'Tis the season to be... BUSY. Between planning a wedding, getting married, having a second reception, moving in together, and going to school, Lu and I have had a busy last few months.

Add to that holiday parties, Christmas shopping, planning my parents' 50th anniversary party, and a little thing called finals time, and the holidays are crazy!

Lu and I have come up with a way to save some time this season: We're combining our wedding thank you cards with our Christmas cards.

You're supposed to send thank you notes within six months of the wedding. Since we've received the majority of our gifts already, we've decided to get our cards out a bit early -- just in time for Christmas.

Once again, we've broken etiquette rules in favor of practicality. The thank you card is supposed to be totally separate because our wedding and Christmas are two, distinct "events." However, it doesn't make any sense to us to write two sets of cards, address two sets of envelopes, pay for two sets of postage, and send both to one set of addresses a few days/weeks apart.

The most difficult part was finding a card that would fit into both categories. Luckily, our fall wedding colors (burgundy, yellow, orange, and chocolate) go great with the deep reds and golds of the holiday season. We ended up designing our own cards on Vistaprint:



I think we did a great job. We also used using a coupon code to get 75% off -- 250 thank you/Christmas cards, envelopes, and coordinating return address labels for $42. The wedding definitely taught us how to stick to a budget! :-)