Thursday, December 6, 2012

Save-The-Dates

Save-the-dates are finally in the mail!  Yayy!!!  I was very glad to get these done and mailed out!  There are a few that we are still trying to get correct addresses for, but I would say 95% have been mailed.

We are trying to keep wedding costs down where ever possible, and the save-the-dates were one place I think we were able to save some money.  Here's what we did (sorry it's such a long post, but I feel like it has some good info in it):

I loved the idea of the magnet save-the-dates, but when I started looking in to them, they were more expensive than I thought.  And to be honest, who really keeps the save-the-date once they get the invitation or once the wedding is over?  I didn't want to spend a ton of money on this part.  Then I thought about doing post card save-the-dates.  We would have saved some money on stamps, but then I was worried that the post card might get ruined in the mail (you know how sometimes they get ink on them, or get wet, or ripped, or something).  I wanted to put one of our engagement pictures on whatever type of save-the-date we did, and I didn't want it to get ruined, so I decided I wanted something that we could put in to an envelope to mail so it would be somewhat protected.

I was browsing Pinterest and the web, when I came across these cute little save-the-date cards on 123Print.  They were super affordable, so I figured we'd order them and if we didn't like them, we wouldn't be out too much money.  They were nicer than I expected when they arrived, so I was pretty happy.  They had a nice glossy finish and were very clear.  We put one of our engagement photos and the info on the card.  I thought these were the perfect size for someone to stick on the fridge or put in their wallet or whatever (they are about the size of a business card).  Did I mention it was only $5.95 for 100 of them?!?  And when you sign up on the site, you get emails with discounts, so I think I ordered them when I had a coupon code for 15% or 20% off my entire purchase.  We ordered 300 of the save-the-date cards (way more than enough, but we wanted to be sure), and with shipping and my discount, it was only $21.50.  That means the cards were just over $0.07 each!

(They turned out much nicer and clearer than they look in this picture)

I also wanted to include an engagement picture that people could put on the fridge or frame or something, since the picture on the card was kind of small.  I thought this would be especially nice for family and close friends.  Since I had the rights to make copies of my engagement pictures, I ordered the photos from Walgreens and got a great deal on them...I got 200 4x6 prints for just under $16!  I checked around to see if anyone had any coupon codes (since it is holiday time) and Walgreens had the best one.  That means each print was only $0.08 each!

I purchased the stamps and envelopes from Meijer and just used plain white no. 10 envelopes.

So, in total, with the cost of the save-the-date card, photo, envelope (I think they were just under $4 for a box of 120), and stamp (I already had labels) it only cost us about $0.62 per save-the-date.  I think that is a pretty good deal!  And I don't know about you, but I love a good deal :)

Does anyone have any other money-saving wedding ideas?


4 comments:

  1. I will definitely have to keep all this info in mind! We are so close to having a date! Have y'all set up a budget y'all want to keep the wedding under? We are hoping to keep it under 10k but everyone is telling us that with a guest list of 300+ that we can't do it! But I have faith :)

    <3 Danielle
    Goodwillista.blogspot.com

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    1. I'd love to keep it under 10k too, but I'm thinking it might be between 10 and 12k when it's all done. We are guessing we will have around 250-300 people too. The food is definitely going to be our biggest expense! I'm keeping a spreadsheet of all of our costs so that I know how much we spend.

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