Tell me about your Save The Dates,...

lacqueredlover

So we want to do something fun for our Save the Dates but not spend a crazy amount of time on it since we are both so busy (don't want to do a video or something like that.)  Just a cool idea we can have printed.  We are doing engagement photos in a few weeks so can definitely do something then.  So, what did you do for yours?  Or what are some cool ones you've seen?

thisismynickname2

You can make really easy STDs online with companies like Vistaprint, Snapfish, Wedding Paper Divas, etc. 

Since we love travel, we used our engagement photo in a "boarding pass" template I found on Snapfish.

I've seen two different people put their photo on what looks like an official sporting event ticket (not the tickets you get from Ticketmaster, but the fancy tickets that season ticket holders would have).  

So, if you want to do "fun" I would consider something you both enjoy and model it after that.

 

pinkcow13

Where are you guys taking your engagement pics?

I think ours are going to be pretty standard. We want to do magnets, and we took e-pics in DUMBO. I want to use one of the pictures with the city skyline in the background. The designs I have been interested in are very minimal, because I want the skyline to really be the focal point.

 I'm waiting to receive non photomarked images of the pics. I was playing around with the designs yesterday, but the quality was not good because I had to take screenshots, and then copy and save to my desktop, etc.

theartistformerlyknownas

We went simple. Liked <this design> and it happened to match our color. Easy peasy.

lacqueredlover

pinkcow13 said:

Where are you guys taking your engagement pics?

I think ours are going to be pretty standard. We want to do magnets, and we took e-pics in DUMBO. I want to use one of the pictures with the city skyline in the background. The designs I have been interested in are very minimal, because I want the skyline to really be the focal point.

 I'm waiting to receive non photomarked images of the pics. I was playing around with the designs yesterday, but the quality was not good because I had to take screenshots, and then copy and save to my desktop, etc.

We are doing ours in Central Park.

My brother and sister in law had really cute ones, magnets that were like a movie poster with "coming soon, wedding in 2011" (he works in the movie industry.)  

loro929

We got ours from Minted.
We wanted to do magnets but the printed colors (I think we used magnetstreet, TBH I forget) of our design ended up looking really bad. (we ordered samples first)

So, we scrapped that idea and used Minted. The quality and the service was extraordinary. We didn't have time to order samples so it was a bit of a risk, I admit.

Although we took e-pics, we did not end up using them for the STDs because we found a really cute design that did not require one. Also, you work with a designer to make minor modifications / personalizations on the design you choose.

We ended up getting the "STD cards", which were a bit more expensive than a postcard but much less expensive than a magnet and the quality, I repeat, was out of this world.

ETA. more details

lacqueredlover

lolo883 said:

We went simple. Liked <this design> and it happened to match our color. Easy peasy.

Those are cute!

lacqueredlover

loro929 said:

We got ours from Minted.
We wanted to do magnets but the printed colors (I think we used magnetstreet, TBH I forget) of our design ended up looking really bad. (we ordered samples first)

So, we scrapped that idea and used Minted. The quality and the service was extraordinary. We didn't have time to order samples so it was a bit of a risk, I admit.

Although we took e-pics, we did not end up using them for the STDs because we found a really cute design that did not require one. Also, you work with a designer to make minor modifications / personalizations on the design you choose.

We ended up getting the "STD cards", which were a bit more expensive than a postcard but much less expensive than a magnet and the quality, I repeat, was out of this world.

ETA. more details

Cool I will check them out, thanks!

climbingsingle

I just did a simple magnet STD that I ordered from Wedding Paper Divas. 

holyguacamole79

Our wedding was on 2/2, so we took a picture of us each making a "2" with our fingers and that was our save the date pic.

Fran1985

I loved how mine came out. We did vista print- they trick is to not go to the save the date section of the website. Go to the postcard section and there is some save the date options. Design the front how you like, and either use it as a postcard, or do what I did- you choose a blank backside and can design it yourself. I made the back of mine grey and added the wedding wedding website. I upgraded the paper stock and added white envelopes. Total was 100 cards for $25, and I think they came out great- we got lots of compliments.

pinkcow13

Fran1985 said:

I loved how mine came out. We did vista print- they trick is to not go to the save the date section of the website. Go to the postcard section and there is some save the date options. Design the front how you like, and either use it as a postcard, or do what I did- you choose a blank backside and can design it yourself. I made the back of mine grey and added the wedding wedding website. I upgraded the paper stock and added white envelopes. Total was 100 cards for $25, and I think they came out great- we got lots of compliments.

Can you do this for magnets? I was on Vistaprint yesterday, and I designed magnets but I think I went to the save the date option.

OP, pics in Central Park are going to be so awesome

BrandNewJ

My fiancé is really set on using an engagment picture on a magnet, but the picture has to take up the entire background to look like a screen on a phone. I don't mind what they look like, so were gonna go with the picture magnet for him.

mego2708

Our photographer designed ours. She had me pin different STDs I liked, and then created this based on it. I was really happy with them and got a bunch of compliments.

Here are the original mock-ups my photographer sent me. I don't have pics of the finished product, but at least you can see the design. We changed the location of some of the text, and removed the quote she put on there, added other text etc.

 

lacqueredlover

pinkcow13 said:

Fran1985 said:

I loved how mine came out. We did vista print- they trick is to not go to the save the date section of the website. Go to the postcard section and there is some save the date options. Design the front how you like, and either use it as a postcard, or do what I did- you choose a blank backside and can design it yourself. I made the back of mine grey and added the wedding wedding website. I upgraded the paper stock and added white envelopes. Total was 100 cards for $25, and I think they came out great- we got lots of compliments.

Can you do this for magnets? I was on Vistaprint yesterday, and I designed magnets but I think I went to the save the date option.

OP, pics in Central Park are going to be so awesome

Fingers crossed the weather holds out for us! We got super lucky and are actually getting them done for free!  We were out with his kids a few weeks ago and this girl who is a new photographer wanted to photograph our family and when we told her we were newly engaged, she wanted to do our engagements for free for her portfolio!

ohannabelle

Daughter went silly with hers, and we made pop up cards, because pop ups are fun. Not a great pic, but the overhead save the date banner and she and H (that sounds funny!) popped up when you opened the card. The background was from an antique postcard showing the street outside the venue. 

OHBride85

We had our Save the Dates printed from Minted and I love them! We went the postcard route and we used an engagement picture for the front.

They were really easy to edit on the website and they are printed on quality card stock.

It was easy to find a coupon code online for them and they printed/shipped pretty quickly. I highly recommend Minted

loro929

OHBride85 said:

We had our Save the Dates printed from Minted and I love them! We went the postcard route and we used an engagement picture for the front.

They were really easy to edit on the website and they are printed on quality card stock.

It was easy to find a coupon code online for them and they printed/shipped pretty quickly. I highly recommend Minted

I used them too (we did the STD cards) and I also really can't recommend them enough. We will probably do our entire invitation suite with them. Plus, once you sign up for the website they are always sending coupon discounts.

beethery

I found a stock photo I liked on bigstock, and then borrowed from a WPD save the date design and did it myself. FI's friend works at a print shop so he sourced the stuff and made us the magnets on the cheap.

lacqueredlover

Haha I have to be honest, every time I see STD I giggle like a 12 year old boy

mschristie123

We did magets from magetstreet.com and we loved them. Lots of different designs you can chose from. Ended up going with ones that matched our colors. We didn't do E photos, but we had my parents take a couple of us while we were on vacation, and we used one of those.

emmaaa

I also giggle at STD...still.

FI and I did not do STDs. His sister used their engagement pictures on a magnet. It looked very cute and I have it on my fridge still. I believe she ordered on Vistaprint. I've used Vistaprint for shower invites and such and always get coupons and have been very happy.

NowIamMrsKlein

We used a picture FI mom had taken us when we had gone camping together, we were walking through the bushes, holding hands and it was raining and she was behind us and snapped the shot. It is by far our favorite picture of us ever. We paired it with a quote from Doctor Who (because we're awesome) that was about 'needing a hand to hold' 

My sister in law is a graphic designer so she tweaked it all for us and then we just had them printed on photo paper at our local photo store.

Simple, cute, geeky and very 'us'

duhitsd

We did this magnet design from Vistaprint using our engagement pictures. The promo code I used to get them for 50% off looks like it still works for anyone who was thinking about using these. The code is VPTOPDEALS.

blabla89

Here's ours:


(Yes, it poured down rain the day we did our e-pics)

I just ordered and haven't received them yet so I can't speak to the print quality. We did a standard postcard to save money, and used one of the standard Vistaprint templates because I didn't have time to design anything fancy. FI is going all out on the website, though.

kat1114

FI has some graphic design experience, so he designed our STD postcards. He had all the standard info (names, date, city, blah blah) but shaped it into the state of Arizona since that's where we are getting married. We did our website address on the side with the address.

FutureMrsN3312

pinkcow13 said:

Where are you guys taking your engagement pics?

I think ours are going to be pretty standard. We want to do magnets, and we took e-pics in DUMBO. I want to use one of the pictures with the city skyline in the background. The designs I have been interested in are very minimal, because I want the skyline to really be the focal point.

@Pinkow13 Maybe I've missed this in the past but are you a BK girl??

novella1186

According to the tracking info, our STDs are arriving TODAY! Gah! Can't wait! FI designed them and used one of our engagement photos (he does design stuff for his job and he's super talented!) Then I uploaded the design on Vista Print and ordered them. I've used Vista Print a million times and I'm always happy with the way things turn out, plus they are not expensive. 

We kind of wove in a couple little hints of our wedding "theme" with them but for the most part kept them simple. 

I ordered envelopes that are gold on the inside to put the STDs in and also ordered little round stickers with our initials and wedding date so people can "stick" us on their calendars if they want. (I love stickers and I'm weird and obsessed with tracking stuff on my calendar so I had to). 

AlexaF2014

Our reception is in a library, so I made some simple bookmarks using UPrint (about 0.50 a pop I think). I added some ribbon to make it pretty. I don't have the image of ours, but it looked a bit like this:

FI ended up using some extras as bookmarks, and many of my friends have been using them as well... though, all these people are avid readers, so it's a bit of a know-your-crowd type situation.

novella1186

Oh, I also wanted to add that you might want to figure out some basic layouts that you like for STDs before you go to take your engagement photos (if you plan on using one of the photos on the STDs). There was a template I loved but it was meant to overlay the photo along the bottom, and we didn't have any photos where that much of the bottom could basically be covered up without having it look weird and bad. 

So for example of you like a template where all the text is on the left side, you could have the photographer take some photos of you guys over to the right with pretty scenery in the background. Know what I mean? 

lacqueredlover

novella1186 said:

Oh, I also wanted to add that you might want to figure out some basic layouts that you like for STDs before you go to take your engagement photos (if you plan on using one of the photos on the STDs). There was a template I loved but it was meant to overlay the photo along the bottom, and we didn't have any photos where that much of the bottom could basically be covered up without having it look weird and bad. 

So for example of you like a template where all the text is on the left side, you could have the photographer take some photos of you guys over to the right with pretty scenery in the background. Know what I mean? 

That is an awesome tip, thank you!