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When Humms Cry*.
(Neither Mr. Hum nor I look like James Van Der Beek when we cry, but when I saw him make this face
in the third season finale of Dawson’s Creek, I was highly entertained. So now, I share it with you all. Run, Joey, Run!)
This week, Mr. Hummingbird and I were all set to begin the assembly of our invitations. At first, we were going to order them from somewhere, but since Mr. Hum is a designer and since I became hypnotized with the beautiful selections of papers at The Paper Place down by Trinity Bellwoods park, we figured we could do something just as good and just as beautiful ourselves.
(The Paper Place showroom - isn’t it pretty?)
So for the past three weeks, Mr. Hum has been working on a design and we’ve been steadily modifying it to our liking, until last night when we finally got it looking exactly the way we wanted and were ready to finally print them once and for all.
(You can see where this is going, can’t you?)
Well, if the graphic didn’t help, it seems that the computer did not like our invitation file and decided the best thing to do would be to spontaneously delete it just as we were getting the paper ready to be inked.
So now it seems, instead of putting the invitations together and mailing them this week, we are instead starting back at square one and having to come up with a completely different design (apparently, Illustrator - the program we were using - is now bugged and therefore we no longer have access to any of its effects).
As upset as we both were, and as tempted as I felt to take the computer out into a field somewhere and beat on it Office-Space-Style, we’re so on deadline with this part of the wedding that, aside from the initially tearful reaction, we’re just powering through with the redesign. As much as it sucks, stuff still has to get done.
(Seriously, who hasn’t wanted to do this with a piece of technology at some point?)
We should hopefully be done everything toward the end of this week if we’re lucky, but for now, I just had to share this frustration with the hive to let you guys know that stupid and ridiculous stuff happens to us Bees too.
Anyway, make me feel better and spill your guts - what crazy last minute setbacks have you faced while planning your wedding? What did you do about them?
* Because even in the face of wedding tragedy, I can’t resist entertaining you readers with a good Prince reference.
Aw, I feel your pain!!! I’m coming up on the 3-month mark and the invites were the most stressful part of planning so far. We didn’t have a technology meltdown, but more of a wanting-to-kill-each-other invitation meltdown. I’m glad we designed our own invites, but MAN, I’m also glad it’s over. Good luck with the redesign!
My setback was invitation-related, too. 
Turns out our direction card (printed on work’s laser printer) SMEARS all over the invitation and response postcard when the package is assembled following etiquette. We found this out after we sent our two test packages and luckily BEFORE we mailed the other 75 invitations…. but unfortunately, we’d already sealed all of the 75 envelopes.
Insert groan.
So we literally steamed every envelope open, and put the direction card to the back. This made the outer envelope flaps wavy, so the next step was to iron them all flap again. The integrity of the envelope glue was ruined, so we double-stick taped them closed again.
The ramifications? Our invitation will be pristine- yay! But the outer (and only) envelope looks slightly chewed on, and the beautiful envelope liner we have transferred a little onto the ribbon holding the invitation/response postcard/blasted direction card together.
That was this week. Heed my warning: do a test send to a friend, yourself or family- and do not seal those envelopes until you hear back from them.
Sorry to hear about the crash!
A geeky thought for you: is it possible that it’s your Illustrator software that got corrupted (not your invitation file)? Might be worth having a friend opening up your file on their version of Illustrator…
Either way, good luck!
RE: Your opening post.
BWAH! I’m so pleased that you’re a TWOPer. You have no idea. Troll face vs. Pacey? Ha! No contest, Joey. No contest. (and we still won!)
I’m a P/Jer from waaaaaaaaaaay back. Nice to know I’m not alone. Rock on, Miss Hummingbird!
*ahem*
That being said, the invites are the Dawson in my side and I can’t seem to make it go away, either. I wish that we could just get them out! They are one of the most important things that we need to do, yet the quickest thing we tend to put off. Damn, invitations!
I’m so sorry that your computer decided to be a dork and delete your file! I’d be pulling my hair out at that moment. I wish you the best in your future square one endeavors! Keep us posted!
I thought this was a good one: just last week my day-of coordinator sent me a CAD file showing my tent set-up for the reception. The email said “Here’s the tent set-up. Please note that not all of your tables will fit inside the tent.”
Oops.
New tent ordered. Crisis averted. Cost to the Tiramisus: $500. ugh.
Too funny - I was just coming to say that between being the only current Toronto bride AND being a TWoPer, you’ve just completely stolen my heart, but Miss Mandy has already made the TWoP point. I’m impressed that you are being so bravefaced and just starting fresh - I would have thrown a tantrum and started researching ridiculously expensive professional invitations while leaving the fiance to recreate something knowing that our budget can’t handle my “solution”.
Well, you already know the story of the Italian customs officials holding my dress hostage and balling it up like a Kleenex, so I will share my own printing horror story— well maybe “horror” is too strong , but it pissed me right off! 
About one week before we were due to leave to go back to Italy for the holidays, I decided I would use one of our wedding photos and make up holiday cards to send out. I bought pre-perforated postcards from Office Depot and downloaded the template for them from their website.
Well…. after spending time trying out different fonts and deciding how to crop the picture, when I went to print them I discovered the “template” was WAY off and I would have been better off starting from scratch. So that’s what I did and after mmuch swearing, the test one finally looked right. So, by now it’s the night before we are leaving and I stick a stack in the printer and… you guessed it…. the stack of postcards pulled differently than the single sheet and all my pretty cards had an empty white stripe down the side!
Thanks to my superpower of procrastination, it was either these or nothing, so I took them along with me in my bag and addressed them on the train to NYC. Alas, there are no mailboxes in the train station or JFK (thanks again, terrorists!), so they made the journey to Italy AND back and got mailed from my mom’s house in Annapolis upon our return.
“Happy About-A-Week After the Holidays from the Slightly Off-Kilter Beanchars! And no we don’t live in Maryland.”
Ugh, you poor girl.
My future mother-in-law is hosting the rehearsal dinner. Ages ago, we asked her if the invitations could be sent out immediately following our wedding invitations, since a significant number of my family is flying in and they would need to know if that they are invited to the rehearsal dinner prior to making plane reservations. She agreed.
Invitations in the mail. Fastfoward two weeks, still no rehearsal dinner invites. My fiance asked how they were coming along, she said she was almost done. The next day she calls and says “I decided I don’t feel like sending invitations. Everyone who is invited should just know.” WTF? I’ve been to rehearsal dinners for 200 and for 20. How do our guests know how many people we are inviting? So this means it’s on me, and I’m on a strict timeline, because my mother is calling 5 times a day asking if my fiance’s mother has sent out the invites yet.
I create a design, do the wording, and send it all to my FMIL for her approval. She writes back, says how wonderful it is, thanks me for doing all the work, and I start printing, cutting, and assembling. Three days later, everything is done and in the envelopes and I’m starting to address them when I get an email. “I think I’ve changed my mind. Since these are coming from me, I’d like something more formal.”
Oh yes. After I made everything, I HAD TO REMAKE ALL THE INVITATIONS because my fiance wouldn’t let me put them in the mail and tell my FMIL to kiss my @$$ for waiting 3 days after she said everything looked great. And now I’m out almost $200 in supplies since I had to repurchase everything all over again.
Sorry about your invitations!!My venue called one month before the wedding (after the invitations went out) and told me that the renovations that were supposed to be finished in August would not be complete for my October wedding. I had no ceremony or reception location. After a really really big meltdown. I got on the phone and called other venues to see what possibly could be available for one month later. The original venue was helpful and I ended up finding a place that was even better than the original location! But it was not a happy time - at all.
Oh no, julieulie. Did you at least tell her that you were essentially done with the first invitations? And she still wanted them done over? Seems like she should pay you for the supplies, at the very least.
I have to order my invitations in the next week, and although I thought we had everything picked out it suddenly looked kind of fussy and overdone to me. Shuffling back through other samples, I have now returned to a previous choice. Thanks heavens I’m not making them, or changing my mind at this point in time would be horrible. Still I often wish that I was - its really hard for me to tell exactly what they are going to look like, and being able to print samples would be a very good thing. My mother, though normally pretty crafty, is absotely anti-DIY where the wedding is concerned so I have to hide all my projects from her and then pretend I just bought them somewhere.
I’m sorry that happened, that really sucks! But I do have to say, I LOVE that store. I knew I wanted to make my own invitations, and was totally inspired by that place! I’m just glad I live in Waterloo and not Toronto so I can’t go there too often, or I would be a very very poor bride to be!
Hey, at least this is the end of your ‘last minute set-backs’ I hope… My last minute set-backs were way too close for comfort.
The DAY BEFORE THE WEDDING a number of not pleasant things happened
1.) my maid of honor got dumped by her boyfriend (NOT GOOD)
2.) The hotel that my fiance had booked in advance for me and my maid of honor allowed me to hang my wedding dress up in the room, and then would not let me return to the room because my fiance had not left a $1,000 deposit (which was waived by the day manager, but not communicated to the night staff)… I could not put the deposit on my credit card because the room was not reserved under my name - - Fiance and groomsmen had to leave their ‘night before party’ to drive down to the hotel to straighten out the mess, which took hours and subsequently along with the devistation of item #1 caused the delay with the next item…
3.) The delay getting into the room and the heartbroken maid of honor severely affected the assembly of programs that I had reluctantly scheduled to be completed in the hotel room (due to a misalignment of printed material that was discovered a few days prior during the originally scheduled program assembly day… What should have been a simple fold and ribbon routine turned into a cut, glue, fold and ribbon mess)
I sent my distraught maid of honor to bed, and I assembled the programs into the wee hours. I ended up with about an hour long naps worth of sleep before it was time for hair and make-up for the big day… Unbelievable!!!
And I was a very organized bride, specifically handled all of my DIY projects super early to avoid this last minute hoop-la. Oh well, the big day turned out great… and no-one knew that the bride had no sleep
we’re finishing up self-designed invitations now and they’re the death of me. keep in mind with each of these items, we’re running late to get these out and we’re on a super tight budget.
-The invitation and response cards came back from the printers with ink streaks and bad registration marks, but after an angry phone call they agreed to reprint them. new ones arrived two weeks late.
-the envelopes that we ordered ended up turning out much shinier and brighter pink than they looked on-line and didn’t fit the rest of our design aesthetic. returned them and decided to make our own (no more stationary budget left)
-after looking on ebay for a week and buying the perfect vintage stamps to put on our reply card, i somehow lost them somewhere in our house three days ago. and i’m a clean and organized person, but fi and i can’t find them anywhere!! the invitations have to go out this weekend! deep breaths. deep breaths.
I’ve realized I just fawned over you and didn’t reassure you with tales of disasters that didn’t spoil the wedding. My fiance and I spent days making the programs - I, in my infinite wisdom, decided on a semi-complicated design that involved a folded piece of cardstock, pieces mounted on the front and back (so there was a border of the other colour under), and then a ribbon attached under the back mounted paper but tied into a bow over the front mounted paper. Unnecessary work for something that I had dismissed at the beginning as an unnecessary product. So we finished these a month in advance, put them away and out of mind, pulled them out the day before the wedding to discover that the double sided tape we had used was not sticky enough and the back pieces had all come un-mounted. Fiance, bridesmaid and myself spent hours the day before the wedding re-securing them all with rubber cement.
ohmigod. Funniest. Post. Start. Ever.
I finally convinced the FI to watch dawson’s creek, and we are currently on season 1. The fashion and music is priceless. FIs first comment was: I can see why that kid did Varsity Blues. He looks like such a pansy here. tehehe.
Oh and we aren’t “last minute” yet, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to ditch at least 5 prospective projects. good luck with the invites..
love the office space picture.. you crack me up!
My FMIL threw a new guest at me a month before the wedding, our DJ cancelled, ummm what else. (I know there’s more.)
I bet whatever your second version is, it’ll rock. Always works out like that.
p.s. The Office Space pic made my day.
Ahhh!!! I love that scene from Dawson’s Puddle! Perhaps the funniest un-funny moment from teen drama history. I mean, I feel bad because either 1) Joey just left him for Paris or something, or b) His dad died. I can’t remember which un-funny moment it was. THANK YOU for reminding me of how much fun I had replicating that face and his wail for weeks after the episode aired. Thank you!
I loooooooooove the paper place. That’s where we got gold paper for our invitation. It’s so pretty. 
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Mrs. Hummingbird, Toronto Age and Occupation: 25, Publishing Coordinator Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, Videogame Designer/Cartoonist Engagement Date: May 4, 2007 Wedding Date: June 28, 2008 Blogging Since: September 18, 2007 Venue: A garden wedding followed by a tented reception on Mr. Hummingbird's father's property. About Me: I’m a pop culture loving, vintage obsessed foodie living in Canada’s biggest city with my fantastic fiancé and our lovable fluffy cat Bettie. I’m stoked to marry my best friend and to throw what I hope will be the most fun and colourful party of our lives.
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