Save the Date! (And Your Wallet)

Well, after a month (or more) of agonizing over my Save the Dates, I'm pleased to announce that they are finally complete and in the mail. Ultimately, I found many amazing characteristics that I wanted to incorporate, and I did manage to produce several creative trial designs before selecting my final option. In the end, however, I finally decided to be honest with myself and admit that manufacturing these on a large scale was an unrealistic goal. My decision finally came down to two 'end-all' factors: Time, and Money.

For starters, I was determined to have them in the mail before Christmas, and this deadline would likely have killed me had I chosen one of my more complex designs. Working retail during the holidays can be exhausting enough - adding hours of slaving over paper crafts to my hectic work schedule would have been a recipe for mental breakdown. Ultimately, I knew it was better to save my detailed projects for January.

Next, there was the issue of cost. While creating my STD's on my own would still have been more cost efficient than ordering them custom made from someone else, the necessary supplies would have put a significant dent in my wedding project budget. Add to that the increased cost of postage for the larger, heavier envelopes, and it became a no-brainer that I needed to look for a less expensive option. Enter the Target Photo Lab.

In preparation for the rush of custom Christmas card orders coming in December, Target began running several specials for print orders near the end of November. I chose to take advantage of 2: 4x6 prints at $0.08, and 5x7s for $0.85. My fiancée, not fully grasping my desire for personal expression, suggested that we simply print one of our engagement photos, glue them to cardstock, and add stickers detailing our wedding information. I wanted something slightly more defined, so I started up PowerPoint and created the collage below.

After saving my slide as a .jpg image, I was able to upload the file to Target's website and my order was ready for pick-up in just over an hour. I ordered 100 4x6 prints to mail out, as well as a handful of larger 5x7s to give to parents and keep for scrapbooking purposes. All together, after promotions, coupons, and employee discounts, my printing costs totaled to $8.93! Not bad at all for 100+ Save the Dates.