Designing a 'Save The Date'

My first wedding post, how exciting. The first of many. 

I did many DIY projects for our wedding, including a lot of crafting and all the printed material. Mainly consisting of the Save  the Dates, Invitations, Menus, Programs, Favors, and probably several other things I cannot think of at the moment. I will try to blog about them in a semi-chronological order. 

Doing my own graphic design for our wedding gave me so much freedom. Which, at time, was stressful, and sometimes made things more difficult. However, looking back, I love that every little thing we printed had that personal touch. Also, as a newbie in the graphic design world, I learned so much! I feel more equipped as a designer knowing etiquette for invitations and printing standards. 

Our wedding didn't really have a 'theme.' The best I can described it would be: fun, cutsie, and retro-inspired. I really wanted to push these adjectives in every design I created. My first project was the Save the Date. 

The great part about Save the Dates is that they are informal enough that you can do something silly, fun, over-the-top, and really let your personalities shine through.  I wanted my guests to receive the card and say, "Oh that's so Caitlin and Tom." 

I had seen this bridal shower invite (above) on Pinterest, and fell in love with the variety of fonts and the blocked style. However, it did have that silly, personal touch I was looking for. Enter my mother-in-law, Kim, who is a poetic genius. She happens to have a history of writing super-cutsie poems for invitations and the like. She offered to write one for Tom and I, and it was exactly what I had been missing in my Save the Date formula.

After I got the poem, I started combining the typography styles of the invitation I liked with the charm of the poem. My favorite part is the little Tom and Caitlin faces.

Mistakes Made:

•  I made the border on the sides way to light, and it didn't show up when I got it printed. Oops. Might be a blessing in disguise. The border could have easily over over-powered the design.
• I got my cards printed at Fed-Ex (kinkos). It was way overpriced, and not that great of quality. (See photo above. Color quality is patchy, and the photo came out so dark). They were the only printing place I knew of at the time. After looking into other print shops in the local area, I was much more pleased with the price and the result. 

Overall, I was really happy with the design, and I got tons of compliments. I hope to sell a design like this on my future etsy shop.

Laterbug, Caiterbug.