Wednesday, December 2, 2009

STD Saga (thankfully, burning pee-free!)

Haha I crack myself up with that title. Clearly I'm 13 again. Anyway...

Our save-the-dates should be in the hot little hands of most of our guests by now, so it's finally time to reveal them!

I searched many many MANY websites for many many MANY hours for inspiration. From the beginning I knew I wanted to use one of our engagement pictures. Exactly *how* I wanted to use them was still up in the air. Did I want to do a postcard? Did I want to create a film strip? Make them myself or use a template? Should I use one picture or more than one? So.Many.Decisions.

But then I remembered a post from Mrs. Cheese detailing her STDs. They were simple, to the point, and pretty darn perfect.


I even commented on her post with this:

"It's so nice to see something simple yet completely fabulous. I've gone back and forth over what I want to do for STDs and I think I want to go your route. Easy-peasy!"

Her STDs obviously stuck in my head for a reason, so I decided to create some super simple STDs a la Cheese. Once I figure out the concept I began the design process. Josh installed an illegal copy of Photoshop on my computer about a year ago (shhh don't tell anyone) and I took a graphics class in college, so I've got the basics of Photoshop mastered. And by "basics" I mean I can create a text box and move it where I need it.

After many drafts, here are the two STDs I created.

I couldn't pick which one I liked better, and neither could Josh. So, we sent out both! I uploaded the files on the Walgreens photo website, and ordered 130 (65 of each) 4x6 prints.The total came to $19.50. Not too shabby!

We ended up buying A LOT of envelopes. We decided to print the addresses on our home computer, but we have a pretty sucky printer that messed up many of the envelopes. I think in total we spent about (omg just totaled this) $26.82 in envelopes. These were so expensive because we didn't have the option of buying *just* envelopes, so we have a plethora of 5x7 cards now, as well.

Postage was a little crazy, too. We bought 7 books of "Forever" stamps which totaled $61.60 (gah! Holy crap!) We ended up sending out 112 STDs.

The total for the supplies and postage was $107.92.

The *Grand Total* per STD is :::drumroll please::: $.96

Not too shabby, huh? By the way, I've greatly minimized the crappy bs of the printer situation. We actually got to the point where buying a brand new ($150) printer seemed like a good idea. For a more accurate portrayal of printer troubles, mosey on over to my friend Katie's blog, Random Reflections of a Perfectionist. Very funny.

Was your save-the-date process a saga or a storybook?


5 comments:

  1. Love them both! I'm glad you decided to just send both out! I don't think I'd be able to choose between the two!
    Here's what our e-save the date looked like http://achocolateloversconfessions.blogspot.com/2009/09/save-dates-again.html

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  2. Cute! And your title for the post made me giggle. :) Guess I'm 13 again, too!

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  3. Those look great, I think it's a great idea to send different ones out! We need to get our butts in gear to get our STD's out!

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  4. They came out great! We're planning to send out save the date emails (plus cards to the few electronically-challanged guests). I'm going to design them using our engagement photos too. :o)

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  5. They look fab! I like that you sent out two different versions. :) And that wasn't a bad price for them overall!!! Oh yes, and thanks for the shout out...learn from my mistakes, people!

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