I wanted to do something playful and unique for our Save The Dates. You see, whenever Rose and I are around a photobooth we absolutely MUST take the opportunity to pose and capture our silliness in black and white infamy. So when I stumbled upon a way to use the idea as a Save The Date, I was all over it! Granted, I ended up finally finishing them and mailing them out within 5 months of our wedding, which I’m sure breaks some sort of etiquette rule but I couldn’t resist sharing them!
I found a plethera of tutorials online for recreating the look of old photobooth pictures. I read that using an actual photobooth results in lower quality pictures that just don’t work as well, especially when replicated. So, instead I made my own!
This is how I did it:
My sister-in-law took headshots of us in front of a white wall holding handwritten signs that each read SAVE, THE, DATE, 10-9-10 (which is our wedding date, of course!). She really snapped away so we were sure to get a few versions to choose from. I uploaded them, chose my favorites and converted them all to black & white in iPhoto on my handy dandy Mac.
Using Adobe Indesign and a bit of my graphic art knowledge, I created a blank 4″ x 6″ document with a small border and one column in the center. This way, I could have 2 copies printed side by side on 4″ x 6″ photo paper and just cut them down the middle and get 2 for the price of one! I just eyed it up to make sure it was just about even… I’m not a stickler for precision!
I placed each of my chosen black and white photos on top of each other and designed them to look just like they came from a photobooth, with a solid black background and a little message on the bottom for our guests. I added a hand-drawn red heart using the pencil tool to sketch a heart shape and then layered it on top of it itself. The heart has a transparency of 34% so it doesn’t stand out too much. Then all I had to do was export it as a jpeg!
My membership to snapfish.com came with 50 free prints with my first order. So, I uploaded my finished design to Snapfish and ordered them as glossy 4″ x 6″ prints. All I had to pay was a few dollars for shipping!
I finished each one off with a self-adhesive magnet strip on the top and bottom of the back. The final product cost less than $20 for supplies, envelopes and postage for 50 copies. It’s proudly hung on our fridge and I’ve already gotten tons of comments from our guests!
So perfect! You both look adorable, and the shots you chose have real personality.
We have a bunch of photobooth pictures kicking around in drawers from over the years. Now I want to go dig them out and do something cute. :)
This is soooo dope! I so wanna do this!
I should have known this was you! I saw the headline and thought: “this looks cool!” And, there you are sharing another fabulous wedding idea. Can’t wait to hear more!
These came out so adorable!
nicole, what a perfect idea! i’m SO excited for you both!!