Paper Goodies! The Save the Date Process (photo heavy!)

Despite all of the b-e-a-utiful Save the Date inspiration I shared with you in the last post, we opted to go a completely different route.

I was browsing the DIY Boards and found this beauty by hive member Miss Q. She was kind enough to share the template with me at my request so I present to you my official Save-the-Date inspiration - as in, this is what we were originally set on:

from the lovely Hive member miss Q | edited a little to remove her personal information

I was in love with this idea. I believe she used it for a magnet, but I had visions of it in postcard form - of course, with our colors, our date, our information. 

Mr. Palm Tree and I are super lucky to have a family friend (actually, GM J's mom!) who offered to design and print our Save the Dates as a gift to us. She is co-owner of a fairly large printing company in our hometown and does this on the reg. This saved us a ridiculous amount of money and I cannot truly, accurately express my gratitude so I won't try. We sent a really heartfelt thank you and a gift card to her but she will forever be at the top of my Awesome People list. Moral of the Story: accept help when it's offered (something I'm still struggling to learn). 

Without recapping our gazillions of emails, I'm just going to let the pictures do the bulk of the explaining as I take you through our Save the Date process - the journey, if you will, from Point A (above) to Point B (our finished product):

personal creation, thanks to MSPaint - do you all like my standard fonts? Oh, and our prom picture from 2004? ;) This was prior to our engagement pictures.

We originally had an idea to use two of our engagement pictures:

source 

source

After quite a few emails back and forth regarding style, fonts, colors, ideas - all the little details - she provided us with:

personal photos, edited in MSPaint (duh, skillz) | Created by family friend/GM J's mom

We sent back a list of notes/suggestions. . .no really, folks. A list:

personal photos, once again edited in MSPaint & created my family friend/GM J's mom | Sorry for all of the ghetto blurring and hand-scribbled notes. Just wanted to stress the process. ;) 

And after even more emails and idea-sharing, Rev. Fun came to me with this b-e-a-utiful find that she had discovered on Pinterest:

source | We died.  I mean, HONESTLY. How could you not? HOW COULD YOU NOT? Swoon. So perfect.

I hurriedly sent the creator an email, telling her to stop the presses, that I had found THE ONE and needed it immediately or I would perish and simply would not send any other Save the Date because they just.wouldn't.do. Or something along those lines. I sent her this, another of my gorgeous mock-ups:

Engagement photo from Limelight-Images. | Sorry again for the blurring! 

And folks, she came through and this is what we sent:

Wonderful final (well - almost final. . .we had to fix a typo in Mr. Palm Tree's name) creation. SWOON. I have this hanging up in my cube at work and on our fridge. No shame.

Some final thoughts and advice about Save the Dates:

• Regardless of who is in charge of the creation, don't be afraid to voice your thoughts. I was a little hesitant at first, kind of wondering "if this is a gift, do I really get a say?" Ultimately, I decided that obviously I did get a say - after all, they're our Save the Dates and she was gifting them to us. I made sure to use the right language, of course and wasn't rude about anything, but still kept the lines of communication open until we were 110% pleased with the final product.
• Don't feel bad about changing your mind! I mean, honestly, we went through a handful of designs and I have at least thirty back-and-forth emails about all of this and we went in a COMPLETELY different direction. There is no real 'how to' on these things - it's all about what you and your partner want. This was perfect and really set the tone for the vision of our wedding, so we jumped ship and swam over to the next one.
• That having been said, once the decision is made, let the decision be made. Do not look over it a gazillion times and stress/second-guess every aspect. After we sent them out, I started semi-obsessing: we didn't include the 'formal invitation to follow' line. There are a bunch of ways to better word the introduction. Should I have included 'are' in the fun line? You can't see our faces! I had to deep breath it though and let it be: they're awesome. They serve their purpose. We had tons of positive feedback and "they're very you" comments on them, which is also awesome - but ultimately, I had to remember that we loved them. That's what matters.
• The sad truth is that these puppies are going to get thrown away by nine out of ten guests (maybe eight if you have enough fellow brides and/or sentimentalists who will understand the blood, sweat and tears that went into it). Yes, they're important; yes, they serve a purpose. . .but they don't make or break anything. Look at it this way: some people don't even send them out so honestly, if you choose to do so, you're ahead of the game!

This post is long enough so I'll end it really quickly: anyone else have A Process surrounding their Save the Dates? Anyone else make seemingly 1,000 decisions only to have them be thrown out the window at the last minute?