One of the most fun parts of having a wedding is telling other people about it! As I began to think about invitations and save the dates, I flipped through magazines and online sites trying to decide what I wanted them to look like. These ranged from simple to super-complex and fancy. However, the prices were outrageous! Plus, I couldn't let someone else get paid to have the fun of making my invitations! :p
First things first. Paper is expensive. I also wanted to do my best to not be wasteful, so I tried cutting back on when I could. Because of this desire to save money and be ecofriendly, we decided to do electronic save the dates, plantable invitations, and to ask for people to RSVP on our wedding website. At first I thought, “I can’t send electronic save the dates because not everyone has an e-mail address.” FALSE! Matt’s grandmother is in her 70s, lives in a tiny Texas town in the middle of nowhere, doesn’t even have a Facebook, and STILL has an e-mail address. And if people say that they don’t check them often, by you asking for the address, they know that they should be expecting something so they have no reason NOT to check it now.
The same is true for an online RSVP. Emily Post’s website even says that there is nothing wrong with this request. (I checked it out!) Actually, the history of the RSVP makes it okay! Originally, no response card was sent out because people had their own personal stationary and they knew that a response was proper etiquette, so they simply wrote back. Later, as people stopped having their own stationary so often, it became proper to mail a separate envelope with a response card to be mailed back to the wedding host. With the advent of telephones came the RSVP via calling, which became proper. Now, we have the technology to do everything else in our lives online…so again, the times, they are a-changin’! As society evolves, so does the way that we communicate…therefore, so does our perception of what is proper etiquette when it comes to asking our guests for our wedding to let us know whether or not they will be coming! *Bonus*: You don’t have to double-up on your postage bill, and you know immediately how people have responded instead of waiting on snail mail. Plus your wedding website will often link up to your online guest list, so you don’t even have to enter anything in yourself! (YAY technology!!!)
First things first. Paper is expensive. I also wanted to do my best to not be wasteful, so I tried cutting back on when I could. Because of this desire to save money and be ecofriendly, we decided to do electronic save the dates, plantable invitations, and to ask for people to RSVP on our wedding website. At first I thought, “I can’t send electronic save the dates because not everyone has an e-mail address.” FALSE! Matt’s grandmother is in her 70s, lives in a tiny Texas town in the middle of nowhere, doesn’t even have a Facebook, and STILL has an e-mail address. And if people say that they don’t check them often, by you asking for the address, they know that they should be expecting something so they have no reason NOT to check it now.
The same is true for an online RSVP. Emily Post’s website even says that there is nothing wrong with this request. (I checked it out!) Actually, the history of the RSVP makes it okay! Originally, no response card was sent out because people had their own personal stationary and they knew that a response was proper etiquette, so they simply wrote back. Later, as people stopped having their own stationary so often, it became proper to mail a separate envelope with a response card to be mailed back to the wedding host. With the advent of telephones came the RSVP via calling, which became proper. Now, we have the technology to do everything else in our lives online…so again, the times, they are a-changin’! As society evolves, so does the way that we communicate…therefore, so does our perception of what is proper etiquette when it comes to asking our guests for our wedding to let us know whether or not they will be coming! *Bonus*: You don’t have to double-up on your postage bill, and you know immediately how people have responded instead of waiting on snail mail. Plus your wedding website will often link up to your online guest list, so you don’t even have to enter anything in yourself! (YAY technology!!!)
Despite this rational, I did eventually break down and make some paper ones for a select few people who didn't have e-mails, didn't want to give me their e-mails, or who just really wanted a paper version. I created them in Microsoft Word and added a photo of us within a heart. As an added bonus to saving paper and money, my brilliant mother suggested that we make the few paper Save the Dates that we did send out the size of postcards. This meant that we could get more StDs (hehe) with less paper because we could make 4/page rather than 2/page, it meant no envelopes, and it meant $0.22/StD rather than $0.44/StD. (Like I said, she’s brilliant! :p) We sent out around 60 of these. One thing I really liked about them was the fact that I was able to print out addresses rather than having to write them out since these weren’t the invitations. (Thanks again, Emily Post!) I also liked saving money by not having to print out, and put on return address labels since I could just print the return address straight onto them since I made them myself. But my absolute favorite thing about these was the QR code that my fiancĂ© showed me how to make to put on them! I had no idea that creating these was so easy. (Google “QR code creator” to see what I mean!) The QR code linked directly to the wedding website….Yay technology again!!
For the electronic StDs, I found a great site (punchbowl.com) that offers free e-cards. I designed my E-StDs (hehe again…) and sent out about about 200+ of these. I loved making them! I got lots of compliments from people about them. I loved them so much, that I decided to use more e-cards from this site whenever possible. I have played a bit and made the invitations for my bridesmaids’ brunch, bachelor/bachelorette parties, and the rehearsal dinner! (Although I'm not sure what will be used and what will just end up being for funzies.) Again….adorable, eco-friendly, and best of all FREE!
Invitations, on the other hand, have NOT caught up with the times in terms of being electronically acceptable. It’s still considered improper etiquette to do E-vites for a wedding. (Which was totally cool, because designing them in Word was half the fun!) So to make things a little less wasteful, I designed them to be able to print two of them per page. We printed them on seed-studded paper ($10.00/25 sheets = 50 invites) that I got from save-on-crafts.com. On the back of our invites, we asked people to plant the invite after the wedding. Not everyone will actually plant them, but if even one person does, then you have saved one piece of paper from the trash. I thought about adding ribbons or overlays to these, but then I realized that that extra fluff was really a waste in the first place, and was also something that would have to be removed prior to planting. Therefore, I concluded that simplicity was the way to go on this one! They looked great when all was said and done!
The website I ordered the paper from also had seeded envelopes, but they were kinda pricy…so we just used ivory-colored regular paper envelopes. I also modified a pre-made template for return address labels that were clear.
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