Hogwarts Express Save-The-Date Magnets

Instructions and Free templates below! =D

When it came time for our Harry Potter themed wedding stationery, naturally, the first place to start was a Save The Date magnet! =D

The Hogwarts Express ticket, as seen in the Harry Potter movies, was so inspiring and a natural fit.  We weren’t the first to use it, of course.  But some people had been using them as invitations, and the small amount of information on them made them a better fit for the save-the-dates, in my opinion.

Design

Since this would be the first piece of stationery that guests would receive from us, it was imperative that it set the stage for the immersion and whimsy ahead.  I knew they had to be magnetic.  I made sure to have them printed somewhat large (5 inches x 3 inches).  You don’t want to overtake your guests’ precious fridge space, but you also want something that has some weight to it and feels tangible in the magical realm.  The original Hogwarts Express ticket has gold details, and it was imperative that ours had these as well.  This wasn’t a printing job that I would trust to some generic, online printer.  I called up my favourite local print shop, Special Screencraft Printers, located in Vancouver, and went over all the details to make sure the vision could be brought to life.  Mike from SSP loves a challenge and he was down! =D

I had to do a lot of Googling, and a lot of re-creation from scratch.  I knew I would need this in a large resolution for printing, so I found the highest quality images I could, cleaned them up manually in Photoshop, then vectorized them in Adobe Flash.  From a vector image, I exported a much larger, yet crisp, image, ready for printing.  This process worked best for the gold design around the edge.

Red Paper Wraps

Because we wanted to keep things somewhat mysterious, and retain some of the original train ticket format, we realized after printing that the instructions on the magnet weren’t that self-explanatory.  Not everyone is a Harry Potter fan, after all, or knew that we were getting married.  So Jesse hand-wrote a note that read: “Enclosed is a magnetically enchanted ticket!  Use this as a reminder to set this date aside for the whimsical marriage of [Name] & [Name]. ~ Invitation to follow ~”.  I scanned the note, multiplied it, and printed it on red cardstock which we cut into strips.  We then wrapped these strips around the magnets and adhered them with some silver envelope seals from Michael’s.  The result was quite spectacular!

hogwarts express harry potter save the date magnet with red strip
Magnet, with strip, basically explaining what is going on and how Save The Dates work =)

Envelopes

We found some generic, brown paper envelopes at Michael’s that were cost effective yet worked with the look we were going for, and fit the magnets well:

harry potter envelope save the date wax seal
The back of a completed and sealed envelope with Save The Date magnet enclosed.

Wax Seals

We knew the key to communicating that we mean business would be authentic wax seals.  Wizards didn’t strike us as ones to lick envelopes endlessly.  After almost succumbing to ordering the supplies online from mystery stores, we were finally able to locate the real deal at PaperYa, a local Vancouver craft and stationery store in Granville Island.

We couldn’t decide on the best seal so we bought two: an owl and an H.  The wax, naturally, had to be blood red.
I definitely recommend buying two seals if you have a large number of envelopes to seal.  We planned to use these for save-the-dates, invitation and thank you cards, and we were planning on about 70 guests.  All in all, that’s a lot of stamping!  The wax seals will get their own dedicated post soon, complete with video, but basically the idea is that you have an assembly line and each stamp needs more time to set than the candle does to move on to the next envelope.

harry potter save the date wax seals envelopes magnets
Our pile of supplies for putting together, and sealing, the Harry Potter Save The Date magnets. Note our two seals. Ironically, the one shaped like an owl is the ‘H’, and the other one is the owl!
envelope wax seal owl shaped hogwarts
A close up of the Owl wax seal in action, shortly after having been pressed.

Free Downloadble PSD Template

To create your very own Hogwarts Express stationery for your Harry Potter themed wedding or event, here are the needed .psd (Photoshop) files:
(there is a file with the image, and another with a half inch of bleed if your printer requires it)
Hogwarts Express Stationery PSD template

If you use it, feel free to link or post your creation in the comments!  I’d love to see what you do with it!

free hogwarts express ticket psd stationery template
A preview of the free PSD template available in the link above. Enjoy!

Written by Ola Potter~Wedding

Hi, My name is Ola and I got married to my wonderful husband in 2013. We both love Harry Potter so we decided to make it our wedding theme! It went off beautifully and I want to share our hard work with all you lovely people! I also run the dress up games website, Doll Divine ~

This article has 16 comments

  1. David J. Reply

    I am so happy that I found this post. Your PSD template is EXACTLY what I was looking for! Thank you so much for putting it up for public use.

    Do you know if the printing company you listed ships to the US? None of my local printers do gold foil and I’m having a very hard time finding anyone online willing to do it.

    • olarogula Reply

      I don’t offhand, but I suspect they would. The owner, Michael, is incredibly accommodating! If you call, feel free to mention this project specifically… “the wedding magnets with the transparent gold layer” or something like that. He might remember =)

  2. Cydni Reply

    I just have a question about the download. I don’t have photoshop and am wondering if you have any tips on how I can edit this? I switched it to a jpeg but am still not able to change any of the wording.

    Please HELP! This is just what I was looking for!

    Thank you

  3. hayley Reply

    Hi! Thank you for the template! What I am needing to know is where you found the background image under the date. whenever I opened the template, it’s just the border with the date on a black background.

  4. Ailen Reply

    THANK YOU SO SO SO SOOOOO MUCH, YOU ACTUALLY DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH I LOVED YOU FOR THIS, I was looking for this psd for a long time, thank you so much♥♥♥

  5. Billy Reply

    Awesome invitations, I used the template and edited it for a birthday party. Turned out great. Loved the Marauders map invites too. Great job!

  6. Miranda Rains Reply

    Hey Ola! I am unable to open the files. Is there any other way I can get you to send this to me?

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