The Invitation Saga

Yet another more-difficult-than-one-would-expect-project. It began about 4 weeks ago when a friend and I went to look at Office Depot, A.C. Moore, and Michael's to see where we could get the best invitations for our money. It was surprisingly difficult to find any set (online or otherwise) that used post cards for responses, which will end up saving us a few dollars on postage.

We e-mailed professional printers, who sent us paper samplings, printing costs, etc. How much with return addresses printed on the back of envelopes, etc. (I decided that it was worth saving the $100 and hand-writing the return addresses.) We asked ourselves:

• Should we buy our own, design them and print them ourselves (need to pay for ink, lots of work) or
• Should we buy our own, design one and have a Kinkos print them (saves money, but perhaps looks cheap) or
• Should we have a printer use paper that we bought with our design (easier, saves less money) or
• Should we have a printer use his paper and evelopes and print what we design (easiest, a little pricier)

So we locked in a great printer, who had a good working relationship with my friend. We were happy to pay people who treat us professionally, especially if the cost is within $50-$75 of doing everything ourselves.

The next question was the language. I was so grateful to have the fiancé's help on this one! What do we choose? Everyone is helping us in some way (and we are covering some if it as well). Miss Manners doesn't have an answer for this one!

• Bride & Groom Host (Formal)
• Bride & Groom Host (Informal)
• Bride's Parents Host
• Bride & Groom's Parents Host (they are each hosting a reception in our hometowns)

Luckily we were limited by the links that were actually working on that web page. We were also limited by the space available on our stylish and small invites! Now that we have the language in, we need to find red ribbon on sale (it almost always is at A.C. Moore or Michael's) and purchase it in bulk.

Next stop: the guest list. I recently receive this article, from a friend who was trying to help us make a few decisions. I was floored that any non-married person would write such an article about an endeavor that he was not willing to undertake himself. Yet, this is what people do: offer unsolicited advice. I think I will resort to the, "Oh, are you offering to pay for that?"

T-100. :)