Our save the dates are finally off! I began the design this past autumn, printed them between Christmas & New Years, addressed them by hand & adhered 400+ vintage stamps to each in between other projects, & dropped them off at the post office yesterday. :: sigh of relief :: I am in love with these & cannot wait to begin designing our invitations, but first things first!
Some of you may recognize the image of the horse & fence from June's Press & Post. Our wedding location, Pineland Farms, is a working dairy farm with an equestrian center. I created the illustration with the intent of using it for our save the dates, but simply could not wait to print it, so it became a Press & Post edition {so, actually, I guess I began designing our save the dates in the Spring...!}.
I wanted to incorporate calligraphy into the design & commissioned Grace Edmands to calligraph "Save the date" & our first names. I absolutely love her work & recommend her to anyone & everyone. I will be incorporating more of her calligraphy into our invitations & she will be addressing the envelopes.
Originally the design was going to be a simple card, but of course it became so much more. Somewhere along the line someone convinced me to do a magnet, but I did not want it to have our photo, so I made my own magnets. I purchased magnet "paper" & cut it down to business card size & attached the small cards I letterpress printed with thin, double-sided adhesive. The magnets were then attached with a little glue dot in between two little swallows which appear to be holding it in place. The back of the main save the date card included accommodations information. Again, I was originally not going to include this because it is on our website, but I quickly realized a few family members were...let us say old school when it comes to technology. But it worked out quite well & will be much more convenient for our guests, as almost 75% of them will be traveling from out of state.
With no detail spared, I used stamps from my vintage collection for the postage. Pineland Farms is nestled in the woods of Maine & home to many animals including horses, cows, & birds, so I chose stamps to reflect the location & the design of the save the date.
Everything was letterpress printed on my new favorite paper. It is so soft, 140lb., takes a beautiful impression, & is locally made. It also comes in an abundance of sizes, for those who not have a reliable paper cutter. I want to print everything on this paper! I used a combination of soft sage green, warm chocolate brown, & bright coral pink inks & paired it with 100% recycled brown kraft envelopes. I had a rubber stamp made for our return address using Grace's calligraphy once again, & stamped each envelope with chocolate brown ink.
One more thing crossed off the wedding list!
i am madly in love with your blog, and just thought i should say hello! also, i am getting married in south berwick, maine september 2010 :) looove your save the dates!
Posted by: Nina | 02/02/2010 at 02:38 PM
Gorgeous!!! Loving the brown craft envelopes, too. Def. want those myself. As a fellow Maine bride, I've been loving your blog!
Posted by: Rebecca | 02/02/2010 at 04:43 PM
Absolutely gorgeous save the dates - great job!
Posted by: Bridalhood | 02/10/2010 at 10:08 PM
Sarah,
Where on Earth do you find all those postage stamps? I love em!! Do you get them from the post office or what!?
The save-the-dates are BEAUTIFUL (of course!) and we would expect nothing less gorgeous that this.
Good luck!
It's just around the corner!!
Love ya
Abby
Posted by: abby | 02/25/2010 at 10:00 AM