With great pleasure, I present...

... the Save the Dates I promised to share. Their arrival was proclaimed here.  So. As mentioned before, some people got emailed their save the dates and other people got a postcard. And some lucky fools got both. ;)

All designs by yours truly. Our cartoony heads were made from Vistaprint's Caricature Design.

It was unfortunate that Tim was/is soooo busy with work/research/school stuff that he wasn't able to like... help. Cause he's got quite the artistic eye when it comes to design stuff and using Photoshop, and I would have loved to see him work his magic.  :(  I sent him everything I made, and he would give input, but I would have liked to have designed them together!  Perhaps on the next project.  :]

But anyway... here they are!

[ Save the Date 1]

Our postcard! This was printed on a simple postcard from Vistaprint. There weren't as thick as I envisioned them but most people who have held on in their hands thought they were fine and nobody has reported any that have been mauled, missing a corner, or sad things like that.

The emailed people got our assortment pack. :) It was kind of nice that way so that none of my crazy, zany ideas went to waste.  People could choose which one they wanted to print out!  The first in the "pack" was the same design as the postcard, followed by these:

[Save the Date 2]

We like brontos. Yes. We know that brontosaurus' have gone the way of Pluto and are obsolete now, replaced by the Apatosaurus. But seriously. Apatosaurus just does not sound as cool as brontosaurus (which I have been saying, and loving, since I was a wee child).

Story! Ok. I don't know if this is a story, but when we were JUST FRIENDS... sometimes I'd draw brontosauruses on the white boards in Duffield (the engineering atrium downstairs from where Tim works, where there were these study alcoves) when I would study there and sometimes he'd see them. And THEN when we started dating... the evolved into orange and green brontos that stood closer together. :)

A couple months ago I made these little clay babies, hehe:

Back to the save the dates...

[Save the Date 3]

Here is our cartoony faces again. (I dig square paper card things.)  I'm not entirely sure why I used that dark pink color for the writing.  I think I just liked it against the tan-yellow.

[Save the Date 4]

To close with our actual FACES. This was actually incase any of Tim's (or my) relatives didn't recognize us by name and needed some visual-aid. Or.  They wanted to see what Tim's fiancee looked like!  (And vice versa)  Or. Maybe some people wanted to see our silly faces.  Who knows.  Ok, maybe just our moms.  haha.  :D  It was inspired by... those Christmas photo cards that people send you of their family that don't stand up on their own (like a normal card) that you don't know what to do with...  Yup.  :]

I know these aren't super exciting save the dates. No cute embellishments or fancy ribbons, but I guess it was my way of having fun and being creative without breaking the bank for some save the dates (which aren't even the invitations!) and would have required more time, labor, materials, and postage.  People have been enthusiastic about these so far, so it's been fun and I'm glad they turned out the way they did.  :)

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And 200 days until the wedding!  Whooooooot!  :oP
  

saaaave that date!

Wheeee!!  Save the Dates are ON THEIR WAY to people!!!

SO.  We originally decided to email out save the dates to save on unnecessary printing costs and stamps!  Oh dear sweet cheeks stamps are expensive (and on the rise!) these days.  But then... after asking Mama Condon a few times it became apparent that it would be difficult to get email addresses for many of the guests on the Condon side.  It was trouble enough trying to get mailing addresses!  So.  I thought we could send postcards to those people we only had mailing addresses to and then email everyone else.

(Source)

Which is pretty much how we did things. :] Except I went and bought a 200 ct. pack of print-your-own postcards and thought we'd just print our own. I don't know if it's my computer or the printer but after a few trial runs, I could not get them to print correctly. And.  The ink could get pretty expensive with all that color.  So I surfed through some printing sites and found 100 free postcards at Vistaprint. SWEEEEET. But then I think it was like $4 to load your own image and then $6 for shipping. So it was really $10. But $10 for 100 postcards is not too shabby. And they were suppose to be glossy.  :)

Well.  They came TODAY!  :-D  It was a LONG hard cranky day of going to doctors appointments with my grandpa (830am to 4pm!  Well it was two appointments, but add in lunch, driving time, parking, picking up and dropping off and it's an awfully long time).  So I was really excited to get them!  And much earlier than the aniticipated SLOW delivery estimate they gave.  I was sliiiiiightly disappointed when I opened the package and discovered they were not.... as thick as I thought they'd be.  :(  So I was complaining to my mom and she goes, "How much were they?"  And I was like, "Free.... ish.  But I had to pay for uploading the image and shipping!"  :oP  Enough said, Mom.

So yeah yeah, they're okay.  :)  I emailed a bunch of folks yesterday and pretty much basically kind of finished writing all the postcards today.  And sent out some more emails.  :oD  I think we have like 50 extra.  But that's ok.  hahah.

AND!  I HANDWROTE every single one of them.  Every address and even a little (very repetitve and now very annoying) little note on the left side.  :oP  (This was partially also because I did not have mailing labels, nor did I want to pay money for them or learn how to print them properly.)

You'll get a peek at them (both email version and postcard), properly, in a little bit!  :-D

So yeah.  They may be a few weeks early, but whatever.  The etiquette (my dearest Tim went, "There's Save the Date etiquette?!" haha) is 6 months before your wedding.  But it IS a holiday weekend, in a big city and most of the Condon guests are coming from out of town, so I figured 6 months and 3 weeks is ok.  :-P  Or maybe I was just... really excited.  Shhhh.  ;)  Flying into SF is unique in that... there are a lot of flights, but as I've learned, flights only seem to get more expensive as time passes (and lodging is expensive!) so... the earlier the notice the better right?  :)  Plus, I'll be out of town next week and then it's Thanksgiving.  So really, it's justified -- I sound pretty busy, right?  :-P


Do you think hold-in-your-hand Save the Dates actually help you remember people's weddings?  Or do emails work as well, and it's a matter of logging it in your planner/calendar?