The Save The Dates Are Out!

So after MONTHS of hard work and help from one of my bridesmaids, I was able to create a really cute video for our Save-The-Dates! I’m so excited to share it with you all! Take a look!

If you are wondering how it was done, it required me learning a whole new program, Adobe After Effects, which I am fortunate enough to already have on my computer.

One of my bridesmaids is a media guru and she was willing to teach me how to make the video. We worked every Monday for about two and a half months to get this finished in time! The music attached is an original score made up and played by my hubby-to-be and recorded right on our home computer! It was so much fun learning the new program, I hope this isn’t the last time I get to try it out!

What were your Save-the-Dates like? The only problem I saw with this is that a Save-The-Date is supposed to be an ahead-of-time constant reminder, and a video may not be in their face the whole time like a refrigerator magnet would be. What do you think?

Stop Motion Save The Dates

First of all, I want to highlight that I am writing this blog for the first time on my new iPad! It was a Christmas gift and I’m super excited about it (even if the hubs did go over his Christmas budget…he spoils me).

So in order to offset the cost of Christmas, and still pay for the wedding, I am not sending out any paper Save The Dates. Technology is becoming more and more prevalent in everything we do and why not use it to our advantage? I could have just designed a Save The Date email, but I wanted to sort of jazz it up a bit.

Stop motion videos are something I’ve played with in the past and I thought it would be a lot of fun to try it with our Save The Dates. This is something everyone can do but it does require some equipment first.

To start off, you need a digital camera, preferably not in your phone or mobile device. You also should probably have some sort of tripod to keep the camera steady. You also need some sort of video equipment software. I’m not sure about PCs but I know Macs come preloaded with iMovie, which will work just fine.

Once you have a working knowledge of all your software and equipment the actual making of the movie, while time consuming, is really simple.

For instance, I am going to, step by step, open this puzzle box, spell out “We’re engaged” and “Save The Date” as well as a few other things. For your stop motion film, just look at every action as a step by step process and capture every slight movement with a single picture on your digital camera.

Once you have captured the action in its entirety and have all your photos, import them into your video editing software and put them together in sequential order, add some music, and voila! You have your video!

Once you have your video and export it, you can create a You-Tube account to post it online. When your video has its own link, your Save-The-Dates are Ready to send! Not everyone on the guest list may be tech-savy, but most everyone has e-mail. As long as you make it clear to click on the link you provide, everyone should get your video without issue.

Check out a stop motion video I made here.

Are any of you sending out electronic Save-The-Dates? It is certainly going to save lots of good money on printing costs and postage costs!

Lots Of Photoshop Work To Do

So I haven’t been “wedding” busy in months. Sometimes life just gets in the way. We have to worry about bills and food and making sure we have enough money to make it through and sometimes that makes it too hard to buy DIY supplies, or to even have the energy to be happy about the upcoming wedding. Sometimes all we see are dollar signs. Of course this is all depressing and I don’t want to be too obnoxious about this stuff because that’s not what this blog is entirely about.

The problem I see is that if websites aren’t just telling brides about the pretty side of weddings, than they are just giving us hard facts about wedding budgets and money tips. Take it from someone who is going through it all. Saving money for a wedding is hard. I can understand why brides are so stressed, and how they go into debt. It’s a difficult road when you are on a timeline.

Alright. Enough of all that. There is some “wedding work” that doesn’t cost me anything but my creative juices, and that is Photoshop work. To save some money I decided to all my own stationery. If that sounds like an undertaking…it is. I recommend it to only those who are sure to get everything done on time. I’m not even sure I can take it all on.

Here are some of the things that are necessary when you are your own stationary maker:

Photo From: Martha Stewart Weddings

Save-the-date cards. These are especially important if you have most of your guests coming from far away. These can be anything you want them to be. Your invitations are more formal, but your save the dates can be fun and quirky. The good thing is, they don’t really require much work, depending on what you want to do.

Photo From: The Wedding Chicks

Invitations (obviously super important), but it’s not just a card with your date, time and place on it. You need to also include, an R.S.V.P. card and an envelope, a map and directions card, and any other information that you need to include for your guests.

Photo From: Etsy

Programs are another necessity of your stationary. It is nice for your guests to know what is going to happen in your ceremony, not to mention letting your programs serve dual purpose as a fan!

If this wasn’t a tall enough order, I am considering two more things that will make the reception fun for everyone:

Photos From: Etsy & The Wedding Chicks

I, like I’m sure most brides, don’t want to anyone to be bored during the wedding day, so I thought it might be nice to include some games at the tables. That IS if I can get my act together and get to them!

There is a ton of work involved to make stationary for your wedding, but the up side is it will be all your own style with no one else’s hand in it. You can do or make whatever you want! I encourage those of you who have the means to make your own stationary, you should try it!

Saving the Date Yet To Be Determined…

On Saturday I completed a paper lily bouquet and I suppose I have something I am finally semi-happy with. It definitely needs some work, but I like the overall combination.

As I was finishing the last bits of this bouquet, I started to think about our guest-list. We obviously want to have immediate family and close friends there, but we have the opposite problem as most couples. We are actually trying to find people to attend. The biggest problem for my side is the distance. I am getting married in a state that is seven hours plus away from most of my immediate family, not to say that they wouldn’t come…I hope…but it’s still is inconvenient for them. On top of that, many of my close friends now live in different places across the country. His side is much the same problem, since many of his close friends were made in the military; most of them now live scattered all over the country.

As I am mulling over all of this, a sinking thought dawns on me: What if no one comes? I’m sure that other brides have had this thought, but most of them probably had scads of family and friends, one of them was bound to show! Jimmy and I are very much the same. He and I keep three or four really close friends, and have many acquaintances. My extended family would give their well-wishes I’m sure, but I doubt they would be able to make the trek (many of them also live scattered across the country). I’m sure this is probably just a panicked emotion that will be alleviated when RSVPs come back to us, but it still worries me.

In order to try to ensure that many of the people who live elsewhere know about us with enough time to plan some time off, we are definitely going to have to send out save-the-date invitations.

Has any other bride thought that save-the-date cards are a waste of money? They are like a pre-invitation to the invitation. I always thought that would be something I would leave out to cut expense. Unfortunately, due to the fact that many of our invited guests will be traveling, it is important they know more than a few months ahead of time so they can plan.

Instead of complicated printing hassles, we need a K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid) save-the-date. At first I thought: postcard! One page, really easy to print, and quite cheap as well. Here are some cute ones I found:

The last one really brings up another good idea: picture save-the-dates. In our situation, this could be really nice, especially since most of our guests who live outside of Maine have never seen us together. It’s a good way to say “Meet Us!”

Another plus with picture save-the-dates is that sometimes photographers will include save the date cards with the photo engagement session. This can be a way for you to save on having to assemble something yourself, or go to an outside party.

Here are some cute photo save-the-dates:

 

Has anyone else noticed the save-the-date abbreviated is S.T.D.? I giggle a little every time I think about sending everyone an STD…

These are all really cute ideas, but THIS time I am confident in saying that the boy and I have decided to go a different route. I am incredibly frugal, and really like to spend no money if the situation should allow for it. Since we both have vast imaginations, and love spending time together, we thought of a really fun save-the-date project that we both love. It is fun, new, and very out of the box.

We are keeping mum for now, so instead I will share with you some out of the box save-the-dates others have thought of:

You will just have to wait for our EPIC save the dates! Think…animated… 🙂