How to save the date? - Part I

Time to get to what was / is probably my favorite part of the wedding planning process - paper products!!

I love paper. I have a ridiculous collection of stationary (including way too many thank you notes) and if you put me anywhere near a Paper Source or Papyrus, I'm guaranteed to walk away a little lighter in the wallet.

Last Christmas I think I sent over 100 holiday cards (imagine the bill at Papyrus)

So clearly the wedding would be no exception. Before choosing anyone to help with the execution, we had to get our design ideas clear.

We decided to have our wedding brand of Modern Elegance define our paper choices.

It seemed to be a simple split to have our save the dates be more modern and go classic and elegant for the invitations. After all, save the dates are often more "fun" - with magnets, fold-outs and postcards. For our 32 wedding experiences, we had seen just about everything - hard to pick a favorite.

Wish this could be a montage of ones we've received, but you know, privacy and all....
All images courtesy of Wedding Paper Divas

Believe it or not, some of our initial inspiration came from an interesting place...the kitchen!

My favorite dishtowel, courtesy of MOH J several years ago
I love it so much, I actually bought a backup

We have several items in our kitchen with these icons, including a serving platter, wine glasses and a trivet. Looking at these items every day definitely put ideas in our head and I started drawing out ideas.

Do you like my doodles? 

I'll explain what we had going on here...

Up close with some of our design ideas

We liked the idea of having some sort of design element which included the Philadelphia skyline, Kimmel Center dome or Philly icons. Our hope would be that that element would translate from save teh dates to invitations to welcome bags, etc.

At the top of the page you can see the different treatments for our names or initials with the skyline (printed, script, just initials). In the middle I started drawing out ideas for the invitations in case that would help with the save the date decision. We saw a lot of potential for using the Kimmel Center dome - either as a fold over or part of the top of the invite. We thought it might be interesting to have that be a more modern icon (as compared to City Hall, etc.). Lastly, we were hoping to use a photo for the save the date, so my designs here involved the skyline or icons. You know you're impressed with my self portrait!

The below highlighted some other paper elements - maps, response cards, etc. It was a bit premature since we hadn't chosen the save the date yet, but we were going with the ideas we had to start!

Big on the icon idea - from the Kimmel Center to meal choices

With these ideas in hand, I planned to visit a few of the local paper shops and a custom designer to see what could be done. I hoped that by having these sketches, I could convey what we were looking for and determine the best plan of action - I'll share my experience next!

How did you envision your paper products? Were you as excited as me about this part of planning??

FYI - I refuse to use the acronym for Save the Dates.