Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Wedding Wednesday: Save The Date!


Remember how I said that Caroline from Pink Orchid Invites was great?  It's been confirmed - look at the lovely note she sent me with our Save the Dates!  But you're not here for notes, I know; you want to see the goods.  So, without further ado, I give you our Save the Date postcards. Drumroll, please...


We're so pleased with them!  They're classic and crisp but still warm and pretty, I think.  We first decided to use postcards for our Save the Dates because they're a bit cheaper, both in terms of product and postage, but I also love the simplicity of the look.  Our monogram is on the front - we wanted to be a bit traditional here rather than using a photo or any other graphic.  And we decided to include our wedding website on the back with the rest of the information because, for a destination wedding, it's crucial for guests to have as many details as possible as soon as possible so that appropriate plans can be made.  (Sorry, dear readers; you don't get to see the address.  Some things must be kept sacred!)



I love the idea of using wedding-specific stamps for all of the stationery we'll be sending out, but I wasn't crazy about what USPS has on offer at the moment- and Jon vetoed the ones I did sort of like as being too cliché.  However, our relationship came to the rescue!  Did you know that our milestones fall on the dates of major events in US/UK history?  It's true - we started dating on October 19, the anniversary of the day that Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at Yorktown in 1781, leading to the end of the Revolutionary War.  (Jon wants you to know that, loss or no loss, he was Lieutenant General Lord Cornwallis, thank you very much.)  And our wedding is on the same date that the British burned Washington, DC and torched the White House in 1814.  So it seemed appropriate to use stamps that celebrated our shared history, which is why we picked the stamp commemorating the War of 1812:

Jon's also a sailor, so it's about his hobby just as much as it is about my country kicking his country all over the Atlantic seaboard.  (Of course, Jon totally disputes the veracity of this last statement, but he likes the stamp, too.)

However, our next money-saving idea after using postcards for the Save the Dates was to post the ones going to England domestically from England.  Sending them through USPS would cost $1.05 each; sending them through Royal Mail alone will cost £0.60 or $0.95.  (Yes, that's only a $0.10 difference, but the total savings of $10 means that I can... well, actually, I don't know what I'll do with that money.  But it will be great, I promise!)  Plus, I'd rather not put two stamps on the postcard because there's not much space in that corner anyway and it looks a little messy.  Royal Mail doesn't do wedding stamps, though, which I know because we tweeted about it.  (See, Nana?  Twitter does have a purpose!)


In the end, we're just going to go with the classic Machin stamps with the Queen's profile on them.  Hey, it's traditional! The English love tradition, right?  Right.  And on that note, I'm going to go save my date from my other date - sorry, I couldn't help myself!  But really, Charlie has taken a real shine to Jon, who can't quite match the physicality of puppy enthusiasm, and I think I need to moderate.  Wish me luck!

linking up with something charming for #WeddingWednesday

24 comments:

  1. These are great and so different and unique. Thanks for posting the save the dates.
    save the date postcards

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  2. Lovely save the dates! So beautiful! (and I'm so jealous! Alex and I really didn't have time to send out both save the dates and invites! They'd literally only be sent a month apart!) The postcard idea is great, too!! We went for the postcard for our rsvps. It's so much more modern and unique!

    I'm really happy for you guys!! Have a great Thanksgiving by the way!! (Has Jon ever experienced an American Thanksgiving??!)

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  3. Megan @ Across The PondNovember 21, 2012 at 7:38 AM

    we did the traditional machin stamps with the queen as well..after i spent far too much time looking for "cooler" stamps. Sometimes i have to remember the UK is just not the USA.

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  4. They're so pretty! Great choice :)
    You're getting married on my birthday - I love that! xo, e

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  5. thank you! the benefits to a loooooooong engagement :)


    and yes! this is Jon's third Thanksgiving with us. he's a pro at my family by now, haha. Happy Thanksgiving to you too!

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  6. IT IS NOT. I have another "customer service" story for another time that will kill you.

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  7. YAY! and my birthday is the 29th :) everyone said I didn't want the two dates so close together because then I wouldn't get two different presents - haha!

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  8. The save the dates are so beautiful and classic! Great choice! :)

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  9. Lovely classic Save the Dates! Beautiful. We don't have any fancy stamps haha!

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  10. I love them. They seem so you guys!

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  11. thanks - it was so fun to have a hand in designing them, though of course all the credit goes to the wonderful Caroline!

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  12. I really like the idea of doing postcards - they just seem so fun! plus I think the details of your monogram on the front are just perfect.

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  13. Great Save the Dates and the stamps are perfect! For our wedding stationary we did all of the writing in print, except for our names which were in cursive, similar to yours. I think it was a great contrast!

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  14. thanks! why make things more formal than they have to be, what?

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  15. they're beautiful. i love the monogram!

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  16. The Save the Dates look great! We had to email ours out as we were in Gabon with no post :( In Canada, you can actually design your own stamp - would have been fun. Friends of ours took our wedding photo from our Gabonese wedding and had them made into stamps as a gift. It was strange receiving a card with our faces on the stamps but quite cool!

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  17. These are adorable Betsy! I love how simple and personal they are. You don't want to go too over the top :) And I love that you spent so much time and consideration on the stamp. We got these really ugly polar bear stamps for our Save the Dates, but it was all they had at the time!

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  18. beautiful, beautiful!

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