…were truly a labor love.

That is what went into my invitations. Incase you don’t want to read this long entry, please walk away with some simple advice: order your invitations in advance.

Martha Stewart’s Timeline

• Order Invitations
• Receive invitations
• Purchase postage for invitation and response card.
• Take an envelope to the post office for it to be weighed.
• Hand address invitations or take to a calligrapher.
• Mark each response card incase your guests forgets to write their names.
• Assemble invites.
• Mail.
• Collect RSVPs.
• Call guests that have not responded.

My Overly Complicated Timeline

• Order my invitations. We were about two weeks behind schedule but for some reason, I wanted to be sure. Huge sigh of relief.
• Ordered photo postage stamps for the response cards from Zazzle. Problem #1.
• Ordered vintage postage stamps. Spent hours trying to create an aesthetically pleasing montage.
• Took invitations to get weighed. Problem #2: Found out that I needed $.97 cents worth of postage. Cried. Spent another few hours trying to create another aesthetically pleasing montage.
• Received invitations. Did a happy dance!
• Promptly drop off invitations to our calligrapher for her to address the inner and outer envelopes.
• Receive back our outer envelopes from our wonderful calligrapher. Since we purchased vintage stamps for the outer envelope, the postage stamp process took a few hours. I didn’t plan for the amount of time that it would take to get the stamps on nice and neat.
• The next step was to stamp the response card envelopes. Problem #3: My photo postage stamps, which had already given me enough trouble, were way too large. They blocked the addressee’s name. I was seriously bummed. That is when my dear fiancé stepped into the rescue. He searched photo stamp sites until he found Your Stamps. The stamps wouldn’t be in for another week. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to delay the mailing. Then, we found a really big problem…
• Problem #4: Some of the response cards had a printing issue! There was a tiny flaw in the response card where the letterpress didn’t print deeply. That is when I REALLY lost it. Luckily, Rebecca from the White Aisle has planned to use our invitation as samples to mail out to potential clients. She mailed us the new response cards immediately.
• Marked the response cards with an invisible pen. If we get an invitation back without the couples name, we can find out who it is with a black light.
• Problem #5: Bought some gorgeous artisan paper to line my envelopes. This was my major mistake. I thought that hand lining the envelope would be a nice personal touch. Also, we would save a little money as calligraphers charge more for lined envelopes. After spending about six hours making the liners, I realize that they look terrible. Cry.
• Do a desperate search to find someone to line my envelopes. Cannot find anyone!
• Problem #6: Buy some new paper to line the envelopes. Enlist the help of my fiance. Spend three evenings in a row attempting to line. Try to use double sided tape. It doesn’t hold the stick. Then, I try to use rubber cement. It creates grease spots. My envelopes are ruined.
• Cry again. Drop off a new batch of envelopes to our ever patient calligrapher. Start drinking heavily.
• Lightly glue the lining to the envelope.
• Assemble and Seal.
• Drive around to three post offices before finding someone that agrees to hand cancel. Agree is sort of an overstatement… the worker agreed that they would put them aside and request that they be hand cancelled.
• Receive calls from guests telling us how beautiful our invitations were!
• Debate if this worth it.
• Realize that you only have one set of the wedding invitations in your life. As a paper junkie, I really wanted them to be spectacular. However, if I had to do it all over again, I would have eliminated all of the DIY and ordered a good two months in advance.

Tomorrow, I’ll post pictures of my invitations!