Wedding Invitation Tip: Multi-Purpose Save-the-Date

We're always looking for new, functional design ideas for wedding stationery. This one helps a couple's budget and their wedding guests.

The idea is to include accommodation information with your Save-the-Date, instead of printing a separate Accommodations card as part of the formal invitation. With this format, out-of-town guests have important travel and hotel information well in advance, allowing them to plan ahead for your big day, and you have a simpler invitation with a smaller price tag. Perfect!

Tips for Going Green with your Invitations

A priority for more and more couples is to reduce the environmental impact of their wedding. We have several tips for environmentally friendly wedding invitations. The added bonus to these tips is that they also reduce your stationery expenses!

• Omit the Reception Card. There is a trend away from multiple inserts in a wedding invitation. With wedding websites and GPS, many couples include reception venue on the main invitation, creating a clean, simple look--and saving paper.
• Use a Reply Postcard. Rather than a reply card & envelope, just use a reply postcard! Your guests will see the same design on their reply card, but you'll save on envelopes and postage costs. (See some of our samples here.) 
• Forgo an Inner Envelope. While still popular with traditional formal invitations, the inner envelope was a necessity when mail would be all but destroyed in transit. Skip it and save! 
• Include Accommodations with Save the Date. We can design your Save the Date in a way that accommodations information fits seamlessly. Not only does this reduce paper (and the cost of printing an Accommodations card), but it helps your guests plan ahead.
• Print on Recycled Paper & Cardstock. Much of the paper we use is made from a minimum of 30% post-consumer recycled materials, and we have many choices that are 100% recycled and organic.

Try this website out

My DIY Wedding Day...I thought this was a great resource for our brides. We at Margot Madison Stationery are all about the do it yourself concept. If you've got a steady hand and an eye for detail, we encourage our customers to assemble part or all of the invitations. It can save lots of money and be really fun.

Tailoring the invitation to the budget: DIY

Many of the invitations we're famous for at Margot Madison Stationery have been of the more elaborate variety, like the ones we've done for event planner Colin Cowie. While we love working with unlimited budgets, there are many more invitations we do within a budget.

As Lindsay was preparing a Bar Mitzvah invitation today, I thought it would be a good time to mention that we offer and encourage the option to do your own assembly with your invitations. Many of our customers have saved thousands of dollars off their original quote by doing some adhering of layers, or assembly of bows and more. If we know this up front, we can design the invitation according to your crafting comfort level. We even rent our tape gun and have a little practice session before you leave so you know exactly what to do to get the results you want (without ripping the invitation into shreds!).

The photo above illustrates this. The various pieces of the Bar Mitzvah are cut and ready for our customer to pick up today. She has already assembled the 3 layers of the invitation. Now she will tape and assemble the pocket folder, stack and insert the informational cards, add the printed "belly band" and mail. It takes time and patience (and a learning curve sometimes) but well worth the effort!

The Wedding Chicks

Check out this good wedding blog called The Wedding Chicks. It's a good one (ahem, other than mine, of course...) and you know I have a thing for yellow. ;o)

Greenacres Foundation and Event Center

So Lindsay and I went to a networking party for The Knot last week and I CANNOT get over this place and how incredibly beautiful it is. And I mean truly, literally: I. cannot. get. over it!

Think English country cottage (for the wealthy) with well manicured landscapes, beautiful stables, barns, long winding tree-lined drives. The sweetest looking brown cows peering lazily from their fenced pasture. If I had could be a princess and live here forever, I would.

It was a rainy night, and that added to the mystical beauty. A steamy fog nestled into the midline of the tree landscape into the valley and I was speechless. There are paved walkways dividing the more formal gardens, and a recessed fountain that would make spectacular wedding photos. Well anything would look good in a professional photograph.

Sadly, NONE of the photos we took or those on their website do this place any justice. And I'm so happy the Greenacres website did have my favorite detail: that friar and maid carved on separate corbels outside the entry. Unassuming, poking fun; a detail that I think is so often overlooked when folks are building such large and beautiful houses.

Anyway, brides, if you are still looking for a venue you must see this. It also has a little chapel inside the house if you need it. Lots of parking is available.

I should also mention that this place is meant to be a nature educational facility. They have horse riding classes, wine tastings, cooking classes, naturalist talks and walks and so much more!

Reply Postcards

We have seen quite a trend here to do reply cards as postcards instead of the traditional card/envelope duo. Brides are breaking away from all kids of traditions with their invitations and this is a good one to include in the invitation progress category.

Why? It saves printing costs. It saves paper. It saves postage.

Here are just a few samples to see how it works. Most brides choose to print everything on one side, but some like the look of printing on both sides as well.


As long as the card is larger than 5x3.5" and smaller than 6x4" then you can use the standard postcard stamp. Some have asked if the card gets lost in the mail and, though I can't vouch for the USPO, we've not seen any problems with this.