{Guest Post}: Save the Date or Save the Money?

Posted by Khris in Wedding Planning

Brides today often view Save the Date announcements as an obligatory part of the invitation ensemble and process. However, in many cases they are not needed, and therefore are a waste of money. With budgets tightening, the ability to save money in one area can mean being able to avoid cutting back in another.

Still uncertain about whether you need to send Save the Date announcements? There are only a few situations when they can be beneficial:

1. If you are planning your wedding for one of the most popular months, such as June or August, sending an advance notice can ensure your event makes it onto your guest’s calendars first. In addition to being popular for weddings, the summer months are also prime vacation time, and so an early announcement of your upcoming nuptials can be doubly helpful.

2. Weddings scheduled on or near a major holiday, religious or secular, can also warrant sending a Save the Date announcement. Often times, your guests will have to make adjustments in their plans to attend your event. Remember to keep in mind not only your own religious background and traditions, but also those of your guests, if you will have a variety represented. While your wedding may not be near an important holiday on your calendar, it is possible it could be on another’s.

3. A third situation that may warrant advance notification is if you are planning your wedding in a location where a large proportion of your guests will be required to travel some distance to attend. The more time you allow for your guests to make arrangements, the better chance they’ll be able to join your celebration. It is most helpful if this type of announcement also includes some preliminary travel information.

In nearly any other situation, a Save the Date announcement is a lovely touch, but largely unnecessary. You are excited, and want to shout your news from the rooftops. But be sure to consider the big picture of your plans – don’t spend on something you ultimately didn’t need.

Finally, remember that anyone who receives a Save the Date must be invited to the wedding. It seems obvious, but sometimes brides have found they regretted sending a few of those early announcements, and some have even considered dropping people who received a Save the Date from their final guest list. Don’t do it. Make your list carefully first, and if you choose to send a Save the Date, be sure everyone who receives one is someone you definitely want at your wedding.

Cheers & Congratulations!

Heather Lapham Kuhn is an independent graphic artist and owner of Truly Yours Custom Correspondence Design. She is a lover of all things paper and can lose track of time in an office supply store. Wife to one wonderful man, and mom to two great boys, three rambunctious dogs, three cautious cats, and countless pond fish, Heather finds she always has something to occupy her time. Truly Yours is online at www.trulyyourscustom.com and www.invitingnews.blogspot.com.

Help Improve DIY Bride!

Posted by Khris in DIYBride News

In an ongoing effort to bring you the projects, resources, advice, and ideas that you crave, I’d love it if you let me know what’s missing at DIY Bride.

• What types of projects are you wanting more (or less) of?
• Are you digging the product reviews?
• Would you like more inspiration pieces (cool finds/product showcases/inspiration boards)?
• Do you want more planning resources/ideas/help in addition to the crafty stuff?
• How do you feel about vendors coming to chat with you via our forums or through posts/comments?
• Tell us how DIY Bride can better serve you, the diy community!

Your input is greatly appreciated!

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Jocelyn Shares Her Save The Dates

Posted by Khris in DIY Projects & Tutorials, Invitations, Programs, + Stationery

Clipart Saves the Day (and the Date)

My fiancé and I are in the midst of a nine month engagement and we didn’t even think about Save the Date cards until we had about five months left. Oops – most wedding pundits recommend sending these out at least six months before the big day, so needless to say, we scrambled.

As a recessionista bride (and groom), we intended to do these ourselves, yet we knew nothing about the process. We just knew we wanted something with a bit of pizzazz. So we visited a fancy invitation store to flip through their sample books to get ideas. We saw a lot of vines wending their way across gorgeous cards, intricate Asian artwork, and birds perched expectantly on delicate twigs. I wondered how we could incorporate something equally stylish (and quickly!) on our own.

When we got home, I beelined for one of my favorite websites, www.clipart.com.You can subscribe to this for as little as 14.95 for one week (or 299.95 for two years) and, in that time, download an unlimited number of images. There are also free sites where you can find good albeit less extensive collections.

By searching under ‘bride’ and ‘wedding’, I found literally thousands of images: cakes, wedding bells, ball and chains and bride and groom combos in many different styles (some even carrying shotguns, yikes). I narrowed my search to only black and white images, figuring this would cut printing costs then downloaded five of the more modern and simple illustrations of brides and grooms. Together, my fiancé and I chose a duo that seemed, to us, both elegant and also a bit quirky, as if they might be featured on a construction sign. Like: Wedding Zone Straight Ahead.

Because we’re getting married at an old electrical parts factory in an industrial section of Queens, New York, we liked that these had a rather urban feeling. But if you’re celebrating at a botanical garden or at a church, or if you’re focusing on dancing, or you have some other theme going, you can definitely find an illustration that makes sense for your event.

Next, my fiancé went to town in the program Illustrator: he made a few tweaks and played with the sizing to make the file work for a postcard. We chose a font that seemed to go well with our duo (arial) and decided that, though we’re advocates of grammar, we’d go renegade á la e.e. cummings and write everything in small case.

After a few short hours and a few different versions, our cards were designed and contained the relevant info. We had them printed out at FedEx Kinkos the next day on simple cardstock. The sage green paper we chose gave them a bit of an organic feel we were pleased with. Of course, these Save the Date postcards aren’t letterpress quality. Likewise, they aren’t refrigerator magnets and they don’t put on their own laser light show, but they seem to have gotten our point across. They cost less than $21.00 (not including clipart fee or postage). And though they were created with love, they ate up very little of our precious time: in fact, it took us longer to figure out our guest list and actually get them in the mail.

The best thing is that by choosing this clipart, we unexpectedly developed the ‘look’ of many of our subsequent DIY projects. For example, our clipart couple is currently appearing on our website (also designed by my talented fiancé). This time they’re dressed in a subtle grey. In sticker form, (i.e. round laser printer labels I found at a stationery store) they are going to help fasten together the ‘envelofolds’ of our invitations. We’ve even invited them to stand atop our cake on the big day and they cordially accepted.
Using one specific image across the board like this is almost like branding your wedding. I hesitate to use that word ‘brand’ because it sounds so cold and corporate (and also reminds me of something painful that happens on a ranch), but simple clipart, at the very least, contributes to a theme and creates a nice sense of cohesion.
Along these lines, lots of couples get personalized logos designed, for example with their initials cozily intertwined. I think that’s cute and has wonderful symbolism, but if you’re pressed for time and cutting costs, I recommend this quick, easy, and cost-effective option.  Let’s face it, any way you can streamline this whole wedding enterprise while still personalizing it, is a beautiful thing.

Jocelyn blogs at Current Skate of Mind and Upper East Side Informer

{Guest Post} The DIY Wedding: From Pain To Pride

Posted by Khris in Wedding Planning

By Christina Friedrichsen, www.intimateweddings.com

I cannot see the laundry room floor. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, given that its godawful linoleum, but it’s after 11 pm and I’m getting married. Tomorrow. That’s right tomorrow – and there’s a one inch layer of stems and leaves on my floor.

It’s the first time in my life I have arranged flowers. Unless you count the wildflowers I routinely jam into vases during the summer months. I don’t know a thing about flower arranging – and here I am arranging my bridal bouquet, the maid of honor’s bouquet and the wedding centerpieces?

I am not insane. My mother has taken plenty of courses on flower arranging and she is leading the crew, which consists of my sister-in-law, my maid of honor and me. Still, I begin to feel panic set in. Panic that it will take all night and that I’ll wake up looking like an ogre. Panic that the flowers won’t turn out. I do not let on that I am feeling this way. I focus on the task at hand.

It’s edging towards 12:30 am and finally the last flower has found its rightful home. We all breathe a happy and tired sigh of relief that our night of DIY wedding fun is not only over – it’s a whopping success. The centerpieces are beautiful, the bouquets are lovely – and I saved a bundle.

That was eight years ago. And it’s one of the memories that stands out the most about my wedding.

DIY is not the easy route. In fact, sometimes DIY can be downright painful.

“Am I doing this right?”

“Will I ever get this done?”

“Do these look like crap or am I not seeing straight because it’s so bloody late?”

“These don’t look like they do in the Martha Stewart magazine. Oops, I missed step five.”

DIY can be a struggle – even for uber creative types. Heaps of time and effort go into choosing the right projects, finding tutorials and hunting down supplies (especially if you are pinching pennies). And that’s before you’ve sat down and got down and dirty with your project.

But you know what? The feeling of satisfaction from pulling it off is like no other.

As musician and songwriter Bruce Cockburn writes: “Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight.”

Remember this as you stand on your own laundry room floor, ankle deep in stems and leaves, praying for a miracle.

Christina Friedrichsen is the author of Intimate Weddings: Planning a Small Wedding that Fits Your Budget and Style and owner of IntimateWeddings.com. She wrote Intimate Weddings after planning her own 50-guest wedding. She wants other brides to feel confident in their decision to have an intimate wedding – even if their ideas buck convention. She wants couples to feel a sense of validation and to hear about all the wonderful things a small wedding can offer them. That’s why she created IntimateWeddings.com.

IntimateWeddings.com provides brides with a slew of planning articles, as well as a place to find small wedding venues. The Intimate Weddings Blog is chock full of fresh ideas for planning a small wedding, as well as real weddings and a slew of creative DIY wedding ideas that cut costs without sacrificing quality.

{Guest Post} Ms. Polka Gets Her Font On

Posted by Khris in DIY Projects & Tutorials, Wedding Planning

There’s something really fun about the idea of having your own special, handmade font. Whether you’re after a font so you’re able to use your own handwriting in a document or creating your own creative personalised lettering. Fonts In Bloom is the easy way for transferring your ideas from paper to computer.

Fonts In Bloom provides a downloadable template for you to fill in with your design and then you simply upload it and preview before purchasing.

A DIY font would make a personal, but easy to use addition for text on programs, place cards
Fonts In Bloom charges US$15 to convert your work of art to a useable computer font. Check out http://www.fontsinbloom.com

Ms. Polka is the creative force behind one of my all-time favorite blogs, Polka Dot Bride.