There was never a question that we were going to make our Save The Dates ourselves. I view Save The Dates as extraneous (though, boy, were they practical for us) and hence a fantastic excuse to think outside the box. Since David and I once ran a theatre company where we used to design thinky advertisements, we obviously were not going to pass this chance up. After much vigorous debate about what form we wanted our Save The Dates to take, we decided that we wanted them to be evocative of our values as a couple. What we came up with is not the worlds fanciest design, but it’s ours, and we worked together on every inch of it. 
The front of the card is a vintage map of the bay area, marked with important spots for both us and our family. We marked our wedding venue, and where we got engaged, but we also marked where my parents got married, where my grandparents got married, and where each of our mothers lived as a girl. It was a way of rooting our wedding in family history, and showing that for us the wedding represented not just the creation of a new family unit, but the merging of two families.
The back of the card is simply a poem, our names, and the date and time of the wedding. We found this poem on a plaque on Chestnut and Embarcadero in San Francisco. It’s not about love, but about choice.
Once, in a great while
you will see a sign
and invest in it everything
out of the simple faith
it is meant for you
You will surrender
all you’ve been taught
to the purity of its direction
and stand perfectly still
knowing nothing more is beyond it
This is how they will find you:
unable to break away, peering
steadfast from the threshold
starved be certainty
blessed forever and unobserved
Next up, our low-effort DIY supplies.
