Pamphlet Sneak Peek...

I’m going to go ahead and share our Save the Date Pamphlets with you two weeks before they get mailed. They are not a huge secret, and I’m so excited about how they came out.


And besides, what I’m showing you isn’t the final, final version. That version is at the printers Right. This. Minute. And I’m off to pick up the envelopes from Ro Sham Bo this afternoon. And silver pens for Gretchen to address them with. And labels that we can print our return address on.

Do you know how to print labels? Can you teach me?

It’s like we’re really getting ready to send people the first part of an invitation to our wedding!

So, I’ve talked about the inspiration for for our Save the Date Pamphlets. To recap, we’re getting married in a kind of remote place. A place without a chain hotel, restaurant or even a gas station (no, I’m not kidding). To that end, DJ and I felt it was important to give our guests as much information as we could about the place we are asking them to travel to.

And then the idea for a National Park pamphlet was born.

And then I spend probably 15 hours designing the things in PowerPoint (glutton for punishment?).

And right now, they’re at the printers, being printed on 11 x 17” glossy paper. We’ll do the folding over Christmas. I’ll break down the costs in a later post.

And now, I present to you…. The Save the Date PAMPHLETS!!!

They fold four times lengthwise, then down the middle. They'll get stuffed into envelopes so this is the first page you see.

They get opened, and our names, dates, and contact information is to the right. Yes, I blotted it out for the internets.

Then they fold out, with an area map in the middle, and driving directions from all three roads into the area at the bottom.

We'll have friends and family coming from three directions. South, West and East. Those coming from the south are mostly family, and they know how to get to Harrison!

These fabulous maps were made by my dear friend Alli, who has a master's degree in GIS. Thanks Alli!!!

We used the NPS' design format to lay out the brochure. Users should be able to fold it down to just get to the map size they need.

The back has information about why we chose Harrison, average weather in July, where to stay, where to eat, and things to do in the area. Obviously this version still had some editing to do!

The same design standards apply to the backside. Guests should be able to fold it down to a smaller size to get to the information they need. (Yes, the map of Harrison looks like a boob. It's how the land is formed!)

Information about accomodations and activities.

I added this "stamp" all over the document. I am a little worried that since it's not a standard Save the Date postcard, people might get confused about what the heck we've just sent them. Hopefully this works!

So, all that's left on this project is pickin gup the mailing supplies, folding, addressing, and stuffing envelopes. Sounds like a project for over Christmas!

What do you think, are people not going to "get" our save the date pamphlets? Did anyone else do something different with their paper products?

Save the Date PAMPHLETS

That’s right, pamphlets. We’re doing a pamphlet for our Save the Date; which in wedding-world is abbreviated to STDs. *ahem* Lets all try to keep a straight face here as I work on designing a STD that I’m sending to 286 of our closest family and friends :::snicker:::. (Yes, 268… the guest list “bloomed”)

Focus Courtney, Focus….Since we’re getting married in a semi-destination location, especially in the summer, we thought it would be important to give our guests as much of a heads-up as possible. Lake Coeur d’Alene (Core-Duh-Lane) is a regional magnet for summer vacations and we hope our guest view The Blessed Event as an opportunity to incorporate a fun day or two on the lake and enjoying the area. The Pamphlet will serve as combo Save the Date and Chamber of Commerce brochure which will inform our guests as to where to stay, what to eat, and what to do.

Early last spring in the pre-planning stage (read: no left hand hardware) and when a wedding at the Livingston, Montana train depot was still in consideration, I stumbled across this pamphlet, which advertises visiting Yellowstone National Park via the Northern Pacific Rail Road’s “Yellowstone Park Line”. A lightbulb went off. Regardless of where we tied the knot, what a fun way to encourage our guests to attend our wedding and give them information about the area they’ll be visiting! And hello, history nerd alert- old photos and old timey stuff are awesome!

I kept surfing away, and found the interior of the NPRR brochure, which gave snapshots of the buildings and explained what business was in the building. I’m a visual person, and so knowing what the building I’m searching for actually looks helps me feel more confident that I can arrive where I’m supposed to go. Brilliant!

Sometime this spring I mentioned this to DJ, and he thought it was a good idea. Then this summer we were working on packing stuff up for The Big Move, and I asked DJ if he wanted to still hold on to the 50 or so National Park Service brochures he’d collected after years of visiting places like Moab, Arches National Park, etc. Um, yes! He guards them like the baseball cards he has stuffed down in the crawlspace. And as I teased him about it another lightbulb went off (it has gotten bright around here), what if we merged the Railroad brochure and the National Park Service brochures? What if we essentially made Lake Coeur d’Alene our own personal landmark for the wedding (with a whole cast of locals in it)?

We both love National Parks. LOVE. Love the history, the scenery, the hiking and the cool architecture. The first big test in our relationship was driving from Bozeman to southern Utah to spend a week hiking in some pretty remote areas, and visiting Bryce Canyon National Park. Once we returned from spending a week together, and a few days straight without showers, I was pretty sure this guy would be in my life for a while.

Super dorky photo. DJ's haircut is very high and tight, and I lost those earrings somewhere...

I mentioned our goal to get the Pamphlets out to our guests by January 1. Some might wonder why we’d like to add to the pre-Holiday craziness by setting this self-imposed deadline. Well, the only hotel in Harrison doesn’t take ANY reservations until January 1. Like I can’t even block out rooms until then, a reminder for which I have set on four different reminder tools. Nope (although they’ve agreed to call me if anyone calls mentioning a big event in town that weekend). Did I also mention that the only hotel in town only has 15 rooms? Maybe now you understand why I’m hoping the BOLD and underlined MAKE YOUR RESERVATIONS NOW point really gets across to our guests right after January 1.

With this in mind, Pamphlet making is in the forefront the next few weeks. I’m on the “Where to Stay” and “Where to Eat” sections; DJ’s on the “What to do” sections, and we’re both working on the “How to Get Here” sections. My awesome friend Alli finished her degree in Geographical Information Systems this summer, and is in the process of making us maps. One of the women on the board I run at work does pen and ink drawings, and she’s working on them for the highlighted buildings in town (all ten of them).

You'll need to find this building if you want a fishing license!

Hopefully sometime around Thanksgiving we’ll pull all of this together into a National Park Service-like brochure that can be printed be mid-December. My sister agreed to lend me her excellent penmanship in order to address all of the mailing envelopes over Christmas Break.

Actually pulling it together into a NPS-worthy brochure required more work. I stumbled across thisblog entry, which essentially breaks down how the brochures are laid out to be informative, efficient and user friendly. Sounds like something our guests would appreciate in a STD :::snicker:::

Now the big question is what size sheet of paper to use; 11” x 17” inches is big, and roomy, but maybe too blank? What about 8.5” x 14”? Ehh… it folds up kind of small…. I think the end result here is that we’ll have to wait and see exactly how much information we want to include on the Pamphlet, how big the text should be, how many photos, and how detailed the map. And I think I want to print it on glossy paper…

Right now the major items included in the pamphlet are:
- The Save the Date information
- Map of the Cd’A region with important or interesting locations pinpointed
- Close up map of Harrison with locations of the hotel, campground, restaurants, bike trail, my parents house, etc.
- Area history
- Things to Do
- Where to Stay
- Where to Eat
- Contact information
- Disclaimer

The Disclaimer is that we both know summer is a super busy time of year. So we’re planning on having a second reception and housewarming party next fall before a football game as a way to give friends and the people we work with a chance to celebrate with us, without having to come to Harrison.

What do you think of the idea in general? Have I missed anything on my list of items to include in the Pamphlet? Do you struggle to keep a straight face when typing the letters STD together?