Would you pay for calligraphy for placecards?

I think they look fine and close to the writing in your inspiration picture just a little smaller handwriting. Honestly, I don't think your guests will notice or even care if you wrote the names yourself or spent a lot of money on them. I don't think it is worth it to have them redone. I freaked out about having to put an extra purple stamp on my invitations because the post office quoted us the wrong amount when we took the sample. We ordered personalized stamps for our invites and response cards so to me it looked dump to have the extra stamp that didn't match and NO ONE even noticed the purple stamp when I asked people. We pay so much more attention to the details because it is our wedding and we want everything to be perfect, but as I have figured out no one else does. Save the money and the keep what you have as I think they look good as is.

I agree with Carly and Nicole here. Put them away for a few days, and if when you go back to look at them and you still aren't happy with how they look, and they are something you absolutely must have; pay to have them done.

ALSO - you have to consider...are people really going to keep them? I know you hope they will and would think they would... KWIM?

Putting them away like some of the ladies suggested helped me so much because I'm finally over the sand dollar melt down (hurray!) and realized what a total loser I am freaking out over something so petty that no one else would have cared about! I know all of us brides have gone through it, but I'm so not the type that stresses over crap like this, so it was irritating me that I let these stupid place cards get to me!
I didn't really want to do the tags because I was trying to go for something a little different. I actually never expected the guests to keep them because sand dollars are so delicate, there is no way the guests would be able to travel with them and have them arrive in one piece unless they randomly have extra bubble wrap packed in their suitcases! I'm pretty practical and I don't ever keep things I won't use, so I wouldn't expect anyone else to. Well, except for my grandma, I'm sure she is going to be keeping EVERYTHING from the wedding!!

Thanks for all the input and suggestions!

I'm finally over the sand dollar melt down (hurray!) and realized what a total loser I am freaking out over something so petty that no one else would have cared about! I know all of us brides have gone through it' date=' but I'm so not the type that stresses over crap like this, so it was irritating me that I let these stupid place cards get to me!

 

YAY!!! You're completely right that all of us do it at least once during planning Hey - you gotta be a bridezilla at least once, right

Glad to hear you're feeling better and over it.

Wow, I love that idea!! Where did you get the sand dollars from?? I would just write them myself...

It may be too late for my input, since i just saw this thread, but FWIW, here goes:

 

 

If you do decide again that you are unhappy with them, why not spray paint them all white and start over? That would actually solve two problems - someone said they need to be sealed anyway, and you could re-do them without having to buy all new sand dollars. Plus the paint would make them a bit stronger and less likely to crumble, as sand dollars are wont to do.

I ordered the sand dollars from Ebay. They had the best $$ there for such big sand dollars (they are 4 inches). They are really pretty sand dollars and the seller did a good job packaging them. Here's the store-

eBay Store - OCEAN FLOOR STORE NAUTICAL GIFTS:

I didn't think about that before! That's a good idea! I don't how they would have came out but it would have been worth trying! It's too late now because they are all sitting in a box, packaged ready to go to Cancun! Thanks for the suggestion!

I think they turned out great and look very similar to your inspiration picture. I actually am going to steal your idea for my wedding! I tried writing on one of them with a permanent sharpie, and it bled all over the sand dollar. What kind of marker did you use? Did you seal them first? I wonder what I could use to seal them? Those suckers are VERY hard to write on, so I think you did a great job!

Thanks for the nice comments! I tried several different pens, but the one that worked the best for me was the Ultra-fine Sharpie. I first wrote the names lightly, then went over the names a second time to darken the letters. The second set I did came out so much better than my first set of sanddollars. So, I would recommend not doing them all at once. The texture is very rough, so just practice on a few at first. Also, I had to buy two pens for the 45 that I did. Since the texture of the sanddollar is rough, it's going to use up a lot of the pen's point. Just be careful as you are writing because they can easily start to crack. I didn't seal them with anything.

Good luck!