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October 2013 Weddings

Invitation stress, ugh!!! (Vent)

Grrr....I am ready to toss my invites in the garbage and just invite people by phone. After months of searching for the "perfect invitation", I finally order them/ They are pocket invites that need to be assembled. We glue all of the invites to the right side. Next I needed to tie on the bows (these go on the left side and are what hold the pocket closed). Because I am sort of OCD when it comes to the wedding, each bow took about 2 minutes because I wanted them just right. (Sad I know, no one but me will judge how well the bow is tied...). It comes with three inserts (RSVP, reception, and accomodations). We decided that since we are getting married at a location that is difficult to find, and the reception is about a 20 minute drive away, that we should include directions. Rather than just print the directions on a seperate piece of paper and include them (what most normal people would do), I decided to have them printed on the back of the reception card. I call up a local copy shop and ask them if they can do this. They say sure, no problem. I take the cards to the copy shop and drop them off. I go back the next day to pick them up. First of all, what they charge me is more than what they quoted me, but I didn't complain because I was just happy to have this done. I go out to my car and look at the cards, and see that the copy shop caused back printing to the cards, so now the front of the accomodations cards is smeared from the new printing. I take it back inside, and they tell me to reorder the cards and they will reimburse me. I call exclusively weddings, and they are unable to provide just the cards, they only come in a set. Call copy shop back, and they say they will create them on their own, but the ink will not be raised like it is on everything else. I am unhappy with this, but agree. Copy shop calls me the next day and says they are unable to match the card stock, blah blah blah. After dealing with them for a couple of days, finally get them to realize this is their problem and they agree to reimburse me for entire invitation order that I now have to re-order. So, I am now waiting for new invites to come in so I can assemble them and mail them out. In the meantime I take an assembled invite to the post office just to see how much postage will be. Remember all those bows I freaking tied? Because they are causing the invites to be too big to go through the postal machine, they have to be hand processed and it will be like $2.50 EACH to mail. Ummm, no, I can not afford that. So now, I have to take off all the bows I spent hours tieing and figure out another way to hold the pocket closed; I'm thinking of some type of band maybe. I am seriously ready to ditch the invites and just do a facebook mass invite! (Not really, but this process has been super annoying). OK, done venting, sorry for the long post!
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Re: Invitation stress, ugh!!! (Vent)

  • First, I'm sorry that you are going through this. But I have to say - sadly, a lot of this frustration is something you brought upon yourself.

    I can see why you wanted the backs of the cards printed, but I can also understand that the machine would smudge the front. I do agree that the local print shop did smudge the cards (they should have tested one first for quality), but it does suck for them to now have to reimburse you for cards that are smudged that is something * you* wanted. Still their fault, but in a way, not totally. It's nice they reimbursed you and good practice for them, but also very frustrating for them.

    It is fairly common knowledge that a bow will make an envelope bigger - hate to say it, but it is.

    For now, either decide that you will pay more for the invites you wanted and suck up the cost. You have an invitation idea, you were able to get it to come together, just go with it and then rearrange your budget in other areas to cover the additional cost. 

    For the future in other planning aspects (and life) be sure to do a lot of research and comparisons before ordering anything.

    Planning flowers? Check all flowers that are in season before having bouquets made. Having an outside place bring in a cake? Check and see if there is a cake-slicing-fee-per-slice.  There are tons of little details and places for things to become more expensive.

    Take a deep breath!
    Daisypath Anniversary tickers

    image 293 (Adults) Invited
    image198 Yes (+ 12 children and 3 babies)
    image95 No
    image0 Unknown

  • I had the same issue with bows making the envelopes oversized, but luckily I checked with the post office after I'd assembled one sample instead of tying all of them. If it helps, what we did instead was used glue and double-sided tape to attach the ribbons as a band, so the envelope was thinner.

    Another piece of advice - it sounds like you have a lot of content in your invitations, so I'd assemble one and take it to the post office to have it weighed. Having it be overweight carries an extra charge just like having it oversized, so it might be a good idea to ensure it fits through all the post office limits before re-assembling - if all that paper weighs too much, you might have to pay extra for shipping anyways.
  • I like the idea of using the ribbon as a band to make it thinner. Also - can you put the directions on a website and then place a small card with your wedding website on it - instead of reprinting those cards?  My apologies if you already answered that....
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  • Oh mannnnnn I'm sorry all this has happened!
    Before scraping the bows completely I agree have them weighed and checked on size - I had no idea my square invites would bump me up in price either mine are 1.12 each. Which is a bummer but gotta do what I gotta do. And that's with them having a bow too...
    image 165 Asked to join at our big day.
    image 7 Are coming; cameras in hand ready to party!
    image 5 Are missing out on the fun.
    image 153 Haven't found the mail box back to us.




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