DIY Save the Dates

Mike and I have had our wedding venue booked since about April time, but I actually decided not to bother handing out Save the Dates. In my head I was just going to tell people when the wedding was and ask them to keep it free. This is exactly what I did, I told some people to their face and text others and just expected them to write it down somewhere or put in on an electronic calendar.

It was only when Mike asked me to remind him of our wedding date that I realised people would not remember the date no matter how much I thought they would!!! Especially as most people don't use electronic calendars and probably didn't even have a 2015 calendar when I told them the date...oh and lets face it other people have more going on in their life then remembering our wedding date!!

I got some quotes for Save The Dates and they were (in my opinion) a little bit of a rip off and not very "us".  Every time I get a quote for anything wedding related I am always astonished at how much things are....which then results in me considering leaving teaching and entering the wedding business! As I was still not sure on whether they were needed, I did not feel comfortable shelling out lots of money - in my head I now compare every wedding related expense to the cost of inviting another person to the actual day.  If it comes anywhere near to that cost I triple think about it as both Mike and I would definitely prefer to be able to invite another person to the wedding and not spend unnecessary money on things that I really don't think people would care that much about.  Saying that, as we are having a summer wedding and a lot of people book holidays, I decided to make my own! I am not creative at all and if I was I could probably have done a job that was 300% better...but its the effort that counts right?!

Our first decision was what to put on the Save The Date...and it was a choice between a picture of Mike and I (which is what Google Images told me most people have on theirs!!) or something else. I didn't particularly want people staring at a picture of us pinned to their fridge so the next option was Penguins! I love penguins...I have penguin pyjamas, socks, slippers, salt and pepper shakers, calendars... and Mike even took me to feed penguins which was one of the best experiences ever, so that was an easy decision for us.

So off I went, went backwards and forwards with a design, chose my fonts, printed them off on some card and Mike and I cut them up...

We stuck a little bow in the corner and there we have our final save the dates! They aren't professional, some are cut wonky, but we did think about the design and everything was done by us without using a single template! Dare I actually say that we preferred these to the quotes we had from "professionals" as there was something satisfying about knowing that we had done the hard work. We even had somewhat heated discussions over which shade of green to choose! (which was pointless as they all printed out the same anyway!!)

So apologies if you receive a wonky one, our guillotine was a bit blunt and neither of us can cut straight, but here's our final versions printed on cream card!

PS Emerald green and gold is our colour scheme as well :-)