Saving that date

Vistaprint contacted me a while back and generously offered to let me have the pick of their website, which was super because Ryan and I needed a small number of Save the Dates to mail out to people who don't have e-mail addresses (I know, some people don't have e-mail addresses, I'm still recovering from the shock), so we decided to take them up on their offer.





They have a pretty good selection, but the color customization options were limited. This is the closest we could find to aqua and red, so we went with it. I ordered the save the date in a linen finish, which was very subtle but pretty, and I sprung for the matching envelopes, which I really like. I also added our return address to the back of the envelope.

Just an FYI, the red on the save the date was much more orangey than the red on the envelope. Ridiculous of me to notice that? Yes. I could care less, but if you're really into 100%-perfect-color-matching going on, be prepared. One save the date was just a tiny bit offset in terms of printing also. Very minor complaints, but I'm all about full disclosure. Overall, I was really happy, the printing was even and clear and the paper was a much better quality than I was expecting. I'm really glad I did the linen finish.

I think our order was $30ish for 20 save the dates. Anything extra you add, such as the envelopes and the linen texture, does cost extra and that adds up. I really like though how you can get everything to match--there are invitations, place cards, menus, programs, everything that match. The design options were not what I was expecting...they have some really nice modern, simple stuff, and your typical cheese fest. Also, the prices are not bad at all. They have these wedding package deals that would definitely simplify matters if I wasn't so hard headed and want to save every penny I can and insist on making most of this stuff ourselves. I do wish they told you the price up front and didn't make you go through the design and editing process first, I like to know how much something costs before I invest any time in it.

Anyway, I think Vistaprint is a great option if you don't want to devote a ton of time or money to your invites and they have a whole wedding section here. You could seriously spend 30 minutes picking out a design and typing in wording and be 100% done, which is a beautiful thing. If they would've caught me now, I would be so tired of this wedding planning I'd just do all of our stuff through them. And the people who work for them are obscenely nice. The guy who contacted me patiently answered all of my annoying questions about his job (he's in public relations, and I have a PR degree so I wanted the inside scoop) and took care of everything. I like working with nice people, don't you? I will definitely be using them again, maybe for our rehearsal dinner invites (seriously haven't thought about those even a little tiny bit).

We e-mailed save the dates out to everyone on our guest list with an e-mail address, to save money and the planet. We went through Pingg and it was free and wonderful. Ryan picked out a really nice design and that was it, really. The most annoying thing about Pingg is they insist on having this big thing where your guests have to tell you if they are coming, maybe coming or not coming, which we thought was lame but couldn't disable. Anyway, it was pretty painless and free, which I love!

So there are our save the dates...that we should've gotten out long, long ago, but gathering 260+ e-mail addresses freaking sucks.

Did you do save the dates?