DIY Save The Dates

I am very excited to share some process shots I took while making the prop for our save the date postcard.  It was a fun, collaborative project for Anthony and me. I had the idea for our save the date from a post on one of the thousands of blogs that I read.  The couple did a postcard, and in the photo they were kissing while each holding a Polaroid shot of the date of the wedding painted on the side of a building.  The Polaroids were in focus with the couple slightly out of focus in the background.  We love postcards, so it was perfect for us to announce our special day in a postcard style.  The first step was to find a unique prop to display our names and wedding date.  I went to a hardware store to see what I could find, and I came across a round piece of plywood.  My vision was to paint the wood yellow and somehow stencil or use paper cutouts of the lettering for our names and date.  Lemon Sorbet by Behr was the color that I used. As I thought about what to do for the lettering, I was worried that paint on paint would look to flat and would not show up well in the photos.  I needed texture.  I then had the idea to find a font that I liked - something scripty but to not too fancy and more on the modern side.  I absolutely love fonts and type setting so it was incredibly intriguing to see what was out there.  I chose Annabel Script.  Then came the tricky part, figuring out how to print the letters out big enough that they filled enough space on the circle.  Here is where Anthony stepped into help.  He set the type in illustrator and scaled it to fit the circle perfectly.  We then had it printed out at Staples on tabloid size card stock.  We both preceded to share the Exacto knife process of cutting the letters out of the paper.  This part took a long time as neither one of us are skilled with the Exacto knife.  It was great team work if I do say so myself.  The final step was to glue down the names and the mini-dots along the edge, which were created with a circle punch.  We used spray mount.  Once the prop was finished we were able to book the photo shoot with our friend and photographer Sharon Wharton.  The morning light in February had been so amazing that we went up to Chautauqua Park to capture the intensity of the morning light on the snow and the Flatirons.  Sharon encouraged us to goof around and be affectionate.  At first I could sense that we both felt awkward, but it probably had more to do with how chilly it was.  There were a couple of shots where Anthony was twirling me around, and he literally looked like I was breaking his back.  I have never laughed so hard at the two of us.  The best shot was of us walking hand in hand down the trail, and Anthony leaning over to give me a kiss. It now graces the cover of our postcard.  We designed the postcard back in illustrator, and had the postcards printed at a local print shop in town.  I hand addressed 156 postcards in a gray art pen and sent them out mid-March.  My plan was to have them in the mail no later than March 1, but we had a few weather delays for the photo shoot that pushed out the mail date.  It was a cool project and a wonderful creative outlet for me.  I hope that all of our guest enjoyed receiving them in the mail. Now, I am on to my handmade wedding invitations.  Ciao, ciao. Natalie