I have something very special, fun and inspiring to share with you all this afternoon – a homemade animated ‘save the date’!  This was sent to me by the lovely Beth who is getting married to Ben this coming July 2012.  She described it as a country-wedding inspired, budget ‘save the date’ – why don’t you watch it for yourself…

How fun is that?  And it’s accompanied by a song (Crystal Fighters Plage) that seems to perfectly fit the style, and it’s short but sweet – I would be pretty excited if I was a wedding guest and this landed in my inbox.  So after watching it half a dozen times I decide to ask Beth how they created it, as I was pretty sure some of your lovely readers might want to create something like it yourself.

Rather than trying to rewrite Beth’s instructions I’m just going to hand over to her…

First we set up a normal digital camera (really nothing fancy) on a tripod and using the view finder, framed the image with the bunting.  Then we moved the objects – bunting, paper hearts etc – and each time we moved something, we took another photo.  We finally ended up with hundreds of photos and, like with any animation, when strung together this caused a moving image. 

We used movie editing software – Power Director 9 – to drag and drop the photos in and edited the length of each photo exposure to ensure the image on screen fitted in with the music we chose.  And that’s about it really!  We added effects to give it a flickering aged look and got rid of some shots (we originally planned to do star jumps at the end of the movie) to ensure it wasn’t too long-winded.

All in all I’d say the actual shooting of the video took about 4 hours and the editing (bearing in mind our computer must have crashed about 20 times!) took about a day and a half.  But it was worth it in the end!  We’re really pleased with the end result…and the hard work it took just made it all the more satisfying once completed.

So what do you think?  Do you reckon it would inspire you to give it go yourself?  Beth wanted to inspire people and show that anyone can create anything they want with just a camera and a computer.  It’s cheap, simple, yet effective – and our guests have all commented on how much they enjoyed the personal touch. 

And if you love the idea but it all sounds a bit much or you don’t have the time, check out Charlie Scribble, the newest business to join the directory, who create animated ‘save the dates’.

Would love to know what you think!  If you would like to share handmade details that you’ve created for you wedding please do get in touch charlie@thenaturalweddingcompany.co.uk.  Do take a look at the other details made by readers in the Handmade Wedding section.