Save-the-dates/ Invites for wedding at sea

[JulieRose]

I'm looking into cute stationary ideas for my wedding. We want something a little less formal and a little more fun but not cheap looking.

 

My fiance says to just send the invitation and skip the save the dates because people will want time to plan. I'm pretty sure that goes against etiquette and might raise an eyebrow or two with my older family members but the prices seem outrageous and since we're also paying for a large portion of the cruise/wedding ourselves I'm tempted to agree with him. Our stationary budget including STDs, invites, envelopes and thank you's is only $400 and we plan to order 75 invitations/ STDs.

 

If you were married on a cruise,

Where did you get your stationary?

What did it look like?

[stacyj]

Strongly recommend sending Save the Dates ASAP specifically so people have time to plan. We got really nice quality, fun save the date magnets on Vistaprint- and very inexpensive. You can do inviatations fairly inexpensively on there too. If you have a little more money to play with, check out "Invitations by Dawn". They have destination themed invitatiions. We got the ones that look like a cruise ship boarding pass. Good luck!

[Artemis908]

weddingpaperdivas.com and http://www.weddingpaperdivas.com/product/4990/signature_white_textured_wedding_invitations_stylish_starfish.html

 

I LOVE this place, it's reasonably priced and so well designed. By far the cheapest I could find that still represented my design style.

 

Here are their "beach themed" invitations: http://www.weddingpaperdivas.com/shop/tropical--wedding_invitations.htm I fell in love with a couple of designs like starry pair and hibiscus bloom.

[May2011Bride]

I'm looking into cute stationary ideas for my wedding. We want something a little less formal and a little more fun but not cheap looking.

 

My fiance says to just send the invitation and skip the save the dates because people will want time to plan. I'm pretty sure that goes against etiquette and might raise an eyebrow or two with my older family members but the prices seem outrageous and since we're also paying for a large portion of the cruise/wedding ourselves I'm tempted to agree with him. Our stationary budget including STDs, invites, envelopes and thank you's is only $400 and we plan to order 75 invitations/ STDs.

 

If you were married on a cruise,

Where did you get your stationary?

What did it look like?

 

We used the following Save-the-Dates:

http://www.magnetstreet.com/ship-mates-save-the-date-magnets

(changed the photo and colors to match our theme)

 

and used the following matching invitations, RSVP cards, and Thank You cards:

http://www.magnetstreet.com/ship-mates-save-the-date-magnets

(changing the colors again, of course)

 

The products were faily inexpensive and of very good quality. If you don't mind putting together your invitations, you can definately save money with this option!

[crislen]

Your budget is completely reasonable if you don't mind doing some of the work yourself.

 

We, well I, did the DIY route with all of them.

 

For the save-the-dates I did boarding passes along with magnets

 

For the invitations, I did them passport style - these were a huge hit and enticed some people to come since I included all sorts of information for the ports and excursions and that. I had to laugh since one of my fiance's cousin's 6 year old took it in for show and tell to brag to everyone where he gets to go on vacation!

 

We sent the STDs out 13 months in advance.

 

The invites were sent out 3 1/2 months in advance.

 

Most of the same information was duplicated on our website.

[CruiserJess]

VISTAPRINT.COM

 

This has been a life saver for us! We sent out our save the dates 13 months out and ordered about 50 for $25.00 and got free return address labels!

 

Check them out! Perfect for DIY and to save some extra money.

[canucme_cruisin]

I chose to DIY my invites so I can show some originality and creativity. I did message in a bottle invites along with a boarding pass. Everyone LOVED them!! (The boarding pass map has all of the islands listed we will be sailing too). I thought they were more of a nice keepsake for people I knew would not be sailing.

[Herbaltees]

I chose to DIY my invites so I can show some originality and creativity. I did message in a bottle invites along with a boarding pass. Everyone LOVED them!! (The boarding pass map has all of the islands listed we will be sailing too). I thought they were more of a nice keepsake for people I knew would not be sailing.

 

I like your idea of the message in a bottle. Can you give more details on that, please? Was it the STD?

[canucme_cruisin]

I like your idea of the message in a bottle. Can you give more details on that, please? Was it the STD?

 

I didn't do formal STD's. When I got all the cruise info from my TA I just sent an email for anyone interested. When I created my website, I directed them there, so I let everyone know a year in advance when we first started planning.

 

The message in a bottle were the invitations (with actual invitation text on the message inside the bottle). I sent those in Jan...most people commented that they didn't want to open it and read the message cuz they didn't want to "mess it up" but I put tropical fragrance on the cork, so they smelled "islandish" too :p

 

I ordered them from here http://www.save-on-crafts.com/glassbottles2.html

[JulieRose]

Wow! I have a lot of links to go through. Thanks everybody!

[love2travelmom]

I ordered a really cute cruiseship invitation from www.invitationconsultants.com

:)

[Bride2Be0911]

Attached are our magnet STDs and invites. Our theme that is running throughout the wedding is starfish, seashells and sand dollars. :)

 

[jul1221]

I also did very well with my STD magnets from Vistaprint.com. Check out serendipitybeyonddesign.com for your invites. They are AMAZING!

 

-Jul

[JulieRose]

Our STDs have already gone out. I chose to do a postcard that I ordered through Vistaprint. It fit the travel theme and was cheaper to send (we also plan on sending postcards as wedding announcements from Hell, Grand Cayman. - yeah, my fiance thinks it's funny to send them from "Hell." I can't disagree as we share a similar sense of humor.)

 

To anyone planning on sending postcards, be careful of your text placement. Our wedding website was obscured by post office stickers for some of our guests. Put all of the important information towards the middle of the postcard!

 

We're working on the invites now. My MOH is a graphic designer and is going to do some boarding pass invitations with a printed envelope for the official invite complete with a tear off RSVP. I sent her the info but as I know she's really busy, I don't expect to see any proofs all that soon. (I'll post when I have them)

 

Still looking for the proper blades to create perforations and scores with my existing rotary paper cutter. It's about 5 years old so this has been a challenge. Also, I still need to buy a corner punch. But even with the equipment purchases, DIY is going to save us some money for sure.

[dcdiva]

We skipped the Save The Date and just did an invitation. Our wedding took place during the cruise, so only those who sailed could attend. And we only planned it about 6 months ahead. So we wanted everyone to have as much information as possible. "Etiquette" sometimes gets in the way with the logistics of a cruise/destination wedding. In the end, you just want to make sure your guests have the information they need, and that you have a way to know who is and isn't coming.

[jaded99]

Wow, we have some talented and creative ladies on the CC Wedding Cruise boards! I love the boarding passes and the message in a bottle! Must have been expensive to mail that though? Still it looks worth it - totally a memento.

 

I do freelance graphic design, so I designed a beach-scene STD postcard, but we're mailing it in an envelope along with a sheet of info about the cruise and our travel agent's info. I had them printed at Staples on cardstock for the postcards and premium paper for the info sheets and it was $70 total for 80 of each. Not too bad.

 

Obviously we're not having our invitations done at Staples though, we just wanted our STDs to be casual but classy and to be very informative so people would know if they wanted to book the cruise too. Will probably do some DIY embellishments on the invitations when that time comes :)

[jjwelsh]

We used my daughters engagments pictures since we had just got them done before sending the STD's and went to shutterfly where u got 50 pictures free and turned it into a STD, I will attach it, only cost shipping which I think was about 7.00 for Invites we knew we only had a handful of people who could sail and only 2 couples non sailing that were gonna be able to come so my daughter didn't want to waste the money on regular invites that most people would throw away anyhow so we used pingg.com and send "evites" the most it cost is 10.00 and that's if you don't find a free invite u like or want the virtual envelope. they keep track of all your RSVPs too, and will send a reminder if you want it and also a quick TY to anyone replying and you can personalize it anyway you want. Just an idea.

[canucme_cruisin]

Wow, we have some talented and creative ladies on the CC Wedding Cruise boards! I love the boarding passes and the message in a bottle! Must have been expensive to mail that though? Still it looks worth it - totally a memento.

 

I do freelance graphic design, so I designed a beach-scene STD postcard, but we're mailing it in an envelope along with a sheet of info about the cruise and our travel agent's info. I had them printed at Staples on cardstock for the postcards and premium paper for the info sheets and it was $70 total for 80 of each. Not too bad.

 

Obviously we're not having our invitations done at Staples though, we just wanted our STDs to be casual but classy and to be very informative so people would know if they wanted to book the cruise too. Will probably do some DIY embellishments on the invitations when that time comes :)

 

They didn't have a ton of sand in them to make them really heavy, and I used the smallest boxes from Office Depot. They were about $5 to mail, but for the people who were local, I just put them in their mailbox! ;)

[canucme_cruisin]

We used my daughters engagments pictures since we had just got them done before sending the STD's and went to shutterfly where u got 50 pictures free and turned it into a STD, I will attach it, only cost shipping which I think was about 7.00 for Invites we knew we only had a handful of people who could sail and only 2 couples non sailing that were gonna be able to come so my daughter didn't want to waste the money on regular invites that most people would throw away anyhow so we used pingg.com and send "evites" the most it cost is 10.00 and that's if you don't find a free invite u like or want the virtual envelope. they keep track of all your RSVPs too, and will send a reminder if you want it and also a quick TY to anyone replying and you can personalize it anyway you want. Just an idea.

 

Awwwww these are SOOO cute!!

[beachlover225]

We actually just talked with our close friends and family about it to get an idea of how many rooms we were potentially talking and then we contacted a travel agent and got a quote. We had about a month to work with after that before they had to let our "reserved" rooms go....people are still booking and most still are using the same rate, but it was nice to be able to put out pricing details when we sent info and not just a date. Our TA made up a flyer we could mail/email out, but I wanted it a little more "jazzed" up so I got into Word and remade it. We emailed it to everyone, mailed to those who don't use computers much and word of mouth got a lot of our rooms booked...almost no cost since we are sticking to a real low budget...

Brandi & Cody3.pdf

[goodtoglow]

We sent ours out 18 months in advance!! We planned our wedding so far away so that friends and family could easily afford it without stressing, and we wanted to get our Save The Dates out early to all.

 

 

 

For our actual invites, we are sending elaborate Envelopement pocketfold invites to those that are coming on the cruise. For all others, we are sending them invites to our At Home Reception. Our guest list is HUGE so we really can't afford to send everyone $5-$6 invites (not to mention the intense amount of labour I am putting in to them!), especially since the majority of the invite centers around wedding day details and cruise tips....

[bellademiami]

Hi Crislen! Did you do the passport invitations yourself?

[bellademiami]

Good to Glow your save by dates are gorgeous!

[eggnoodle]

We sent ours out 18 months in advance!! We planned our wedding so far away so that friends and family could easily afford it without stressing, and we wanted to get our Save The Dates out early to all.

 

 

 

For our actual invites, we are sending elaborate Envelopement pocketfold invites to those that are coming on the cruise. For all others, we are sending them invites to our At Home Reception. Our guest list is HUGE so we really can't afford to send everyone $5-$6 invites (not to mention the intense amount of labour I am putting in to them!), especially since the majority of the invite centers around wedding day details and cruise tips....

 

I know this is an old thread...but can someone tell me how to get this invite?

 

Thanks!

[Carnival_Brides]

Anyone have any suggestions for wording on an invitation for a wedding at sea? Our STD originally said we were getting married at embarkation, but it's changed since then.