Wedding Blog
I thought the invitations were done. The reason I thought that is because I finished printing them, assembling them, and had placed them carefully in a big plastic storage case ready to be put in their envelopes and mailed next week. Seems reasonable enough, right? Here’s the problem…
You might remember that when I first showed the designs for our invites, the RSVP card had spots where guests could indicate if they were planning to attend the “Saturday wedding” and the “Friday welcome dinner”. Here it is:
You may or may not have noticed that the part about the Friday welcome dinner was mysteriously missing from the final RSVP cards. The reason for that was my FMIL changing her mind about the rehearsal dinner/welcome party invitations. We had originally planned to include them with the invites, with this card, that I worked with her and revised multiple times so that it was to everyone’s liking:
We were just about to start printing these, when she let Mr. Tiramisu know that she wanted to do the invitations separately, on her own, so that they would stand out more. I was a little upset, since I had spent so much time designing all the cards- and the RSVP card- to include the welcome dinner information. I also thought that it might be confusing for our guests to receive two different invitations for our wedding weekend (remember, we’re inviting ALL of the guests to the welcome dinner), requiring them to RSVP two separate times. But I redesigned the RSVP card, switched the “Friday” card out for a website information card, and got to gocco’ing the invites.
This brings us to today, when Mr. Tiramisu let me know that his mom now wishes she could include the information about the welcome dinner in our invites. . . Now I know she doesn’t expect me to re-print the cards, but I really do agree that it would be better to include the info all together, and only require the guests to RSVP once. Because come on, people have a hard enough time RSVP’ing just the one time. I just get a little crazy when I think about un-assembling my carefully paperclipped inserts, gocco’ing new cards, reassembling… times 140 invitations.
So here are the options, as I see them… (here are the invites as they are now)
1. Print up a new “Friday” card (or print on the back of the website info card? would that be weird?) to add to the invites, and print up a new RSVP card to exchange for the old one, with spots to RSVP for both Friday and Saturday, as seen above.
2. Print up a new “Friday” card to add to the invites, and print something either on that card or on the back of the RSVP card explaining how to RSVP for the Friday dinner. What exactly, I don’t know.
3. Say sorry, it’s too late, we can’t change the cards.
4. Can anyone think of another option?
Any advice here? It’s a little bit of a sticky situation. What would you do?
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My first instinct is to say #3 because FMIL would have p*d me off. But since you shouldn’t be punishing your guests, I guess you should go with option 2. Maybe you can make a tiny little RSVP card for Friday only that the guests can just stick in the main RSVP envelope so you don’t have to reprint the entire main RSVP card. I’m picturing a tiny card that says “I want to come on Friday! (insert this card in RSVP envelope along with RSVP to let us know you will be joining us on Friday)” HTH
How about option 2! Print up another card, and put your FMIL’s phone number and an email (your fiancee’s?) as an option for RSVPs? This seems easier than option 1. Alternatively, tell your FMIL that since you’ve already assembled the invites, it would really be easier if she sends a separate invite. Do what stresses you out least while maintaining the peace.
We’re getting married in the South where there are always a lot of events surrounding the wedding. We have a Wed. night BBQ for those who are in already thrown by my parents, a Thurs. night Dock Party for the wedding party and family thrown by aunt and uncle, a Friday night rehearsal cocktail party for all of our out of town guests (most of the wedding) thrown by in-laws, the Saturday wedding, and then a Sunday brunch thrown by aunts and uncle. Whew! However, the people throwing the events sent out the invites other than for the wedding and cocktail party.
I had originally planned on including the invite for our Friday night cocktail party for the invite, but no one would make decisions on dates/times, so I sent the wedding invites without it. Later, I whipped something together on overnightprints.com with our wedding invite graphic and similar colors for the Friday night event for my in-laws and put my fiancee’s number or our website as the RSVP options. It worked out perfectly! And no one has gotten confused by separate invites.
Good luck! And try not to let this stress you, it will work out fine.
This is a tricky one, and I want to be nice and save you work and say go with option 2. Then I thought about it for a few seconds and realize, you sound way too much like my OCD self when it comes to such things and I think it would continue to annoy me that things weren’t as seamless as I had intended. I, myself, would likely end up going for option 1 so that after the extra work was done, I could rest assured it was exactly as I originally want it…because I’m just like that. Option 2 could be just as appropriate and would not be awkward or anything so go for that option if you think you’ll be satisfied with the end result. In a way, it makes good sense for the card to be separate…perhaps the dinner RSVP card could be printed on the back of the dinner invitation card to avoid confusion with too many cards, and both RSVP cards could then just be slipped in one envelope and sent off.
I agree with taytayalis that my first instict is #3 too…haha. But, as much as this is going to su*k, I would go with option #1. I think you would be the happiest with the result, and it’s what you wanted in the first place. Just get a bottle of wine, and break out the gocco!
Wow… this is a tough one. I think most people get confused enough with simple rsvp’s that I would go with option #1. I think you’d be happier with the complete invitation package, and avoid a lot of confusion. Before printing anything new though, I’d double check with Mr. Tiramisu’s mom that she’s ok with the direction you are going. She seems to change her mind a lot. Let her know what you’re thinking, give her some time to digest it, then print away and don’t take anymore revisions!
I guess it depends on whether you actually have time to reprint. If you do, then going with your original design is the best thing. If you don’t, I would tell your FMIL it’s too late to change the invitations. The RD is generally less formal, even if large, and you can print a one page invitation, send it separately, and have people RSVP by phone. Taking all the phone calls should teach FMIL a thing or two about changing her mind so many times. Really, it’s ridiculous that she has gone back and forth like this with essentially no regard for what effect that might have on your plans and the amount of work you have to do. Of course, be nice… but you have no obligation to spend time you need for other things on reprinting because of her inability to make up her mind.
i would print up a friday card, i would not put the info on the back of another card and risk someone not turning it over.
for rsvp for the friday event, can you have people attending the friday celebration call or email your mother in law? that way you can include one line of how to rsvp on the friday card and only print 1 new card.
Get out your rolling pin and viciously pound your sofa with it while screaming “What the $*&# ! and then go with Option #2. .Use either a by phone or by email RSVP– or, if your wedding website could be set up for it, have them RSVP there.
Option 2, with instructions on the new card to call your FMIL and harrass - er, RSVP to her about Friday.
If I got an invitation set up that way, I would just think I was special to get the additional insert. No confusion.
i had a very similar issue. i would go for option 2 and include the rsvp option on either your person wedding website, phone number and/or email. good luck!
What about a new Friday card that doubles as a response card? You can either ask them to include it in the envelope with their reception response card (assuming it fits) or make the Friday card a postcard that can be mailed back as the response card. It’s an extra stamp, but might save you some aggravation. I like the web-site rsvp idea as well. Although, beware that your FMIL will hate that idea…..
I agree with the hive - option two, print one new card with the rehearsal dinner info and how to RSVP (whether it’s by phone/email to FMIL, via your wedding website, or by mail if the card itself is a pre-stamped postcard). I totally agree with mhb - if I got an ‘extra’ card in my invite, I’d assume I got a special invitation to the RD! I do think gocco’ing on the back of any of your existing cards is risky, though - most people probably don’t scrutinize every piece of an invitation front and back!
I’m for sending the Friday card separately. Rehearsal dinner invites go separately anyway, so instead of sending one of those, send out a Welcome Party card.
The Welcome party card can just have a phone number and/or email address so you don’t have to worry about another rsvp card.
That’s what we did for our two parties.
Oh..and BTW…make sure to give the guest list to your FMIL and make her in charge of the Welcome party RSVPs.
I say print up the friday card and include FMIL’s phone number to rsvp. That we she can worry about who hasn’t called yet. You can just kee giving her an updated list of who has RSVP’d to the wedding.
If you don’t want to rock the boat and do #3, I’d say go for #1 if you have the time and energy. It’s easier for the guests I think to RSVP at the same time.
another option might be (though I can’t remember the exact set-up of your inviations…) to print the Friday RSVP check box on the back of the current RSVP AND on the Friday card, include a note about RSVPing on the back of the Wedding RSVP card…
hmm, or maybe that’s just too complicated.
I really don’t think that sending the two separate invitations would be toooo inconvenient–just apologize to FMIL and remind her you’re bummed you guys couldn’t have reached this decision before you had to change your design. And offer to provide the design when she sends out the dinner invites/Rsvps. It’s a tough call.
What computer program did you use to create these? I really like them!
For our “extra” party — The “Day After Brunch” we are just informing people and not doing RSVPs so people don’t get confused. Makes food estimation a bit tougher — but cut down on paper and confusion.
Print a separate invite card, smaller than the invite but larger than the reply, and include an email or phone for that reply. Make the reply by date later than the reply card date, so that it appears there is a reason (even if there isn’t one) for the separate reply methods. It will also give your guests a chance to figure out whether they feel like traveling early on Friday.
How about printing a postcard size card for the Friday invite, with the invite on the “picture” side of the Postcard, and the the back side having the return address on one half and the RSVP info on the other half. It would stand out, since it’s a separate unit, but you wouldn’t have to take anything of yours apart.
I’d send a separate invite to the Friday event. Just make it a phone or email rsvp so people don’t have to mail twice. Clearly note on your wedding website that everyone is invited to the Friday event and have fun!
First off I totally sympathize with you on this! I had a very similiar FMIL problem with the both the save the date AND the invitations! She proofed everything a million times and after both things were printed, she wanted them changed.
My future in laws decided that they wanted to host a cocktail party Friday night and invite ALL 220 guests. So we decided to include with our invitation not only a response card to the reception, but also an invitation AND response card to the cocktail party. One response card would go to my parent’s and one would go to FMIL. I had the same concern that you did about people not responding and getting that they need to mail 2 response cards. But I went along with it, because it was just easier that way. And to tell you the truth, I was pleasantly surprised! Most people (I’d say about 90% of our 220 guests) got it! We got pretty much all of our responses back on time!
My adivce would be not to print anything on the back of the card. People will never see it! I think what worked for us is that we made sure that the response cards “matched” the invitations in the alignment of the printing. The wedding invitation and response card was printed vertically and the cocktail party invitation and response card was printed horizontally. I know you might be past this point already, but maybe you could ask your FMIL to have these things printed and done herself to match what you alreay did and include them with the invitation?
Or just hand over the reigns to her completely and ask her to design, print, and send out the rehearsal dinner invitations. After all, it’s their party and their responsibility. Although, I know that easier said then done! My FMIL changed venues after the invitations were already printed!!!
Hope that helps!
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Mrs. Tiramisu, Annapolis, MD/Maine
Age and Occupation: 26, Eye Doctor
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Project Manager/Real Estate Management grad student
Engagement Date: May 15, 2007
Wedding Date: July, 2008
Blogging Since: March 4, 2008
Venue: Oceanfront lawn and tent
About Me: I was born and raised in Maine, now living in Annapolis, Maryland and planning a hometown wedding from afar. I’m nothing short of obsessed with wedding planning, and am loving the do-it-yourself madness that has now taken over my life! As for me, I’m a craft-loving, martini-drinking, girly-girl who loves traveling, photography, my schnauzer, and above all, spending time with Mr. Tiramisu.
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