Friday, July 22, 2011

You're Invited

Back in March we started talking about a number of things we were in the process of doing.  Like the majority of our posts, we promised additional updates on a number of in-progress projects.  Well I am happy to report that we are back today with an update on something we promised: our invites.

You may recall that we were having a pretty choke-tastic time swallowing the truth of what wedding invites cost.  You might even recall that we decided this was a task we could DIY in an effort to save money.  We DIY'd our Save The Date Video (for a recap click here) and it turned out great!

We're cheap.  There I said it.  Did we save money?  For sure.  But notice I didn't say, however, that doing these on our own was a great way "to save time"....

You see, one half of this newly matrimonilized duo (made-up word alert!) has an incredibly hard time making decisions.

In truth, designing them was a several month process as I changed, re-changed, changed back and then changed again the design we finally went with.  There was even a moment in my invitation madness where the invites had printed, shipped and been placed before me when I suddenly got the urge to make one more edit.


That didn't go over too well. 


Who we are not:  graphic designers
What we do not have: a graphic designing program

I use Power Point and Paint.  Yes --- I know that is the most ridiculous thing you have ever heard and somewhere a million graphic designers are self imploding because of it.  But I use them.  Obsessively.

When it came time to finally upload my design to our choice printer --- VistaPrint for all of you taking notes --- let's just say, the files were not in the preferred format.  There were several limitations to their program, which added on a lot of time, so I opted to use one of their designs as a base and build upon it with my own design.  I went back and forth on this for weeks, but eventually I ended up with a product we could get behind.

For better or for worse, they were completed and VistaPrint was an economical option.  100 free postcards for new customers?  Um......  ok.  We became new customers a couple of times.   This allowed us to vary the sizes of our 5-piece invitation and create a layered look.  Each piece represented a different outing scheduled for the long weekend and a map.  Then, it was fastened together with a cool paperclip and bound by a black ribbon which would eventually become a sort of theme for our day.... 


New customers also got 250 free business cards -  so we opted to direct all of our guests to RSVP online by including a small (business) card with a link to our wedding website.  This was fantastic.  No extra postage for RSVP cards.  No extra envelopes.  I was adamant on having no inner and no extra envelopes.  And much to the shock and horror of all wedding etiquette enforcers: no one died because of it.  :)  Using Google Sites we set up a basic website with a spreadsheet option for dinner numbers and fun messages.

The other half of this duo LOVES spreadsheets.

Add in a keepsake snapshot from our engagement shoot and you get an idea of how excited we were to be done with this project. 


In the end, we managed to save some money for sure, but I am not certain the time I lost was worth it.  The end product turned out just fine, and accomplished it's mission, but the lesson I learned was that in the interest of time and ability, there are reasons to pay others to do your dirty work sometimes.  Either that or we should really invest in some real design software.

It's one or the other.  But..... I just can't decide.

1 comment:

  1. Anxious to see a ZILLION more wedding photos!! (and yes, I realize it hasn't even been a month yet!! :)

    lots of love from Michigan~
    Aunt Claire

    ReplyDelete

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