Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Gettin' Hitched - Literary Style: DIY Save-the-Dates and Invitations

When the Mr. and I got engaged a few years ago, we weren't really sure where to begin planning. Should we have a big, white wedding or shoot for a destination wedding and get married on a beach somewhere tropical? Hire it out or DIY? How much should we spend? How much can we afford? Should we have a theme? Who should stand up with us? And on and on and on...

Theme-wise, we went round and round a bit, but really only threw around one idea seriously - books. Yep. We're nerds - and we embrace it. We love to read. On trips, part of our suitcases are reserved for books we buy along the way. We retrofitted bookshelves to hold our TV so that we could fit more book in our living room. So ultimately it wasn't a terribly difficult choice - but apparently it wasn't a common one either because I couldn't find Save-the-Dates or invitations to match up with our theme and our budget... so, whats an el' cheapo DIY gal to do? DIY them of course!



Save the Date

Running with the literary theme, I wanted to create Save-the-Date's that looked like library check-out cards. And to save money on  postage, I wanted them to be postcards... which meant the check-out card couldn't be on both sides - thus ruling out just buying the paper. Instead, I used Keynote on my Mac (nothing fancy here, folks!) to copy the look. I downloaded the font for free - it's called "Mom's Typewriter."And from there I just tried to create some thing fun!  These were printed onto 3x5" notecards on our plain ol' cheap-ish HP printer. 





INVITATIONS
For the invitations I did basically the same thing, but because I didn't have to worry about leaving one side blank to print addresses, I went ahead and ordered the actual library check-out cards to print the invitations on. I also ordered the book pockets that you find on the inside cover of your library books, so that when we put the invitations in, you could only see the top.

Important *your* versus *you're* usage.
From there it was just a lot of playing around with spacing and wording to make it all fit. And ultimately, I came up with this:

Our photographer is AMAZING - http://theshootinggallery.com/


The second piece was designed to look like a card from a library catalog - complete with the dewey decimal system code (you remember that from elementary school, dontcha?!).

RSVP Card
There was also an RSVP card included in the envelope with the invitation. It was designed to look like a library card application and printed onto blank 4x6 notecards. Again, to save on postage, it was a postcard with our return address printed on the back.



Everything was printed off on our little ol' HP printer. Total cost (not including postage for everything) was under $100 - with the most expensive part being the envelopes since I went with those inner/outer kind - with tissue paper. Yeah - cause we're fancy like that.

UPDATE:
If you'd like something similar to your wedding, digital files are now available on our Etsy site!
Save-the-Date Postcards
Wedding Invitation with Extra Info Card
RSVP Card

10 comments:

  1. Very cute!
    I live in a town that still uses these for book checkouts and has the real card catalogs for when you need to look up a book. It's a throwback to 5th grade.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello! First, these are great! Nicely done! Second, this is random, but do you still have these files and would you be willing to share? I have wanted to do invites like this - but files online are expensive. Then I found this and tried to follow your advice by creating in Keynote and haven't had quite the luck you did! I realize you may not want to, and I understand - it just never hurts to ask! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Cindy,

      The files are actually for sale on our Etsy site now if you're still interested!

      https://www.etsy.com/shop/RidingEscalators

      Delete
  3. This is what have trying to to for our Save the dates! I love them! Thank you for the font link! I was wondering how you did the stamp effect for the Date on your Save the date and your names on the invitation?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Ema! I downloaded a new (and free!) font for the stamp effect - it's called stamPete. Hope that helps!

      Delete
  4. Chelsea, We loved your save the date card. Could you please send us the file too? We haven't been able to find this template in keynote.
    Thanks
    Chris DuPee
    cdupee1464@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Chris,

      The files are actually for sale on our Etsy site now if you're still interested!

      https://www.etsy.com/shop/RidingEscalators

      Delete
  5. Chelsea,
    our son is getting married and he's really into books too. We looked on keynote to find the template you used but didn't see it. Could you please email us the file? Thanks!
    Kelly
    kdupee1@msn.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Kelly,

      The files are actually for sale on our Etsy site now if you're still interested!

      https://www.etsy.com/shop/RidingEscalators

      Delete