Not going to lie...I have STD's

Yes, that's right. The Save The Dates (STD's) have gone out...and I kept one for myself.

That's what you thought right?

Back when I first started planning this wedding, I thought paper products and all the fun stationary was going to mean a LOT to me. But you know what? It totally doesn't. I have gotten so many different kinds of invitations over the years...and honestly I don't remember any of them. For me, they're a simple thing to give someone some information...and that's it. If you think someone out there is going to hold on to your invitation as a keepsake...you're wrong. On the list of my priorities, paper is pretty dang low. I have to keep reminding myself that at some point I'm going to have to get invitations...that'll be another post at another time...should I remember in time to purchase the invitations.

Moving forward, I know that our wedding is an 'out of town wedding' for most everyone, heck, even us. So I felt getting them this information as early as possible was crucial. Our wedding will be in September and we sent the STD's out in January. This allows plenty of time for people to purchase lower cost plane tickets, save for gas (seriously, $4.00 per gallon?), reserve hotels in the area, and arrange their schedule with work...should they decide to come.

In my head I thought it would be fun to have Monterey postcards as save the dates, ya know, those tourist post cards you can buy on the wharf? But then I figured I was going to have to worry about printing on them...too much work.

Then I thought it would be fun to have vintage cactus postcards. Again, I can't seem to keep a linear thought because...I would still have to worry about printing.

One day in December, a good friend of mine, Shannon, sent me a link to a 75% off sale at Zazzle, part of the email was this super cute STD...Shannon had designed a modern cactus Save the Date for us! How awesome! All I had to do was go on the website and edit it to be what I wanted exactly and hit order. Heck yes! I edited, I ordered, I paid just $21.61 for 50 fully printed fantastic STD's!

After I ordered these I got super excited and started creating our wedding website (more on that later)...I was just so excited! But, wait a minute...what good was our website going to do if they weren't on the STD's? Crap.

So the postcards came and they're gorgeous!

Front of our STD


Back of our STD's

Do you see that? It doesn't magically have our wedding website! How dare they.

So I brainstorm, how am I going to share this information with my guests? Let's try writing it first...

Nope. All wrong. My Sharpie was too fat to write it all clearly. Off to Target I went...

I picked up some small labels and printed up the website and password at home

While I was out, I also picked up the necessary stamps to get the post cards in the mail that day. Between the stamps and the labels, my cost for the STD's sky rocketed! I paid $46 between the two! So much for saving money!

Stuck those suckers to the back of the rest of the invitations and called it good.

Yeah, I totally shoved them all in at once...

A few pointers on invites, STD's, and DIY
-No stress on ordering black! I used the amazing silver sharpie to address all my Save the Dates! I highly recommend it!

-Don't jump the gun! Seemingly good deals come around a LOT! I was not prepared to order STD's...I didn't even have my full guest list yet. In fact, not everyone that is invited got one because I didn't order enough! On top of that...I didn't have my website printed on the invitation and the addition of that would have easily saved me $20 in my total for STD's.

-Order more than you think you need. Oh man, not only did some very important people not end up with an STD...I messed up on the writing and had no option but to try and fix my mistakes. You saw the mess with the website, but what happens when you're hand addressing and you mess up? This is what happens...

Do you see those smudges around her name? I totally messed up and had no way of fixing my error. I tried blacking out the silver sharpie, but it created a mess...I was (am) so embarrassed. Order yourself more than you could ever think you need. You'll need extra for trial and error and you'll need some for just straight up error.

For me, this is DIY fail #1. We'll see how invitations go...ya know...assuming I remember.

Did you send out STD's?