Save the Date: …with Stickers! And labels!
Our actual Save-the-Date card doesn’t use any of the wonderful photos our photographer took of us, and we like it that way. But I wanted to find some way to use the photos, plus add a little practicality to the idea of “saving the date.” That is the idea, isn’t it? Your guests should actually take your save-the-date announcements and mark their calendars, right?
I don’t know whether the general opinion is to love or loathe magnet save-the-dates, but you can’t deny that they’re so damn useful for remembering to pencil in a friend’s wedding date. I wanted to include something memorable and practical with our save-the-dates, but didn’t want to follow the herd. Enter Moo StickerBooks.
While I was looking at Moo’s printing options, I wandered over to their other accessories and had an epiphany when I saw their sticker books. I could order a book full of tiny sheets of stickers around 1-inch square, and include one sheet of six stickers with our save-the-dates so our guests can literally mark their calendar.
It was an easy extra project that turns our save-the-dates into something special. I love that we found a way to incorporate our engagement photos, and I think our guests will like the convenience of penciling in the day of our wedding with a sticker.
The stickers will get wrapped up with our Save-the-Date cards, put into our gold-edged kraft paper envelopes, then slapped with a wraparound address label.
After my adventure in watercolors, I decided to scrap hand-lettering and try out the next best thing. I know not everyone is going to agree with my assertion that wraparound labels are the next best thing to custom hand-lettering, but after trials and tribulations with budgeting for a calligrapher (never gonna happen) and trying to paint addresses on envelopes for our Save the Dates, I decided wraparound labels were the ideal solution to get these things out of the house and on their way to our guests.
I really like the size, aspect and orientation of Minted’s Skinny Wrap return address labels. To me, the long and thin aspect appears more custom or bespoke than other thicker wraparounds. It just feels more deliberate (and not like “Plan C,” as it were). So I started with that concept when I sat down to design our labels.
Minted
I also spent a lot of time on Pinterest and Google Images searching for creative food packaging. How many times have you seen or been gifted with a cute jar of jam or pretty little candy bar? Companies and products who spend time thinking about their packaging (I’m looking at you, Apple) can be a huge source of inspiration as you create the vision for your stationery, or any other “package” such as welcome bags or wedding favors.
Spicemode branding by Isabela Rodrigues, via Inspiration Hut
Tank Goodness branding by Steven Jockisch on Behance
Lastly, I looked around at other postage-inspired design and vintage postage labels. I liked the idea of working in some classic postal imagery. The red-and-blue air mail stripes don’t really fit our theme, but there’s plenty of line work and layout from postal labels I could tie in to our envelopes.
Paper Pastries on Etsy
Invitation Suite by Scotti Cline Designs
Inspired by all that I searched and saw, I started to sit down with Adobe Illustrator and plan out our wraparound labels. For me, it helped to first mock-up our envelopes, using tools to sketch out our kraft paper envelopes, postage stamps, gilded edge, as well as the mark from our return address stamp. With lots of inspiration and a detailed artboard, it didn’t take long to build a design I was happy with.
It’s a simple design. The guests’ address is printed on the front side of the label with a little bit of modern line design. Since we already have a rubber stamp for our return address, the back of the label features our wedding logo. The edges, rather than being square, are cut off with pinking shears to mimic some of the food labels I found in the inspiration phase.
The cost of the labels makes my wallet smile, too. I was able to print them at home on full-sheet label paper, which I bought from an office store for $15. Add in the cost of a pair of decorative pinking shears ($10) and the grand total is $25. Around $150 cheaper than most of the quotes I got from calligraphers.
We still might splurge on hand-lettered calligraphy for the actual invitations, but I’m really happy with the wraparound labels. I’m gearing up to share the full Save-the-Date suite soon, so you can see everything in action together.