Becoming Left-Handed

Dress Rehearsal: Mail Call

Last week Steve and I received a beautiful wedding invitation from a friend in California, and it reminded me of the hours and weeks of work we put into getting our own invitations just right. In fact, I have another friend who just finished putting his invitations together, and I gave him the advice I'm about to give you: mail yourself a test invitation before you entrust that huge batch of heavy envelopes to the good old USPS.

Think of it as a dress rehearsal for your calligrapher, the postal service, the postage you've paid, and your RSVP cards. If you get the invitation with no problems, and are successfully able to send yourself an RSVP card, you will know you are in good shape.

We had the exciting idea to tie our wedding invitation cards together with a bow and attach a sterling silver wine charm as a small token of our winery wedding. When our test invitation arrived, the wine charm had ripped through the envelope and scratched the invitation card stock.

We were so glad we'd mailed ourselves a test and discovered the oops! Not to mention how much fun it was to see what it would be like to receive one of our glittering orange metallic envelopes.

Now, if you're like us, you're cutting it close on timing ... but do the test invitation anyway. The extra 2-3 days could save you many headaches in the long run.

Inviting Lessons

I stopped at the post office this morning on my way to work and handed over almost 90 square, glittering envelopes.  The clerk was not in a nice Monday morning mood, so she sort of laughed at my efforts to pass each envelope over the counter, and told me I should have just given her the shopping bag full of our invitations.

She obviously didn't realize what was really in that bag. Those envelopes are the product of MONTHS of dreaming, concepting, designing, printing, editing, folding, bow-tying, and stamping. Not to mention the debating, laughing, almost crying, exulting, and kissing that went on as we passed (or were passed by) each milestone. 

The invitations are beautiful and I can't wait for everyone to receive them and see for themselves. But really, they have taught us several very important lessons.

One - Steve and I have very different strengths. I like to concept, sketch, and figure out the pieces.  Steve likes to take my very rough ideas, refine and write them, and then we both edit together. Finally, it is Steve who, with painstaking patience and determination, brings our ideas to life on paper. He cuts meticulously, he scores perfectly, and he doesn't stop until the job is done to the tiniest detail. By the end, I am reduced to hovering pointlessly and asking how I can help, when we both know that the best way I can help is to let Steve work his magic while quietly dreaming up the next new concept.

Two - That's the correct number of scoops of coffee for our 3-cup coffee press. On its inaugural morning, Steve made coffee with 3 scoops of grounds. While the burst of energy helped get most of our invitation maps done in record time, it also caused a full-out panic attack when we mixed up the paper on 20 of our precious pieces.

Three -  Everyone will look at these pieces differently. We have shown the invitations to a few close friends and gotten very varied reactions - some see an antique/vintage theme, others see just the color theme, and still others find the hidden word clue in the overall concept. Beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. What I see, when I look at them, is teamwork and talent from no fewer than 8 people!

Four -  We have the best friends in the world. Our design idea came from a great friend, Barce. Our map came from the talent of another good friend, Jeff. The calligrapher referral came from another friend at work.The printing services came from a friend of Rachel's. Rachel herself helped apply hundreds of stamps and tie many bows. She even consoled a very disappointed bride who realized that her original idea of sending a wine charm in each envelope would actually rip the paper and ruin the invitations.

We're glad the invitations are on their way, and even more glad about all the wonderful things we've learned along our way. I wonder what our programs and place cards will teach us?

Late Night Press Check

Last night at 10:00, Steve and I went to the printer to look at our proof for our wedding invitations. I figured it would be a five-minute "check." We stayed almost an hour.

Bill, our printer, walked us through the printing process in great detail, showing us the press machines and the ink rollers and the corner-rounder that will all make our invitation come alive.  It's amazing when you start to learn about the water that off sets the oils in the inks, the cornstarch that helps dry them so the pieces won't stick, and enormous size of the paper rolls that they use. 

We also compared and changed a few color elements, added a layer of patterning to our thank-you cards, and changed the background percentages on the RSVP card.

Bill is planning to enter the invitation in some awards shows, so that was pretty exciting to imagine. 

Next week, we finish and print the custom-designed map insert, pick up the envelopes from the calligrapher, buy a bunch of stamps, and then have a several-hour assembling session to get each little invitation packet ready to go in the mail by August 13.

This has to be my favorite part so far.  Tablecloths and centerpieces are fun, but the written, printed word has always held such a fascination for me.  We asked Bill if we can keep our ink plates that will actually be used to create the invitations.  He laughed and insisted we wouldn't want them, as they'll be all messy at the end of the process.  I told him he has no idea how nerdy we are about this stuff and we'll happily frame the messy plates with ink stains as a reminder of how much fun we had with this process! 

With A Little Help From Our Friends

One of the delights of our wedding day will be looking around at the family and friends who are sharing our day and our joy.

In the meantime, we are having the humbling and thrilling experience of sharing the planning and preparations with a few wonderful friends who have given so freely of their talents, their passions, and their ideas.

I don't want to give anything away, but our wedding invitations are perhaps the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.  Our designer, our friend and fellow newlywed Barce, took his love for design, and our love for each other, mixed in our delicious fall colors, and created truly inviting invitations.  That sounds redundant, but it's not.  I've seen plenty of invitations that were not really that inviting.  Barce gave us warmth and character and something that is truly unique and "ours."  I'm not sure how I'm going to survive the next several weeks while we print and assemble and stamp and mail, because I'm so excited to send our invitations to everyone.

Our friend Craig has also thrown his hat into our wedding ring (pardon the pun) by agreeing to travel from Ohio to be our videographer.  Craig did my sister and brother-in-law's wedding video 2 years ago, and it's hands-down my favorite wedding video ever.  We are so excited that Craig will be in New York with us, capturing our memories for us to keep forever!

Our friends Sally and Josh, in Miami, FL, may not know it yet, but they'll be helping us with a very important part of the pre-wedding party process on Friday of our wedding weekend.  We are so sure they'll say yes, we haven't even asked them yet!

And then there are our friends who've been so supportive these last several weeks.  I don't know what I would have done without the advice and good cheer from Kathryn, Jamie, Stephanie, Suzy, Alison, Amy and my sister Rachel.  I know Steve's also getting good advice from his friends and it's helping us along.  I think the wedding planning has been harder than we thought, but I'd happily do it all over again for the chance to grow closer to these friends and share our happiness with them.

Thank you, to all of you. 

Wedding Gifts

Steve and I spent part of our weekend registering.  We also spent time playing with the digital camera my dad gave us for a wedding gift, and we ordered the computer my mom and stepfather gave us as their wedding present.  We are excited and grateful and overwhelmed by people's generosity - and our wedding is still 6 months away!

Yesterday, we were the lucky recipients of another gift - the time and talent and inspiration of our friend Barce, who has been sketching wedding invitation designs for us.  I was blown away by the effort he invested on these early sketches, and by the effortless way he brought our ideas and our wedding to life in pencil.  We spent last night talking about his sketches and ideas, and we are torn because we love all 3 options he gave us.  I would be proud to send any of them, and I want to send all of them, and I only hope I can overcome my indecision in time to get the printing done!   

Premarital Counseling

Steve is a copywriter.  I am an amateur writer with a communication strategy job. 

Concepting and writing our Save-the-Dates has been ... I better get these words right ... a fascinating case study in communication, strategy, writing, and each other.  Without giving too much of our idea way, let me give you a glimpse into our fascinating little case study. 

Last week, we reached an impasse after a conversation that went something like this:

Steve: Should we show dialogue and thoughts, or just thoughts running through our heads?

Marti: Doesn't the addition of the dialogue make it look less like we're reading each other's minds and more like we just weren't listening to each other?

Steve: I'm sorry, what did you say?

We needed help.   We needed an objective counselor to step in and do two things - confirm that our crazy little creative idea was worth completing, and choose 1 direction out of 5 that we both loved and had debated (each of us for and against) for days.  We needed a premarital creative counselor.

Enter a good friend:  Associate Creative Director and Resident "Big Idea" Guy at Resource, Mark Hillman.

Mark picked a concept and cleared our cluttered minds.  In fact, he did it in about 15 well-chosen words and hasn't even invoiced us for our first session with him ;-)

Methinks we better put him on retainer before we tackle our invitations.