And globes and maps are all around me now, part I

My first knowledge of save the date cards was towards the end of college when I was at a friend's house and she had a magnet on her fridge. It was a photo of a couple and announced their date. I thought it was cute and fun and way clever... I would love to hang on friends' and family's fridge door. Fast forward a couple of years and after reading countless wedding blogs, we were faced with the overwhelming amount of beautiful and unique save the date inspirations. Photo postcards, lovely designs on lush letterpress, such creative gocco cards, fun wordle clouds, engagement photos, calendars, and the list goes on. While stock piling my ideas, there was one save the date idea that I always went back to: wedding maps.

For some reason I really like maps. From Rand McNally to yahoo maps to a globe, it's always nice to know hot spots and locations. A map would be a fun way to showcase our town, list venues, highlight city streets and freeways, note places we enjoy in our city, and have cute illustrations of everything. And when I saw Laura Hooper's hand drawn maps and lovely calligraphy I knew it would have to be part of the wedding stationery. At this point I had been a frequent visitor to her site and her blog, and had become so very obsessed.

Our stationery budget was initially economical (we had wanted to diy a lot of it, gocco maybe) but I have such a love for paper products that I knew some part of our stationery suite was going to be a splurge. So I contacted Laura, inquiring about save the date maps. She got back to me quickly. Then it was a go!

We completed the client save the date packet and provided some details we liked. The paper size would be 5x7, but we opted to turn it on it's side for a 7x5 layout since it would give us a wider rather than taller map. A wider map would help with icon placement and names of places. Our wording: "J&M are getting married! September xx, 2009. Santa Barbara, CA. Formal Invitation to follow." Highlights of the packet include points of interest (our venues, a hotel nearby, the Wine Cask, SB Bowl, Paseo Nuevo, Stearn's Wharf) and the main streets our guests would likely use to get around town. I also suggested little icons (such as musical notes to depict the SB Bowl) and kissing turtles in the Pacific Ocean because I love turtles so much. I left the rest to Laura. And a few days later we got our first proof!!

The black and white proof came first. It looked good and was laid out well. We changed some streets names and locations of the icons. Then we received a colored proof and it was like "this is for real". We changed a couple more things (hair color of the bride) and were set. Laura sent us back another proof (we were allowed 2 rounds of proof changes before being charged extra), it looked too cute, and we signed off and were ready to go.

Now I try to patiently wait for them to be delivered!!

Here is another small view of our map :) I loooove the illustrations.

*****
I'm happy to report that two of my college friends got engaged to their boyfriends (now very lucky fiances) this December! We lived on the same floor freshman year and enjoyed many a party. All the best to K & J.

I was also given a shout out by The Future Mrs. Darcy blog :) and a nice blog award from Bride Sophisticate :)

And if I could visit NY tomorrow to shop at this store, oh it would be dreamy.

Blog title is from lyrics by Something Corporate