-out to the genius behind the idea. 

But we weren’t just going to take someone’s creation, plug in our names and pass it on.  That’s forgery.  Haha!  Instead we decided to put our own personal touch to it.  This personal touch took FOREVER to complete, but we feel it was well worth the effort.  Please see the steps we had to take and the final product below.

1.   Take, size & edit photos;
2.   Decide on a font style and Save the Date language;
3.   Buy cardstock online;
4.   Buy a 1/16 hole punch;
5.   Realize the hole punch won’t work so we order another one on ebay from London;
6.   Re-edit the entire Save the Date (maaaaaaaaaany attempts) to print 3 on 1 page;
7.   Lots & lots of paper slicing;
8.   Lots & lots of hole punching;
9.   Drew the string through the holes, taped down on the backs; and lastly
10. Use spray adhesive to attach to the blue cardstock.

After several trips to Jo-Anne Fabrics, Michaels, Office Depot & art stores in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley & Las Vegas, and spending hours upon hours of editing, reediting and laborious construction, this was the final product:



My fiancé did all of the computer work, and for someone who hasn’t studied a lick of graphic design I think he did a spectacular job! 

Thanks for all your hard work, Beez!

Onto the next…