To save-the-date or not to save-the-date

That was the question but now it seems a bit irrelevant.  In my last post I mentioned that our save the dates were and sometimes still are a topic of contention between me and the future husband.  I had a plan, and it was a pretty cute one too.  But now that plan is, well in the same place most of my plans end up.  Sometimes I’m resolved with the decision we made and sometimes I’m down right resentful.

You see I happen to be the proud sister of an immensely (IMO) talented artist.  Using my sweetest politest suck holing voice I was able to convince my bother to design a picture for our invitations.  Not only did he oblige us with what is exactly the dead on the vision I had in my head but he also provided us with a beautiful water colour picture to use for our save the dates!  This was perfect! Totally original art for both the save the date and the invitation.  My plan was to collect all of our addresses and have the save the dates printed on magnets and send them out in January followed by the invites in May… 

… Has anyone received our save the date?  NO???? Oh right that’s because my plan got scrapped.  Why? You ask.  Well I asked Aaron to email and call everyone on his side of the family in November for their addresses.  I reminded him again in January.  I begged him in February.  It is now March and he received the last of his addresses last week.  So needless to say it is a bit late to send out save the dates.  Aaron and I discussed it and we decided that the word of our wedding has already spread to all of his and my family and everyone knows the date of the wedding so we would save the money on printing and postage and just send out our invitations a month earlier.  

On the one hand I am sad about not using the beautiful art my brother created, but on the other hand I am okay with saving the money and putting it towards something else like the food or the booze.  It is getting a little tiresome being asked constantly when we are planning on sending out the invites but I guess that goes with the territory of planning a wedding.  It is actually a compliment since everyone is excited to receive our invitation.  

This is a screen shot of a mock up save-the-date from vistaprint.

I’m curious when it became so common place to send out a save the date.  I don’t remember it being so main stream.  I think it is just another “must have” item invented by the wedding retail industry to spend more unnecessary money on.  Well you can’t have my money cause my fiancé is a procrastinator, so there!