7 Tips For The Perfect Save The Dates

Love is in the air! 

With less than 4 months until Kevin and I tie the knot, we’ve been in major wedding planning mode! From ironing out all of the details to the exciting little touches, we’re ecstatic to celebrate our marriage with all of our friends and family in Rosemary Beach. If you’ve ever planned a wedding, you know how much detail goes into every aspect of the wedding. Today I’m excited to share seven tips on how to make your Save The Dates stand out AND easy etiquette tips to consider when you make your list! Keep reading to learn more:

1 – Make It Stand Out

Have you noticed when your friends start getting engaged, they ALL start getting engaged?  Make sure your Save the Date shows your personality. Since Kevin and I are having our wedding in Rosemary Beach, we chose a photo of the two of us in Rosemary Beach to highlight our destination! I always love Save The Dates with a photo of the bride and groom. It’s so personal and really shows their personality!

While you want your Save The Date to stand out and show your personality, make sure you keep it G-rated.  Remember you will be sending these to your grandparents and do not want to be too provocative in your attire or pose. You want your save the date to stand out as being sweet and beautiful – not sexy.

Other ways you can show your personality and make it stand out is how it is presented. Save the Dates come in every style from the typical card to a magnet that can be kept on the fridge or a themed box with personalized trinkets.  This is your wedding so make it your own!

2 – Make Sure To Include Your Wedding Website URL On The Invite, But Don’t Assume People Will Go To It

Although we hope people take the time to go to our wedding website immediately, this realistically will not happen – especially with your parents’ generation and above. Make sure to include important information somewhere on the card, so you don’t leave your guests with questions.  We chose to keep the front of the card simple with just the photo, date, and location, but added more logistics on the back, such as nearby airports and accommodations.

3 – Think About Your Budget

When wedding planning, there is no shortage of places to spend money.  You’ll want to make your budget before you purchase your Save The Dates.  This will help you determine where to buy the Save The Date, the paper weight, printing, etc.  We have found websites such as Minted.com and Shutterfly.com are generally more affordable, however they do put their logo on the card, so if you do not want this you will need to look elsewhere.

4 – Finalize Your Invite List

There is nothing tackier than sending a Save The Date to someone, but later uninviting them to your wedding – they saved the date after all!  You can guesstimate that 20-25% of people will RSVP “No” to a local wedding and 30-35% to a destination wedding. This is not always the case, so make sure whoever you send the invitation to, you are prepared for them to say “Yes” and have a backup plan to accommodate more than you initially planned for.

We found GoogleDoc is the best way to keep track of who is invited.  I gave read/write permissions to my mom and fiance’s mom, so they can keep track of their list on the same sheet without worrying about something being lost or having to send spreadsheets back and forth. This worked wonders!

5 – Ask For Recommendations

Talk to your friends and family who have already planned a wedding.  See who they used to make and print the Save the Dates, and ask if they would recommend them. Blair recommended Polly Campbell, who she used 5 years ago for her own wedding, and she has been amazing!  We scheduled one in-person meeting with Polly, and we were able to design all of our paper products in one afternoon!

(Click here to read all about Blair’s wedding in Seaside, FL and see photos from her big day!)

6 – Don’t Forget About Stamps

In a world of evites, I often forget about stamps.  Stamps are not free, and there are different sizes and prices.  Although our paper was a bit thicker than normal, we were able to only use one stamp per envelope.  Keep this in mind if you choose heavier cardstock, as you will also have to pay more for stamps – This is especially important if you’re planning a very large wedding!

You can also personalize your stamps easily from Minted.com or Shutterfly.com, which is a fun and festive touch! We didn’t want to use the generic stamps from the post office, so we bought personalized stamps to make the envelope stand out when people received it. (Note: personalized stamps are only slightly more than generic stamps, so be sure to consider this!)

7 – Who Will Address The Envelopes?

Save the Dates are less formal than the actual wedding invite, so it is common for the bride or bride’s mom to address the envelopes.  From Blair’s recommendation, I used a thick silver Sharpie marker to address the invitations to make them stand out from a traditional envelope written in black pen. Other options include custom printed envelopes or a local calligrapher. We chose a calligrapher for our formal wedding invites, but metallic handwritten envelopes were perfect for our Save The Dates.

Whether you’re planning your own wedding or helping a friend, we hope these tips will help with choosing your Save The Dates! We have had so much fun planning our wedding this year and can’t wait to share more tips and details from our upcoming nuptials! If you have any favorite wedding planning tips, let us know in the comments below! xo