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Ms. Dahlia Ms. Dahlia, Detroit/Cleveland Age and Occupation: 24, PhD Student Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, IT System Administrator Engagement Date: December 31, 2006 Wedding Date: May 2008 Blogging Since: September 19, 2007 Venue: United Methodist Cathedral & historic downtown hotel in Cleveland About Me: I enjoy cooking, dancing and swimming. I am a geek and apply game theory to my everyday life. Winter is my favorite time of year, especially when spent curled up with good coffee and a book by Madeleine L'Engle.
 
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Ms. Dahlia, Detroit/Cleveland Age and Occupation: 24, PhD Student Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, IT System Administrator Engagement Date: December 31, 2006 Wedding Date: May 2008 Blogging Since: September 19, 2007 Venue: United Methodist Cathedral & historic downtown hotel in Cleveland About Me: I enjoy cooking, dancing and swimming. I am a geek and apply game theory to my everyday life. Winter is my favorite time of year, especially when spent curled up with good coffee and a book by Madeleine L'Engle.
About Ms. Dahlia

Part 1 - Inspiration
Part 2 - Color Crisis

You may recall that I was having some difficulties getting our invitations printed in a nice dark red. In my frustration, I did two things.

First, I decided to visit Papyrus and see what invitations they had that looked nice. We decided if the printing didn’t work out, that we might order these:

trusophistication.jpg
By Tru Sophistication

But they would be substantially more than our initial invitations. And I’d already purchased our envelopes from Envelope Mall, and it was past the deadline to return them.

So I did what I think any bride who is connected on online forums would do: I contacted a couple of women I’d met. Specifically, Mrs. Emerald, who used a dark red color for her invitations, and Manchmal, a graphic designer and fellow indiebride who has her own invitation design business.

(Note: If you want to print your own invitations using Vistaprint or Overnight prints, but are unsure of actually designing them, you should totally check out Manchmal’s etsy shop. She’ll pretty much create any invitation for you, and give you the files to print them out yourself. It’s awesome.)

With their help, I was able to figure out the problem and resolve it. Basically, Open Office has issues with publishing in CMYK, so that the full spectrum of CMYK colors is not available for use. Including dark red. So as many people had suggested, I downloaded a free trial of Adobe Illustrator.

And victory was mine. Check out how the next test print came out:
businesscard3.jpg
Perfectly red. With no indication of hemorrhoids.

I definitely couldn’t have done it without the help of Mrs. Emerald and Manchmal. At the risk of sounding really cheesy, I’m really grateful for the ways the internet has connected me with other people.

Where have you found help planning your wedding from online friends?

6 Responses to “Invitations - Part 3 - With A Little Help From My Friends”

1.
crickepte says:

So as long as we design in Illustrator, the colors through overnightprints work fine? That’s a relief; I’ve been designing mine in Illustrator, but your last few posts have made me worry about them :)

2.
beanchar says:

Hurrah for a happy ending! (But I can’t see the pics… is it just me???)

3.
bettingimnot says:

I <3 manchmal :)

but i can’t see the pics either..might be because i’m at work and they block EVERYTHING. :/

4.
mhb says:

um, I can’t see the pics, either…

but I’m glad this tale had a happy end!

5.
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Mrs. Emerald says:

YAY, I’m glad I was able to help! =) Can’t wait to see the finished product (when the pics work, hehe)

6.
Angela says:

I need to get started on designing save the dates/invitations/etc, so I’m in the middle of downloading Illustrator. Hopefully mine will turn out as wonderful as yours!

As for help from online friends…one of mine is actually going to be a bridesmaid in my wedding! We’ve known each other online since middle school, even though we’ve yet to actually meet in real life…but she has been there (electronically) for me through my entire relationship with my fiance, so I wanted her to stand with me on the big day. Plus she lives in Chicago, where me and my other bridesmaids took another friend for her bachelorette party a couple of years ago, so my online friend/bridesmaid is taking the reigns on planning stuff for us to do!


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