Category Archives: Save The Date

Eco Wedding, invitations, Save The Date, Thrifty Wedding

We’re Not Sending Invitations?!?! *gasp*

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Too dramatic? OK let’s try again.

We’re not sending invitations.

We’ve been thinking along these lines for a while. But I haven’t really discussed it with anyone fully besides Mr. Veggie. I guess I was a bit afraid of people’s reactions.

Will they be shocked at our lack of decorum?

Confused at why we would forgo such an important detail?

Disapproving of our decision?

Source

Well, Willis, this is what we’re talking about. Tough choices.

We have a strict budget, financially and ecologically. When we decided to splurge on a photographer we knew there would be other things that we would have to cut out. And, when we looked at all of the components of a wedding, invites just seemed to make the most sense to us, ecologically and financially.

Don’t get me wrong. I love getting mail. I love the idea of people opening our invites all over the world and getting excited for our big day. I would love getting back RSVP cards. I love envelope liners. I love twine. I love wood block carvings. I love letterpress.
I love this set of invites:
And this one:

And this one:

And this one:

While I swooned over our Save The Dates design, I didn’t like that they arrived in the form of an attachment on an email. Where’s the fun in that? No one gets excited over receiving a mass email. Verdana font on a computer screen just can’t compete with letterpress swirls and twirls. And the second it takes you to click on an attachment hardly holds the anticipation and glee of opening an envelope.

And that’s why my heart broke a little the day I realized that paper invitations were not in our future.

But then I found Paperless Post and the skies began to clear. They have solved the excitement v. eco, pretty v. functional, paper v. e- dilemmas. When you send an invitation through them they send a personalized envelope to each recipient’s email, which they can click on to “open” the invitation. The invitation they open is created by you using one of PP’s gorgeous templates, which are designed to look like letterpress. They can click on the invitation to RSVP. Genius.

And then I saw this video… and I swear I heard a choir of angels.

I began to realize that there are some advantages that e-invites have over their paper counterparts. Not only could we do a rad video, but depending on what company we use, we can also link directly to our website and registry, manage our RSVP’s, link to a mapquest or google map, and even allow people to add our wedding as an event to their blackberries.

So what I’m imagining now is a Paperless Post-type e-invite where the email guests receive will have a personalized envelope. But instead of opening up to a beautiful one-page invite, it will open to a multiple page invite. The first page will contain our video, the second will look like a traditional invite, and the third will link to our wedding website where guests can RSVP, check out maps, registries, etc.

Ok bees, so here’s my question to you. How do I make this happen? Paperless Post says that their system is only set up to do one-page invites. Any ideas?

Camp Wedding, Save The Date, Story

I am calm. Really I am.

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I don’t know if you bees remember, but down here on the farm us Veggies were having a bit of a venue crisis. After much crying, and begging, and more crying, and supportive words from Mr. Veggie, it became clear that we were not going to get our date at our venue.

I tested out a mantra: “I am calm. I am at peace. All is well.”

We were left with two options, find a new venue or switch dates. I was a mess.

Should we stick with the same venue and move our wedding to September, even though this would be extremely inconvenient for our friends and family who work at prep schools? Or should we backtrack and try to find another venue even though I felt as though I’d contacted every camp on this side of the Mississippi?

At this point I was repeating that mantra like a full-fledged Buddhist monk.

Funny enough my biggest concern through all of this was our STD’s. In the back of my mind I was pretty sure we would find another venue or that somehow the date would work out, but I was absolutely distraught at the idea of re-sending out STD’s. I’m not really a crier. But we’re talking full-on tantrum here.

After a few days (weeks) of thought I think I’ve figured out why I was so upset.

It all goes back to me generally not being good at completing projects, and me seeming to attract little mix-ups like this, and most of all putting way too much pressure on myself to make the wedding perfect. I’m an ADHD over-achiever, with some serious self-doubts when it comes to the ability to follow things through. I was viewing the wedding as an opportunity to show off the detail-focused, budget and time responsible, grown up version of me. Resending the STD’s would flaw our perfect wedding image from the very start.

Of course, in the moment I couldn’t put words to any of that, but now that the venue crisis is over, I can say “Miss Veggie, chill out”. The wedding is a wedding, nothing more, nothing less. It’s an opportunity for us to be surrounded by people we love, eating good food, dancing, and listening to good music.

Oh yeah, did I mention that our venue crisis is over? O-V-E-R.

The Veggie crew far and wide pulled together once they heard that our venue basically booted us from our date. While Mr. Veggie and I were debating the possibility of changing dates and staying at the same venue, some amazing veggie friends and family sprung into action researching other summer camp options. For two weeks they (and we) called, emailed, and googled their little hearts out. And, in the end, it all worked out for the better.

I’ll unveil our new venue shortly. Mr. Veggie is afraid we’ll jinx it if we announce too soon, and I can’t say I blame him. So, I’m testing out a new technique… I think they call it patience. It’s a new one for me. I’ll let you know how it works out.

Eco Wedding, Save The Date, Thrifty Wedding

E-STD’s

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Things to be aware of when sending out electronic save the dates:

1) If the file name attached to your email includes “STD”, non-wedding-savvy folks on the guest list may be a bit hesitant to open it. And you will be the butt of many family jokes.

2) Yahoo will actually freeze your account for a few hours if you try to send an email to too many people (apparently 300 is too many).

We hemmmed and hawed about sending e-STD’s, but in the end it fit with the overall feel of our wedding. No frills, budget-friendly, and most important, a low environmental footprint.

Our STD’s were designed by our good friend Shari Amos, a graphic designer who does wedding invites (lucky us!). I am in love with them. I couldn’t fall asleep last night because the 18hr time difference meant that people might open our email as early as 1am our time. I might even sacrafice a small tree and print a few up as keepsakes… that’s how much I love them.

Photography, Save The Date, Story

Work it!

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Me: “Look at me and think about how you’re going to feel the day we get married”.

The camera comes out and suddenly Mr. Veggie’s smile looks like the Joker. Me: “Relax your cheeks”. Him: “They are relaxed”

All photos taken by the amazing Ross in exchange for a beer and a bowl of veggie chili.

Which do you like? Which would you use? Hah! That’s a trick question because the one we actually chose isn’t posted here. You’ll just have to wait to see it.

Photography, Save The Date, Story

Dirty Hippies

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Now that we had a venue, it was definitely time to send out Save The Dates. I had wanted to do this in December, but it took longer than I thought to firm up a camp and then we got really busy during our southern hemisphere summer season, and then oops! We have a wedding date and its only 8 1/2 months away!

First step: Find a nice picture of us.

Good picture, scrubby clothes.
Good picture, no faces.

Good picture, scrubby clothes.

Good picture, ah- crazy hair!All pictures personal photos.

“Mr. Veggie, throw on your best pair of overalls. It’s time to get purty for some pho-tography”.

Its nice to have amazingly talented friends who will come by your house after working all day, put up with your shenanigans, and capture you on film. Stay tuned for some shots that our friend Ross took in what I guess could be called our backyard.