Save the Date Magnets
“But how can I be sure of my guest list this early in advance? How do I know that if I’m thinking of inviting so-and-so to my wedding today, I’ll still have them on the list two weeks beforehand? How can I know that a Save the Date magnet I send out to someone today will be one I won’t want to take back in two months? The wedding really is still so far away, in planning terms. I’m just not sure about this Save the Date magnet thing. Convince me.”
This could be your concern, as a bride-to-be, as you try to decide if you should send out pre-announcements of the date of your upcoming wedding. Essentially, save the date magnets are just that, pre-announcements, and should be sent out only to those people you and groom are certain you will choose to be at your wedding, today, tomorrow, and the day before—not just people you’re thinking about inviting but, rather, those definite, no-questions-asked must-have folks.
After all, these are the people you want to ensure are at your ceremony and reception, aren’t they? The ones you may think about inviting after your “definite” list is in place are people who aren’t yet marked down as a finalized place setting. You do have to think of it that way. You are paying for each and every person who comes to your wedding reception. And if you send out a Save the Date magnet to someone, you are usually not only inviting them to the ceremony but also to the reception.
Money is always, always the bottom line. It may be a sad, unfortunate commentary on such an important, personal time in your life, but it is true. Especially now that money is so tight, you must consider the reality that anything you want to have as part of your wedding and your reception will cost you hard-earned dollars—and lots of them. And your save the date magnets will be one of the most excellent ways to make sure those most-special people do not plan anything else on your wedding day. save the date magnets are not only ways to see that the seats at your special occasion are filled with the right people, but also that your bottom dollar is spent in the most economical and best way possible. Be cognizant of the numbers on your guest list, and literally rate the importance of having each person on that list with you on your wedding day.
An experienced wedding planner suggests that a bride and groom start out with a solid budget, based predominantly on the money available from whoever will be the financier of the overall event. Tradition says that the bride’s parents foot the bill. However, the world has changed enough to make that tradition not always the be-all, end-all. The groom’s parents may want to contribute, or the couple may already be financially stable, make their own living, and decide to bankroll the wedding and reception themselves. The budget and who is paying the bills is always the starting point. You must keep this in mind.
Our wedding planner suggests that, together, you and your groom, and both sets of parents make three potential guest lists—guests of your groom’s parents, guests of your parents, and guests of the you and your groom. Close family on both sides will already be a given. Then, utilizing these groups, decide the total number of affordable guests based on the already-decided budget. This is where the paring down may start.
Close family friends will definitely get save the date magnets. They are shoe-ins. You can’t exclude your Aunt Martha, who helped raised you, or your fiancé’s cousin, George, who was like a brother to him all his growing-up years. These are the folks who will be on your definite guest list, the list that will not change from now, in your early planning stages, to a few months prior to the wedding, when you’re looking at a waning budget, unexpected costs, and a shortening patience fuse.
And things will change, be certain of that. Plans you have today will not be the same plans you have as you near the all-important date. And people you are certain today you want at your wedding—your boss and your next-to-you cubicle lunch buddy, people you may never see outside of the office—will not necessarily be those you are determined to have there after you revisit that budget a few times. If you’re really good friends with your boss, that might make a difference. Or if your office lunch buddy has evolved into a more personal friend, this would be a consideration. Yet each choice is an individual judgment call which, unfortunately, is almost always based on your final budgetary decisions. You and your fiancé—and even both sets of parents—will have to make these difficult pick-and-choose clarifications. Some of the people on the early-on original list are likely to be removed as these difficult money issues are considered.
A Save the Date magnet isn’t really an option for most weddings. In today’s busy, never-stop world, save the date magnets, and cards, are necessities. It used to be that we could make guest list decisions, amending as needed as time moved closer and finally simply send out invitations to the final cut. In those days, we didn’t move in such always-running calendar circles, and that has made the game change. Now, we have to reserve our date in the lives of other people, even those nearest and dearest to us. We have to literally figure out how to most creatively and respectfully ask them all to hold the date for only us. save the date magnets have become one of the most often-used, and delightful ways to do this. save the date magnets are not only useful on our end, they are functional for those receiving them. They are mini-gifts, and certainly keepsakes for your special guests. A Save the Date magnet for your wedding will most definitely end up in the memento collection of your family and closest friends, a reminder of a date they were happy to witness and of which they are honored to have been a part.
Your wedding is a fine-line combination of an oh-so-personal happening in your life and an event that has to be, in a business-sense, scheduled on the calendars of those you hope to have with you on that calendar date. By sending out save the date magnets, designed and decorated to be very personal to you and your beloved, and sent only to those people you can not imagine not being at your wedding, you take the first step in making certain the wedding of your dreams is exactly that—a dream wedding. Your dream wedding.