My baby boom guest list

It’s been four days since the RSVP deadline–or in my case, the ‘book by’ deadline. The procrastinators have finally been mobilized.

The count is now up to 59 attendees which seems quite modest if you were thinking this was a traditional wedding, but really is quite astronomical for a destination wedding.

Based on my extensive (as-of-late, anyway) experience lurking on destination wedding forums, the average number is more like 20.

At first I was really, really excited. For me, the best part of a wedding is not the invitations, not the favors, not the centerpieces or aisle runners or name cards or pomanders or the groomsmens-ties-that-match-oh-so-perfectly-to-the-sash-on-the- flower-girl’s-dress-AND-the-ribbon-trim-on-the-escort-cards or any other of the million and one sometimes silly (but also addictive) wedding websites are obsessed with.

For me, it’s always been about the people that are there. After all, that’s what you remember.

After having been to some weddings that had good intentions which flopped once the reception began and no one got the hilarious jokes during the wedding party’s speeches and no one hit the dance floor, I vowed my wedding guest list would be 90% made up of OUR friends, not people who our parents or family invited because of *shudder* obligation or, maybe worse, because they wanted to show off. (Not that my parents would EVER do that, mind you; they’re not like that. But I’ve seen some weddings that clearly were influenced by this type of thing.)

We sent out about 120 invitations, give or take. I say ‘give or take’ because there were a few last minute “ooh shit, I forgot to send one to so-and-so” moments. I’m not sure if this happens to everyone or just to people who have destination weddings because at the end of the day, our budget is a bit more flexible based on the type of wedding we’re having (more on that in a future post) and so our lists are a bit more flexible.

So 59 was pretty damn good. Or so I thought. Then I started thinking about some of our friends that haven’t booked yet or had let us know they couldn’t make it. And there were… a LOT. So who ARE all these people?! I’m still not too sure, even though I look at the list all the time. I think I will have to make a pie chart to make sense of it all (’cause yes, I’m dorky like that); I mean, I know we have a lot of family that’s coming and quite of few of Mr Purple’s parents’ friends… but really? That many?

Then I started thinking about our friends who RSVP-ed (or not but I can make an educated guess) that they can’t make it.

And I’ve realized that there is one MAJOR thing thwarting my aspirations of having a friend-heavy guest list that I hadn’t previously accounted for…

BABIES!

Seriously… what the heck?! Am I really that old? Are we really all ‘grown-ups’ already?? I had to sit down and make a list. So here it is: of all our invited friends, the number of couples who either have/will have tiny babies (less than 2 yrs) or are going to be very pregnant by the time our wedding rolls around in November is… (drumroll please)… SIXTEEN.

That’s 16 couples, mind you, which equals 32 people on my guest list. Currently 3 of those couples are coming anyway (immediate family who wouldn’t miss it for the world!) but the rest probably aren’t.

What is with all these babies??

I mean, I noticed there’s a lot of baby-bump watching in the celebrity world lately but I thought maybe I was just noticing it because I’m ‘of a certain age’. And maybe my friends are all preggers also because I’m ‘of a certain age’.

But it can’t be just that? Lately it seems there an above-normal count babies all over the place.

I remember reading something related to the baby boom in the Globe and Mail a little while ago but can’t find the full article, and there is scant to be found on this topic online. Yet. (Or so I’m convinced.)

Seriously. Is it just me, or did you also have a lot of people decline your wedding invite because of baby issues? Do you think we’re in the middle of another baby boom?

When NOT to hyphenate your name

I call myself Miss Purple here partly because stories of identity theft and stalkers really freak me out (I think this fear originated from childhood when my over-protective parents used these stories in their rationalization of why I shouldn’t be allowed to go to sleepovers/house parties/the mall/school trips without their personal supervision) and partly because my last name is atrocious.

Don’t get me wrong. I am extremely proud of my Polish cultural background and intend to make it an important part of my own kids’ histories. But after a lifetime of correcting misspellings and mispronunciations of my 10-letter-ends-with-ski surname, I was looking forward to changing my name when I got married.

Given the length of my last name, hyphenating was never really an option. And now that I’m marrying my 11-letter-ends-with-stein dream man, the thought of hyphenating is downright hilarious.

Blahblahski-Blahblahstein?

HA. I’d like to see a hockey jersey with that across the back.

Here are some other instances* in which hyphenating your name might not be such a good idea.

Did you / are you going to hyphenate your name?

* Note: I actually don’t think all these couples hyphenated their names - it’s just a format that newspapers use for wedding announcements. But can you imagine if they DID?

My maiden sidekicks

So the RSVPs are finally coming in, according to our travel agent. Whew! She’s going to let us know by the end of today where we’re at with those. I can hardly wait.

In the meantime, I thought I’d tell you the story of how my bridesmaids came to be.

Before I got engaged, I really hadn’t spent a lot of time envisioning the wedding of my dreams. Instead, I put that energy to use envisioning the MAN of my dreams (it worked!).

I had no clue as to location, colors, theme, invitations, flowers, seat covers, favors or any other of the thousand and one things that brides obsess about (or so I’ve recently discovered). The only thing I had really thought about was my bridesmaids. I was a bridesmaid twice (and no, I didn’t hold off doing it again because of ‘three times a bridesmaid…’ though I’m kinda glad it worked out that way), and although I loved the shopping and fussing and being in the spotlight on the special day, I realize that being there didn’t really make much of a difference. Oh sure, I helped one bride fix her makeup and I think I may have held her dress while she peed, but over all, I didn’t really see the point of being a bridesmaid. I was in the pictures and sat at the head table and had to buy a–in the first instance, really, really hideous–dress. That was pretty much it.

That led me to the conviction that when my wedding day rolled around, I’d only have one bridesmaid. I was pretty confident she’d be able to sign the papers and be my personal assistant all on her own, especially since the lucky gal would be none other than my cousin and best friend–we’ll call her Pepperpot.

After we got engaged, I asked Mr. Purple one evening who he thought he might have for his groomsman/men. I was totally ok with the idea of having a mismatched wedding party, i.e. more one one side than on the other, but I was unprepared for his answer a couple weeks later (apparently he hadn’t ever considered it, either) - I think it’ll be 8 or 9.

Eight or nine groomsmen to my one bridesmaid??? Ok, that’s a bit ridiculous.

So then for the first time I started thinking about who I’d want to be my bridesmaids if I could have more than one.

My best friend Miss P was an easy choice. We’ve been pals since that fateful day in University almost 10 years ago (OMG, has it been that long?) when she came up to me after class and asked: “Hi. Are you Polish?” to which I replied, “Erm… yes,” and she grinned and exclaimed, “Great! Can I borrow your notes?” Our similarities, we soon discovered, extended well beyond our blonde hair and atrociously spelled last names, and we’ve been bosom friends ever since.

The others were harder. Although I’ve had many girlfriends over the years, the fact that I’ve moved around quite a bit means that most of them, sadly, haven’t survived. The ones that have are great but not close enough for bridesmaids, I’d say. Truthfully, my best friends are part of my family. I’m incredibly lucky that my little brother married a totally awesome girl three years ago, and I’m even more lucky to be marrying a man whose two sisters are spectacularly great.

So my my other choices for bridesmaids would naturally be them. Since by the time we get married one sister-in-law (SIL) will have a one-and-a-half year old to take care of and another will have a three-year-old and brand new baby, that left the other sister-in-law.

And that’s my half of our lovely wedding party! I couldn’t be happier.

Well, except for one thing. Each of us lives in a different city –me in Vancouver, Miss P in Calgary, Pepperpot in Toronto and SIL in New York! I didn’t think it would be such a bummer until I got to the part where I start agonizing over dress and shoe and bridesmaid dress choices, which is where I’m at now. But that’s a story for another day.

I love my maids and can’t wait to share the day with them. For the record, Mr. Purple narrowed his fellas down to three so we’ll be a balanced looking bunch after all.

How did you go about picking your bridesmaids?

Tick tock, tick tock… C’mon, RSVP already, people!

I’ve always known I can be a bit of a procrastinator at times but I didn’t know how many other procrastinators there were out there ’till now… and all of them are our friends.

When we sent out our wedding invitations, we included a card with information on how to contact our travel agent before May 10th. Yes, I did end up underlining the date, after about an hour of hemming and hawing over it (will it come off as being too pushy? but if I don’t, will they see it? is it better to bold than to underline?? AHHHH!!!). This date is also plastered all over our wedding website.

Now that day is four days away–fewer, actually, since the 10th is a Saturday and she doesn’t work Saturdays (wonder why she gave us the 10th as a date then? that’s kind of silly)–I’m stressing out since the only people who have booked thus far are our immediate families and close extended family (aunts/uncles/cousins), and my Fiance’s parents’ friends.

I mean, when we announced it, everyone and their dog exclaimed how totally pumped they were and how they were definitely coming, etc. etc. We’re at 34 people, which is actually on the larger side for a destination wedding, at least based on what I’ve read on the various forums. But only, like, 3 of those are our friends (who are not related to us)… and our estimate was closer to 70.

I can’t help but freak out a bit.

I’m sure part of it has to do with the fact that us younger people have a harder time planning vacations and booking off work, plus there’s the baby boom–quite a few of them have become pregnant since we got engaged. And I know for a fact a few have said that it’s so far away they just have a hard time committing. Far away? It’s six months!! And here I was stressing out a month ago that I was soooo far behind in booking the resort since so many other girls out there book theirs like, a YEAR in advance. I wonder how they got their guests to book so far ahead?

So I convinced the Fiance to send out a reminder email tonight. After all, they’re mostly his friends anyway, and (he didn’t say it but I’m sure he thought it) that way I wouldn’t go type-A all over them. I love them all, truly. But jeez, people!

Am I being unreasonable?

Whoever said gift registries were easy was talking about the buyers, not the setter-uppers

Last Saturday I convinced the Fiance to postpone saving the world for a couple hours (sometimes I really regret that Xbox 360 purchase) and come with me to The Bay to set up a gift registry.

I used to not be a fan of wedding gift registries. I think this is largely due to having been brought up to be modest and humble and never ask for anthing and above all, be careful what you do because WHAT WOULD PEOPLE THINK? Jury’s still out on who these omipotent “People” are. Maybe it’s a Polish thing.

But over the past couple of years I’ve started to change my mind. I’ve used registries myself a couple of times and I liked it because it was fast and, what’s more, EASY. But I don’t love registries. I still feel weird about buying my cousin that set of kitchen stuff (oven mitts, floor mat, tea towels, etc.) with that coffee cup motif on it because I’ve never seen it in her house. I mean, I don’t blame her, I thought it was sort of ugly myself, but if it was on there she must’ve wanted it, right? It makes me feel like I wasted my money. Maybe it’s my fault for not getting to the registry before all the ‘good’ stuff was gone. Anyways, I digress. I understand why people want to buy off a registry and so I understand why people would set one up.

But love registries or not, I actually didn’t think it was even an issue for us because we’re having a destination wedding. I mean, we’re already asking people to spend so much to be there with us - their presence is presents enough! (Wow, good one, Miss P!)

However, I hadn’t accounted for the people who wouldn’t be coming to the wedding. We’ve already had a few people enquire about where we were registered. And so while I still feel we don’t need gifts, I know some people will want to buy them anyway and since they seem to prefer the registry route, I’d like to provide that option.

There aren’t a lot of choices for registries here in Canada so I decided we’d just go to The Bay. Having recently been inspired by a post by the Weddingbee’s Miss Shortcake on their super successful registry trip, I figured, hey, it’ll be a breeze!

Well, let’s just say ours was not so successful.

Maybe it’s because the registry person Carmen got us off on the wrong foot by wasting almost 45 minutes of our time NOT, as I expected, giving us a checklist and a tour and some useful information, but rather, trying to convince us to sign up for an Hbc credit card. Because you know, if you find a great deal like today–buy one set of cutlery and the second is 50% off–you can take advantage of the deal and not wait for someone else to buy it for you, and you get 10% off the second one for signing up on the card (sidenote: um, wouldn’t I ask for 10% off the one I paid full price for??). The fact that we are setting up a very minimalist registry for the few guests that will use the registry and that we’ve been living together for almost 2 years now and don’t need a lot of things and we have enough credit cards which offer useful things like extended warranties that the Hbc card doesn’t fell on deaf ears. I’m positive she must get a commission for credit card sign-ups. Oh, and did I mention she was a sslllloooooowwwwww ttaaaaaaaaaaalllkeeerrrrrrrrrrr???

I was annoyed before we even got started.

We finally got the SKU gun in our hot little hands and sallied forth into the land of housewares but not before exchanging pleasantries with another couple who were returning their gun. Sorry, did I say pleasantries? It was more like the guy caught my guy’s eye and gave him the “good-luck-buddy-you’re-gonna-need-it” sign to which mine replied “Can’t we just take your list and copy it?”. They laughed and said, “Sure, you can have it but it’s pretty pathetic. And this is our third time here.”

Third time? Yikes!!

It didn’t take too long for us to understand why they were warning us. Our first stop was china, where we spent almost an hour… and ended up not choosing anything.

“I need to think about this some more, we’ll come back to it.” And that, folks, became the phrase of the day.

It was just all too overwhelming. I thought I had an idea in my head of the things we needed or would like to upgrade on, but walking around that monster of a store made me dizzy. Whoever decided on the layout should be shot - there is stuff all OVER the place. For example, that hour we spent looking at china before giving up and continuing our route? Well when we went to return the SKU gun at the end, we stumbled upon MORE china we hadn’t seen before. So our hour was DOUBLY wasted (if that’s even possible).

After what felt like days wandering around glassy-eyed, we returned the stupid gun (for the second time… we had to exchange it 20 minutes into our adventure because the batteries died, AUGH!) and told them to erase everything (5 items) that we had entered.

And we high-tailed it outta there.

On the way home I tried to stay calm but it took a glass–make that two– of wine before I could put things into perspective. It’s ok, I said to myself. No worries. I’ll treat that as our pre-registry reconnaissance mission and go back on my own. Next time will be better.

Then, it occurred to me that I should probably try another store before going back to the dreaded Bay. So yesterday I went to Home Outfitters. I didn’t get a gun, just wandered around looking at stuff and taking pictures on my cameraphone to show the Fiance later. What a different story! Not only is the store less intimidating, size-wise, but the stuff is more reasonable. I mean, I saw the EXACT same sheets at both stores, and they were $20 less at Home Outfitters. How can this be? Both are owned by the same company, Hbc! That alone makes me not want to register at the Bay. What a bunch of criminals.

So I think I’ll go set up a registry at Home Outfitters later this week. First I’m going to geek out and create a spreadsheet for myself of things we actually need, to avoid getting sidetracked on my next trip.

Why in the world these stores don’t list all their products online is beyond me - wouldn’t it be great to just log on, browse and click instead of having to wander around these damn stores? But then, that would be too easy.

Wedding contest - enter by midnight May 2nd!

The really nice folks over at Our Wedding Plus are running a neat contest where you can win 10 USB flash drives worth $400 and a subscription to an Our Wedding Plus wedding website! These aren’t any ordinary flash drives, either–they’re super snazzy Sandisk croc flash drives. Who said you can’t geek out and by stylish at the same time?

These would be great as a gift for your bridesmaids/groomsmen… and unlike all the other tacky and stupid bm/gm gifts out there, they’d actually get used.

To enter, head on over to Our Wedding Plus and leave a comment answering one of the following questions:

- What was the most useful piece of wedding planning advice you have received?
- What has been your biggest “lesson learned” so far during your wedding planning process?
- If you could do it over, what would you do differently?

Good luck!

The quest for the perfect bridal shoe begins (and ends?)

Well it’s been a week since we sent out the wedding invitations and I was fully prepared to rant about how even though that’s supposed to be “done”…. it’s not!!!… but I got totally distracted by a momentous event that happened today.

I think I may have found THE SHOE.

So here’s the thing. Everyone that knows me knows I loveLoveLOVE two things: purses and shoes.

However, would you believe, I didn’t even start thinking about what shoes to wear on my wedding day until March 21st when the store where I bought my dress back in November (I know, amazing, right? that’s a story for another day) called me to tell me it finally came in.

My first reaction was: EEEK! YAY!! MY DRESS IS IN, CAN’T WAIT TO GO PUT IT ON!!!

My second reaction was: Hmmm, now I have to get it altered but I’ll put that off for a bit so I don’t have to store it at my house for months and months (since my wedding is still 6 months away) and it doesn’t get peeked at/stolen/accidentally soiled by a big steaming mug of coffee that I just have to have a sip of one one of those days when the Fiance is out of town and I take the opportunity to put on the dress and prance around for a few hours.

And my third reaction was: Wait a second, I can’t even think about alterations until I get the proper things that I’ll be wearing with the dress, that is, the right bra… AND THE PERFECT SHOES!

Hence, it’s been about a month since I started shopping for shoes.

My obsession with wedding blogs and forums has led me to read quite a bit about what other gals are doing out there these days. And while there are still a lot who are going the traditional white-shoe-comfortable-height route, there is a considerable faction who are totally throwing tradition to the wind… and going with a colored wedding shoe!

The moment my brain registered that idea, I thought - now that is a wedding trend for me!

In general, I’m a pretty traditional person. Quite classic. I like clean shapes, straight lines and simplicity. I have great respect for traditions. And I’m quite sentimental.

But then I go and get myself into a destination wedding which is anything BUT traditional. Does that mean you can be classic and innovative at the same time? I like to think so.

So back to the shoe.

The shoe color for me? Lilac purple, naturally. It’s my signature color. So that part’s easy.

As for the type of shoe, well, that’s where it gets tricky.

I decided from the very beginning that even though I’m innovative enough to get married in the Dominican, doing the wedding on the beach thing is just not for me. Luckily our resort, the Majestic Colonial, has a gorgeous gazebo. (Oh ok, who are we kidding? It was a large reason why I chose the resort.)

Sure, we’ll do some pictures on the beach, but most of the time we’ll be on solid ground. So I’m thinking I can pretty much do any kind of shoe I want. But no flip flops for me… that’s for sure. I’ve never been a flip floppy gal since the thong thing is just too painful for me. (For those beachy pictures, I’ll go barefoot.)

My next instinct was a strappy kind of sandal thing. It has to be comfortable because I plan on being on that dance floor for at LEAST five hours straight. And it has to be fairly low so that yes, it’s comfortable, but also so I don’t tower over my Fiance who’s only slightly taller than me.

But after hours spent perusing shoes online at everywhere from Nine West, Browns and Kate Spade to Target, ebay and even (in desperation because as if I’d ever be able to tell the Fiance I spent 3 Gs on a pair of shoes) Brian Atwood , Jimmy Choo and Manolo Blahnik, I was starting to think that my hunt for the perfect purple shoe might be tougher than I had expected.

And then, wouldn’t you know it? I stumbled upon the perfect pair today by accident. At Salvatore Ferragamo.

Maybe it was the glass of white wine at lunch - how else would I have felt jaunty enough to waltz into that store just like that? - or maybe it was just fate.

But there they were, sitting there so pretty, just begging me to take them home.

Oh, my heart goes pitter patter just looking at these photos. (Pretend I’m not wearing black fishnets.) It’s kind of hard to see the actual color from the photos but it’s much softer.

I can’t find the exact same shoe anywhere online but these come close, the ballet shoe version (at right) and the Carla Patent Pump. My dreamy peep-toes are so much cuter though, non?

I love that they have a flirty bow on top, I love that the heel is the same divine lilac color as the shoe and I loooovvve how buttery soft they felt on my foot.

BUT… am I nutso to be considering closed-heel patent leather (but so darling!) shoes for my destination wedding in the Caribbean?

I know some will say “heck girl, it’s your wedding! Do what you want to do! Wear what you want to wear!” (in which case, thank you so much for the vote of confidence, I totally agree) but that’s not the issue.

The issue is, will I be too hot? And will I look totally absolutely ridiculous? Ok, there are two issues.

What to do, what to do?! I’ve emailed the photos to my three (all long distance) bridesmaids and we’ll see what they say.

In the meantime… help! What do you think?

Ding dong, the witch is dead! Er, I mean, the invites are done.

Oh my lord. HALLELUJA. My invitations are doooooooonnnnne! I finally put them in the mail today and I can breathe a huge sigh of relief.

I read about people making their own invitations on other blogs, notably Weddingbee (so addictive, that site) but I can now tell you with absolute certainty that even if you read about other people’s whinging, whining and heartache surrounding their DIY wedding invitation project, you do not really know the pain until you do it yourself.

I’m hoping it’s like childbirth and the memory of the pain will erase itself once the reality of my beautiful newborn - er, wedding invites - sets in. (Still waiting for that to happen. It feels too surreal at the moment.)

Here are some photos from the rest of the process (you can see pics from phase 1 here) and things that I’d wish I had known:

I was lucky enough to have the help of a great graphic designer that I work with. He kindly donated his time (”I’m a hopeless romantic… emphasis on the hopeless,” he says. Awwww!) and kept his comments about my annoying perfectionist tendencies to himself, which is amazing. Even I know I can get annoying.

Tip #1: To expedite the design process when working with a designer, do your homework.

Thank goodness I had a very clear vision of what I wanted, i.e. not just what text I wanted on it, but also the graphic, the colors, and the fonts (Optimus Princeps and… I’m blanking on the name of the scripty one but I’ll find it). Knowing what you want is probably the number one toughest part of making your own invites but if you can figure it out down to the last detail, the designing process will be much easier. Well, either that, or you have to be a non-controlling obsessive bride who trusts her graphic designer with her life.

Printing them was relatively painless, in fact, arguably the easiest part of the entire project. I was lucky enough to have access to a laser printer at work so I did it there. I had to feed the cardstock in sheet by sheet (50 pieces) but hey, can’t complain - it was free.

I then had to cut those again… more adventures with X-Acto blades. God I hate those things now. At least we (read: the fiance) learned our lesson from the cutting the first stacks of dark and light purple cardstock, so we did them one by one. Tedious, but STRAIGHT.

I had originally planned on making the back of the invitations interesting too by putting a 1.5″ ribbon on it (which wouldn’t show on the front as it would be tucked behind one of the layers - you can see a bit of it peeking out in the invite on the left). In my head I had a vision of our initials on the ribbon so I got the designer to make me a page of cute logo-ized initials, reversed so I could print them on iron-transfer paper. Neat idea, right? Unfortunately, it didn’t come out quite like my vision. Rather than just the initals on the ribbon, the clear plasticky background got ironed on too, so it looked like a big piece of tape stuck on the ribbon. Gross. Sadly, I don’t have a picture of this step. Needless to say, I ditched the big ribbon idea.

Tip #2 - Before you waste time designing things you should really try it out first to make sure it works. Sounds simple, I know, but you’d be surprised how your brain doesn’t work sometimes.

Then came the big gluing day. I opted for spray glue which was the right thing to do I think - much faster and less opportunity for lumpy invitations. I originally set up our mini-factory on the patio but it was a bit chilly. So, the fiance flexed his MacGuyver skills and set us up in a spare bedroom by the open window and with a fan pointed at us from behind to push the glue fumes out.

Tip #3 - When using spray glue, make sure there’s good ventilation. Doing it indoors IS possible though… just make sure you’re by an open window and close the door behind you so the smell gets pulled in one direction only.

Note: there will inevitably be some gluey clouds landing in places other than your paper - for instance, on your fiance’s arm hairs. (Ha ha ha ha ha..! Sweet revenge for the paper cutting episode!) While the fiance sprayed the glue, I positioned the paper as best I could.

Tip #4 - to avoid going absolutely INSANE, remember that these are hand-made invitations and if you expect them to come out PERFECTLY like factory-made ones, you are delusional. Just kidding, you hopefully aren’t delusional. But save yourself lots of anxiety and “let go” of the perfectionism just a bit. I found breathing deeply helped. Plus, as the fiance told me time and time again, no one will notice they’re 2 millimeters off except for you.

One of the most disappointing parts of the process was the printing of the little travel info cards. Since we’re having a destination wedding, we had to include the contact info for our travel agent with the invitations. There are a lot of styles out there that include funky pockets that let you slip this kind of info inside but since I was trying to keep the cost and effort to a minimum, we didn’t have pockets. I figured a small square card would be just as good, it didn’t have to be in a pocket.

When we were cutting the invitations, I had kept the scrap pieces of paper which I later decided would be perfect for the travel info cards. Well, the printer thought otherwise. It refused to accept paper that was so narrow, even after we fiddled with the settings for close to an hour. At last my brilliant fiance suggested taping the narrow strips of cardstock (about 4 inches wide) to a piece of white paper; I actually scoffed at the suggestion but then ate my words because it worked! It was a painstaking process, though. Then I had to cut them all. I was so glad when that part was over.

Then I got home and realized I had forgotten to include the ‘book by’ date on the cards. D’oh!!!!!!

Tip #5 - Proofread, proofread, proofread but don’t rely on just yourself. I proofread stuff all the time for my job so I thought hey, no problem! However, this DIY stuff makes you go nuts so get at least one other person to read it over!

I had to leave work early to make it to the scrapbooker supply store to buy 12 more sheets of purple paper. What a pain. Not to mention do all the printing and cutting again (at least this time the stupid printer accepted the paper size!)

And if that wasn’t traumatizing enough, next was printing the addresses onto the envelopes. Although I loved the iridescent envelopes I found at Scrapbookers Warehouse, I found it hard to justify paying $0.99 each for something that would inevitably end up in the garbage (I still delude myself in thinking people will keep the invitation, ha). I actually found pretty nice envelopes at Staples that were a very light speckled purply gray so went with those - they also had light blue, green and rose, in varying sizes.

We had collected and organized our guests addresses in an Excel spreadsheet so the mail merge in Word was supposed to be easy. And it might have been, if the printer hadn’t been so complicated. We had to try ten million different settings before we finally figured it out. But it sure beat handwriting them all, and it looked much more professional than my original idea of using clear labels.

I also had a moment of self doubt somewhere in there where I thought that maybe I should go with a ribbon after all - not, of course, with the ribbon I had already bought and lost the receipt for because that would be too easy, but with this lovely turquoise ribbon I had bought half a meter of at Fanny’s Fabrics three weeks earlier just to see if I could use it somehow. I would have had to make the fiance drive out all the way there to get more, not to mention how much more complicated the gluing process would become. In the end, I opted for sans ribbon as I felt the design was funky enough without it… much to the enormous relief of the fiance (who, I found out later, had prepped everyone I had asked advice for and pleaded for them to tell me the ribbon was dumb. What a sneak.).

So finally, I was done.

Well, except for putting the invites and cards in the envelopes, sealing them (with a sponge - as if I was licking all those) and putting stamps on them - all 93 of them (the rest will be hand-delivered). That part was easy-peasy compared to the rest, though.

Thank goodness THAT is over!!

See the photos, feel my pain

Here’s visual evidence of the carnage I was talking about in my last post about Phase 1 of my Do-It-Yourself wedding invitation project: cutting the cardstock.

Here’s my pretty paper and ribbon, oh so pearly and innocent and carefree (pre-disaster).

Here is Mr Purple executing his so-called “brilliant” cutting technique - putting the ruler down on a stack of 50 sheets of cardstock and running the X-Acto knife down the edge over and over and over, because he thinks cutting them one by one “is for suckers”…

(I don’t have the audio track to go with these images but imagine a bunch of shrieks and gasps and OHMYGODWHATAREYOUDOING?!?!?!-s.)

And here is the result of Mr Purple’s “brilliance” (post-disaster):

The problem with dimensions is pretty obvious. But what’s worse - and though it’s hard to see, trust me when I say it’s terrible - is that the edges of that dark purple paper are not just the wrong measurement, but are as wobbly as Miss Purple after four glasses of wine.

I also have one image of Mr Purple’s maniacal grin but I promised him I wouldn’t post it and… well, let’s just say I don’t want to cross him when there are X-Acto knives in the vicinity. (I’m kidding.)

It’s official: I AM crazy. And there’s a reason wedding invitation companies exist.

Oh. My. God.

If I never see another X-Acto knife in my life, it’ll be too soon.

Last Saturday, Mr. Purple and I attacked Phase 1 of the D-I-Y wedding invitation project: cutting the paper.

As you may recall, deciding on a design and buying the cardstock for these things was quite the ordeal. Once I realized that folds and pockets were gorgeous but complicated and finally settled on a simpler design, I hustled my butt around not just Vancouver but all over Southern Alberta (ok fine, one store in Red Deer and two in Calgary, but have you been to Calgary lately? It’s SPRAWLING) to get the right quantities of just the right paper at just the right price.

So imagine the look on my face when Mr Purple decides that cutting sheets one by one is for suckers.

He pulled out the first pile of 50 sheets, slapped the ruler on top and started zipping that damn X-Acto knife along the ruler over…. and over… and over… and over…

I gasped and shrieked and yet he did not pause, even when he lifted his head to give me the “Relaaaaaaxxxx, it’ll be fine” line.

The sheets on top that got cut first started falling forlornly to the side, exposing their brethren underneath to the wrath of the knife.

And still it went on… and on… and on.

I covered my face with my hands and begged the Paper Gods to deliver me from my suffering.

And finally… S I L E N C E. The carnage had come to an end.

“See?” Mr Purple held up a rectangle of paper triumphantly. And at first glance, it seemed I would have to eat my words.

Then I placed the rectangle on the stack of other rectangles and bounced them against the table a few times to line them up. And I didn’t need to look closely to see that we had a disaster on our hands.

[pic coming soon - I forgot the memory card. About that... people talk about having "mommy brain" after childbirth... is there such a thing as "bride brain'? I'm awfully forgetful and disorganized lately]

To the untrained eye, we might have been able to fudge it. Unfortunately, that was only the bottom layer of a three later card, so the wavy borders become VERY obvious once they’re against something straight.

It was at this point I succumbed to the frustration and rushed to the bathroom to let loose a few tears. I felt better afterwards, and was able to stoically return to the scene of the crime and do the only thing that I could do - try to figure out a way to fix it - without resorting to flinging “I told you so”-s around. Because really, although it would have been intensely satisfying to do so, it really wouldn’t improve the situation. In fact, it would make things worse. So that’s why I try not to bust out the bridezilla tears in front of anyone. It feels good to let them come out, but then I get over it and keep going.

And being Zen about it is best, in the end. Because we did finally fix it.

It involved re-doing all the dimensions for the three layers again so we could cut off the wavy edge of the dark purple paper - this time, doing it the way I wanted to in the first place, ONE BY ONE. Yes, it was painstaking but at least now it’s done.

That is, Phase 1 is done.

I now understand why people pay what seems like exorbitant amounts of money just to have some pieces of paper cut for them. Because doing it yourself really, really sucks. I’m scared to think of what it will be like to try to glue them together straight. Yikes.

But we’re not even there yet. First, Phase 2 … designing the actual invite that will be printed.

Stay tuned.