I can’t believe the holiday season is almost drawing to a close with New Year’s coming up this weekend! I still have a couple more posts for y’all, including an NYE party plan, a recap of my family’s switch from gifts for everyone to one Secret Santa and how that went, and this post on selecting our holiday cards for you today. It’s definitely a little late for this year, but you’ll want to bookmark these companies for your cards next year!
WHAT TO SEND
Since Adam and I are now engaged, it felt like I could finally send a family holiday card. Not that I couldn’t have when I was single, but I thought I’d spare people a card starring my cat. However, then came the question of what kind of card to send. Since I’m going through the process of converting, a Christmas card wouldn’t do, but I also didn’t feel like a Hanukkah card seemed quite right for my Catholic family. A New Year’s card seemed like the perfect compromise. Plus, that gave us a little more flexibility in terms of timing, and I can always use more time.
WHERE TO FIND THEM
I looked extensively at card options before finally settling on one. Honestly, you could say I obsessively looked at options. I narrowed down the picture fairly quickly with Adam’s input (he wanted his true Texas heritage represented apparently), but finding a card that worked with the image was a process.
I looked at Minted and ultimately decided it was too expensive for these purposes, though stay tuned for a post on the Minted membership which we’re using for our wedding and is amazing. Then I went to Photo Affections, which two of my sisters used, and loved what I saw, but couldn’t find a card that worked with the photo we had selected.
Finally, a little googling turned up Simply to Impress, a company owned by the same parent company as Photo Affections. I loved the simplicity of their options and the options to customize the front and back.
HOW TO PICK YOUR PICTURE
We took this picture over Thanksgiving in Texas at golden hour so we’d have the most flattering natural light. I found that most of the websites alerted me that iPhone pictures aren’t high enough quality to use, so ideally you’ll have a high-resolution image from a nicer camera or find a friend who has a camera and can snap a quick picture. While I wish we already had engagement pictures to use, we’ll go for those in 2019, especially since photos from our December wedding likely won’t be ready in time for next year.
FUN STAMPS
The holiday options at the post office are often a little bit underwhelming, so I decided to break out of the typical holiday card box and opted for these Oscar de la Renta stamps. If you get on the USPS website, you can find all sorts of fun stamps (maybe there really are stamp collectors out there?) and if you order them online, they should arrive within just a few days.
HOW TO GATHER ADDRESSES
I sent out an email to friends with a link to Postable — and a subject line the clearly designated addresses for holiday cards, I didn’t want anyone to think I was sending out Save the Date’s since we’re doing a micro-wedding!
