Re-thinking the use of printed materials is one of the easiest ways to conserve resources ...

Even for invitations, some brides are opting to forgo printed stationary altogether and select customized digital invites such as those available at 321ForKeeps.com.

Owner Doris Blanchet creates custom digital cards that can include photographic images of the couple and music, and can be downloaded in an email, or burned onto a CD or DVD.

"These cards are sustainable, sophisticated and much more economical than paper-based cards," she says.

"Our story and video cards in particular really portray the couples and allow guests to fully connect with the card because they evoke an emotion that paper cards can't." What's more, they are super-fast to assemble, with production taking as little as two days from start to finish.

Just wanted to let you know how happy and pleased Stephen and I are with the video show you created for our dinner banquet for our wedding!

You are so easy to work with, your wild creativity, and taking our beautiful and priceless pictures into a whole new level of sharing memories!

Our family and friends - laughed, cried, and were in awh right after seeing the incorporation of our engagement.

Making Paper — recycled or not — uses fossil fuel energy, so skip the hard-copy invitations.

Instead, pick up the phone, click on the Create Event function in your facebook profile or use online invitation sites.

For an upscale approach, check out the Vancouver company 321forKeeps.com, where you can email a video card, available in two versions: ready-to-send and completely customized.

What I think is I will send this to everyone I know. It's beautiful and sad.

The photos in tandem with the gentle sounds

of nature and the sound of silence allow the images and their meaning to percolate down to a deeper place.

In me, that place says, wait, we can't let this place vanish. Wow.

When we started thinking about doing a slideshow for our wedding, we thought, 'Put some photos of us together and get someone to do it for us'.

Doris - neither one of us anticipated receiving something like this. You have created more than just a slideshow...

We wanted something humorous and something that was unique to us. You helped capture both and so much more in just 8 mins!

The final product has surpassed our expectations and we are so excited to present it at the wedding.

We thank you tremendously for creating such a great storyline and for all your hard work.

We wish you all the best in your endeavors!

We would not hesitate to recommend the services of 321forKeeps for anyone who is interested in creating a unique

and personal video story card that becomes a cherished memento associated with any of life's special occasions!

Recipients regarded our story card as a gift from us that truly reflected our personalities and moved them beyond what any paper card could.

Thanks again.

After your wedding, you'll want to tell people about it. There's an alternative to spending hours going through photograph albums, or sitting down to watch a wedding DVD.

Now, a new service offers couples a video card that tells the story of your wedding for you,

creating a photographic montage of your memories, a mini-video that best showcases your wedding day.

"We compile a Flash file that can be made available to you or anyone else you choose for viewing, downloading, emailing,

hosting on your own website or mailing," says Doris Ferrarese, who owns weddings.321forKeeps.com.

Couples can either create their own video card or can request that weddings.321forKeeps.com create it on their behalf.

Beautifully conceptualized by Doris Blanchet of Nova Terra Studios Inc. In Vancouver, the idea is quite simple, but the message profound! Create images that evoke emotion and/or deliver a message whether it be an invitation, a memory album, a greeting, or tribute to someone you love!

As the company suggests it's as easy as 1-2-3... Just send in your photos (either hardcopy or digital), answer a few strategic questions (allows the team to get to know a little bit about you so that later they can represent you or your message as accurately as possible by authoring the perfect 'story' to go along with your video),

then choose music that reflects the emotion you are trying to convey and voila - you have a selection of beautifully illustrated moments in montion that tell 'your story' in the most personal and stylish way!

"Thank you for doing such an excellent job on our Save-the-Date invitations.

You truly captured the ideas

we had and the end result surpassed our expectations.

Your talent and professionalism show through with a great final product.

We would not hesitate to recommend your services to anyone interested in video story cards."

"We are so happy with the work Doris did on our Wedding Story! Her professionalism and attention to detail shone through all our interactions with her!

Doris has a tremendous amount of creative vision – it was inspiring to see what she came up with, and we never imagined we could have a memento like this from our special day!

Our Wedding Story is something that we have on our computer and love to look at whenever we want to get “captured in the moment!”".