If you know us well, you know that we like to be unique. Our goal (aside from getting married) is to have our guests leave thinking, “that was very Pat and Nicole.” We were looking for a creative, yet economical way to inform our guests to mark their calendars for our special day. So we decided to send out a save the date email with a personal spin on it. Instead of just an engagement photo, we created a stop motion save the date video.
To create our stop motion save the date, we used the following:
- Our iPhones
- The iMotion HD app (free)
- Apple’s iMovie
I highly recommend Finger Lab’s iMotion HD. It is both free and fully featured. In addition to these tools, here are a few other tips to keep in mind when creating your own save the date video.
Keep it simple
Not much to expand upon here; plan ahead. It’s great to have something complex and awesome, but the reality is that you are planning a wedding. Time is of the essence. My suggestion–keep it simple.
Make your video accessible
Grandma may not know how to use Instagram, but she can certainly check her email. We decided to send our video out over email simply because we knew that would work best for our family and friends. Your family may be different, so I suggest distributing it in a way that makes it easy to be viewed. Don’t be afraid to post it on Facebook, just because you can’t invite all your friends to the wedding doesn’t mean you can’t share your excitement with them.
Keep it under a minute folks
Be mindful that the goal of a save the date is two fold: #1 inform your guests of the upcoming big day and #2 allow them the opportunity to learn a little bit more about you as a couple, plus all those other important details (i.e. check out your wedding registry, website or whatever). No one wants to watch your next short film, keep it under a minute people.
So go out, have fun and make it personal. Engagement will fly by (or so others tell us) so try to enjoy the experience. What other save the date ideas have you all seen?
