Honorable mention

Last week I was interviewed by the Boston Herald. One of their journalist was doing a story about online save-the-dates or invites, more specifically, a video.

For those of you who are not trolling wedding blogs and websites on a daily business, one of the latest trends to take the wedding business by storm are video announcements. I've seen everything from real live movie to stop motion clips where a bunch of still photos are strung together.

I spent about 30 minutes talking to Carley, the journalist, about our save-the-dates, our reasons for sending them out via email, and what not. Now I bet you want to know why we emailed them. Here goes:

1. I'm going to be completely honest, I'm cheap. I probably saved us at $50 in raw materials cost (printing, paper, envelopes, postage). I don't even know how much it would have cost to have someone else design it, maybe in the $100 range for a graphic designers time?
2. I grew up during the big tech boom and I work in the tech industry. I embrace technology with open arms and will use it to my advantage.
3. Just about everyone we know has email. We only had to print and mail three physical save the dates and they were all for those in our grandparents generation. We had to print out 4 others and hand them out because I didn't have their email addresses.
4. It's green. Save a tree people. Yes, I'm a tree hugger. What? I'm from Oregon, it's only natural.
5. We don't know if EVERYONE wants to slap pictures of Jake and I up on their fridge for a better part of the year. If they want to, they have the option of printing it out and doing just that.

Carley and I talked about a lot of things. Including how they were received. Our guests (you!) fall into two categories:

1. Excited! Most people loved them. Many thought the pictures of us as youngen's were super adorable.
2. Confused. Haha, yea it never dawned on me that people wouldn't know what they were. But it happened. I blame cultural and generation gaps. Chinese people have zero clue when it comes to new fangled western traditions. Chinese weddings are all very cookie cutter. Similar invitation, similar decor, similar food, and etc. (I've been meaning to do a post on this stuff). So when I handed them out to my "extended" family (they aren't blood relatives, but I've known them all my life and call them aunty and uncle) they were all very confused and just assumed it was the invite. Let's talk about the generation gap. We also handed one to Grandma, to whom we had to explain that it was not the invitation. I can't blame her, STDs are a trend only from the last couple of years.

Anyways, back to the article. I thought that we'd get more of the spotlight in the article. I thought that our AWESOME save-the-dates would be published in the paper along with it. Such was not the case. We were only briefly mentioned, but it sure beats nothing at all.

Oh I bet you are wondering how she knew we sent them out via email...Paula told her! I haven't a slightest clue how she got in touch with Paula, but it's not important.

Now for the article: Boston Herald: Brides take a shot with video invites - Carley Thornell

Enclosure for printed and mailed STDs. You'll note that "Save our Date" and "August 20, 2011" are nice and big for those that may miss it in the smallish photos. I printed the STDs a tad smaller than I should have.