Save the Dates with Minted - by Kelsey Boyanzhu

It is wedding fever in our household because things are actually starting to ramp up!

When KB proposed back in November, the concept of an actual wedding was all sort of just talk. Theoretical, ya know? I've always been down to be married, but honestly hadn't really spent that much time thinking through a wedding.

Now it's three months later and we've locked down a venue - it all feels super real. I'm excited!

I'm not planning to reveal our date online (gotta keep some things private), but I can tell you that I knew as soon as we got our venue + date all nailed down, I'd want us to send out our save the dates ASAP. It's just polite, I think. Standard wedding etiquette suggests sending your save the dates 6-9 months out from the wedding, with invites to follow around 3-4 months before the wedding.

I'm nothing if not punctual.

Our aesthetic (well, who am I kidding, my aesthetic) is a little more modern with an edge vs light/airy/romantic, so I was very specific with how I wanted both our save the date shoot and our actual save the dates to look. I wanted to do an entire post highlighting our save the dates in case there are any other brides out there that are into the slightly warmer/edgier vibe when it comes to their wedding aesthetic.

Our Save the Date photoshoot.

You can read all about our save the date photoshoot in this blog post, but the high level summary is that I really envisioned a shoot with a lot of depth and warmth. I also wanted us to feel natural. Like the fewer super posed photos the better.

Photos - check. Then it came time to actually design the save the dates.

Save the Dates with Minted.

I knew from the start that Minted was on my very short list when it came to wedding stationary. I needed a company that would have:

★ A zillion choices. I'm a researcher - I need to see allll my options before deciding on a design. Plus, I didn't want the usual light and airy situation. I needed a company that would have light and airy save the dates, but also some edgier options as well.

★ Fast shipping. Once I finally have made up my mind, I'm off to the races. I'm an instant gratification kind of gal. I wanted to select my save the dates, and have them in my hot little hands ready for mailing mere days later.

★ Reasonable prices. If I want to spend a lot on "extras" (like monogrammed custom stamps) - I want that option. But I also don't want to be locked into those expenses. I like a good middle ground, ya know?

Minted has been on my radar for years because they check all these boxes when it comes to save the dates - and actually almost all things wedding, to be honest. We're not this far down the road yet, but Minted does everything from save the dates to invites to menus and more.

Our experience.

Timing

I just logged back into my Minted account to confirm all these deets, but get this...

Within five hours of designing our save the dates, the design was ready for proofing and approval. Hours.

Once we approved the design, our save the dates were delivered to us in four business days. I can't really speak to if this timing is normal (maybe we live close to a warehouse?) - but holy heck that was fast! I was able to stamp them and send them out literally a day later. So efficient.

Design

To keep on theme with our photoshoot, I was really feeling a botanical style design. We chose to go with Foiled Leaves. Our save the dates have gold foil on them - a little tough to see in these photos, but they literally shine!

We went with silver envelopes. I'm into mixed metallics.

Cost

Minted was kind enough to gift us our save the dates, but I still went through the process of designing + adding to cart and was honestly floored at how reasonable the price was.

We ordered 85 of these gold foil save the date cards with pre-addressed envelopes (meaning I didn't have to hand write!!!) and a custom message on the back. The price came to $295. For save the dates that are completely custom (have our photos on it - not just text saying "save the date"), have foiled details, came with pre-addressed envelopes, are double-sided, and are envelope style (vs postcard style)...honestly I really thought the cost would be twice that amount. I'm still floored.

All in all I'm VIBING our Minted experience. Expect to see a full post on our invites in the future, because we're for sure planning on doing all our wedding paper products with Minted.