Invitations pt. 2 [It's Real Now] Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The first thing that helped me get over my disappointment was seeing FH's reaction to the invitations. Earlier readers may remember that it was him who turned me on to these invitations in the first place -- he has excellent taste!

When he came home, I showed them to him without comment, to see what he'd say. He didn't say anything for a long time, but he just sort of stared at them, smiling. He said, "We're getting married!" It was very sweet.

These invitations, of course, are not about shades of pink and cursive and script and fonts; they're the first announcement that my fiance and I intend to start a new life together. Seeing him hold the invitations in his hands and really get that for the first time was priceless, and everything else I'd been worrying about suddenly mattered much less.

Another thing that helped was a little design tweak that was inexpensive and only took a few minutes! I decided to round the corners.

Smock can round the corners of your invitations for you, but we didn't select this when we ordered them. When they arrived, I knew it was the "something missing" that I needed to fix. I ventured into Hobby Lobby and found this sturdy-looking "Corner Chomper" and its cute matching case:

 

  

 This is the perfect tool for this sort of thing; it cuts clean, perfectly curved corners, and holds up really well. It's perfect for the super thick card stock of our invitations. 

And now for the results! First, the before: 

 

This tool cuts two types of corners; a quarter inch (it appears that this is the shape Smock uses if you have them round the corners)...

 

...and a half inch, which is the one we're going to use:

 

You can see the corners better in this shot:

 

I have to give major props to the Crop-a-dile. The corners it cuts are absolutely perfect... no flattening of the paper or extra weird notches. It's amazing how different the invitations look now. The softer edges really help our names to stand out, since they're now the only angled things on the invitation. I think the soft corners provide some much-needed balance and definition. Not only that, but with this hard cardstock, they're much easier to get in & out of the envelopes!

So for now, that's the story of our invites. Now it's on to a task I'm dreading: finalizing the guest list!

The invitations Have Arrived! Sunday, February 21, 2010

Our beautiful invitations from Smock Papers have arrived! Having picked these out nearly a year ago, I am happy to present them (in slightly altered form):

They are beautiful to me now, but a few days ago when I picked them up I was profoundly disappointed. The accent color is "shell," which looks fine in the photograph, but seems darker and a little too "mauve-y" when I first saw them. This is different from how it appears in the in-store example book, so I was surprised.

Also, I was a little disappointed about all the back & forth it took to get these invites to look the way we wanted. I read the blog at Smock, and I have heard all the glowing reviews, seen them featured in magazines, etc. I was under the impression that the company would customize the invitations so that they looked nice with their layouts; combining lines of text if necessary, and arranging the words on the page so that they blend seamlessly with the artwork.

I was sorely disappointed when I got the first proof back. I had put way too many words on the invitation, but there they all were, in a big jumble. They could have suggested a vertical layout, or combined more than one line, but they didn't. They typed the words just as I sent them, which is fine -- but I am not a graphic designer. I am paying for them to design it for me! Or so I thought.

Two proofs and $40 later,* I ended up just making a photoshop picture and laying out the words exactly as they are shown in the final version. I was irritated that I ended up paying them to fix and design my own invitation.

The customer service from them was great and the invitations are indeed beautiful, and they have some lovely designs. However, I suggest you know exactly what you want and spend some time envisioning it before you place an order.

In the long run, none of this will matter. Our guests won't know the difference! And of course, it's not like our marriage will be less valid because one shade of pink doesn't match the other. But I had envisioned these invitations for months, and seeing them in person was underwhelming. It was hard to acknowledge how much the little things about this wedding mean to me.

How did I make peace with this? It's coming up!

*At Smock, if you make more than 1 change, it's $40 per proof. We made two changes = 3 proofs total.

You're Simply Invited Wednesday, December 30, 2009

It's true our wedding isn't for several more months, but when there was a sale at the invitation store, combined with a promotion from the invitation company, I couldn't resist! So, we ordered the invitations a bit early and they're almost ready to be printed!

We're so excited to have chosen our invitations from Smock Papers, out of New York. The first time we saw them I knew they'd be perfect.

After going back & forth with wording, format, and layout, the proofs are here! I've had to block out some personal details, which really makes the invitations quite unattractive. Sorry! But trust me, they are beautiful.

If you're wondering why there's a website address in the lower right corner, we decided to do an online-only RSVP. We are very lucky that all of our guests - including parents & grandparents! - are relatively computer-savvy.

We were going to do a separate card with our website info, but I just couldn't justify the expense. Why pay to print a separate card with two lines on it? Since most of our guests are traveling, they'll need our website for more info anyway, and I personally don't like invitations with lots of little parts that are easy to lose. So we put it right on the invitation.

Etiquette guidelines say that you can put the website on the invitation only if it's for the express purpose of submitting a reply, so I think we're okay there. But honestly, once I had this idea in mind, there was no going back -- etiquette or not!

Click to enlarge:


Previously, I had written about my struggles with wording. Our original layout ended up being way too many words (what was I thinking?), and ruined the delicate spacing that led us to choose this invitation in the first place. So we simplified. No "together with our families," no "reception to follow," etc. I love the new version! What do you think? Can you spot any mistakes before we officially send it to the printers?

Worth a thousand (more) words Monday, November 9, 2009

This weekend, after placing my invitation order, I was so pleased to have something done so early. For a July wedding, I wouldn't need to order them until January or February, and mail them at the end of April. But the company is giving a discount to orders placed before the end of the year, so I was planning to order them in a month. Then, the invitation shop had a promotion for an additional discount this week, so there you go!

The lovely invitations are probably the only thing I've been 100% consistent about throughout this entire wedding planning process. The wording should be simple and formal. Easy, right? I arrived at the shop with all the information in tow (typed up, no less!) and today I got the call.

They want to change my invitation wording because it is improper!

Specifically, they want to change my "half past five" to "half after five" and we disagree about the usage of "two thousand ten" vs. "two thousand and ten." (They prefer the latter, by the way.) All my research says that both are acceptable, but it seems that "half after" and "two thousand and ten" are most likely related to British usage and are therefore more formal.

Two things at work here. First of all, I am having a formal wedding, which requires a formal invitation with formal wording. So I get that this is the time to be "correct."

But I wonder if these etiquette rules might just be too obscure for me. Who IN THE WORLD says "half after five"? I've never seen it; every wedding invitation I've seen says "half past." Every invitation also says "two thousand and ten" and since it looks better in print, I might concede that one. I might even write "half after" for the time... but I can just imagine my family calling up saying, "When is the wedding?"

On the other hand, just because large swaths of people don't understand an etiquette rule doesn't mean it's invalid.

We'll see. At this point, the invitation reads:

Together with their families
[Bride] and [Groom]
request the pleasure of your company
at their marriage
[Day] the [nth] of July
two thousand and ten
at half after (?) five in the evening
[Name of place]
[City, State]
Reception to follow

[in the lower right hand corner]:
R.s.v.p. before [Month] [Date]
[website address]

I had originally written, "Please r.s.v.p. by [date], but realized that, while in English, "to r.s.v.p." is a verb or a noun, it's actually a phrase that already contains the word please (Respondez, s'il-vous plait). But most people will read it as a verb, so...

Honestly, I'm surprised that I care so much. But as someone who loves to write and is interested in what words mean to different people, this is actually kind of fascinating.

Also, I think it's funny how wedding invitations, like so many aspects of the wedding itself, bring out these issues of class and style. I think many wedding disputes we have now are the result of being in different classes, and of our culture being in sort of a transitional period with different cultures & class systems. I mean, wouldn't this be easier (but so much more boring!) if every member of one family was in the same social class (and thus, had the same expectations for your wedding)? But, thankfully, that hardly relates to any Americans anymore. Interesting.

*The photo is of Emily Post, who frightens me a little.

Idea of the Day: Handpainted Invites Monday, August 24, 2009

I was reading my Weddingbee RSS feed and "discovered" Momental Designs, a company that does handpainted invitations. Really! Handpainted! Here's how she does it.

I loved reading about Kristy Rice and especially her blog, where she features her current projects and customizations. Her "blooms" series is my favorite. This one is called "painted peonies":



We aren't ordering invites for a few more months, and a while back we picked these beautiful letterpress ones from Smock. I still melt whenever I see them!



Quite a contrast. I do love the idea of the hand-painted; it's elegant but so very different from a "typical" invite. Plus I thought it'd be perfect, since FH is an artist... so our guests would immediately make a connection there. On the other hand, the letterpress invites are undeniably beautiful and more likely to make an impression.

My fiancé, with his MFA in printmaking, has a lot to say about the invites. Like me, he really wants to send "something we can be proud of" to our guests (he came up with that on his own, I swear!), and I love that he's so involved. So, the final decision will (mostly!) be up to him. We'll see!

You're Invited Monday, April 20, 2009

Continuing with the "follow my instincts" approach to wedding planning, I believe my fiancé and I have chosen our invitations!

I've seen hundreds of invites online and spent some time with a friend last weekend looking at books. Until now, I hadn't seen any I truly loved. I don't like the trends with little strange motifs everywhere, and I certainly don't want to pay to have something "flat-printed" when it looks identical to something I could do with some creativity and my HP inkjet.

So just for fun, my fiancé and I stopped in at Paper & Chocolate, surely one of the prettiest stores in Dallas. They do wedding invites, and we spent a while looking at books. David picked a letterpress book, and voila! we found our invites. It was love at first sight! Check it out (click to see it customized many different ways):



I cannot explain how I felt to see this invitation, except to know that it was *the one*! I never even allowed myself to dream of letterpress, but David's advanced degree is in printmaking, so that gives us a great excuse. Plus, it was great to see him so excited about the process.

These invites are truly a work of art. They're printed on "ecologically sound" (I'll admit, my fiancé cares way more about this than I do) bamboo paper which is very thick and feels like cotton. When I saw this invite in person, I couldn't help but touch the paper over & over again. Of course, we'd change the colors (light pink, of course!) and perhaps the font. But we couldn't be happier.

I've only seen a few designs I even wanted to look at twice, and my mother pointed out that this invitation is similar to the few I've shown her. I didn't even realize that! There's something to be said for following your instincts!