Weddingbee Blog

… (and doesn’t kill each other in the process) stays together.

When we left off, I had a bunch of uniformly cut (but blank) paper. My next task was to take care of that blankness! I printed all of the cards on Tuesday during my lunch hour. Printing your own paper products is an art in itself, especially on oddly-shaped paper. The margins NEVER cooperate. You have to trick the printer in to thinking it’s doing something its designed for, while at the same time praying that you don’t get a jam. (I got several.) I thought my biggest issue would be the RSVP cards, because my printer is designed not to accept paper under 4.83 inches wide (mine’s 4″). Thankfully, I’d already printed the Save-The-Dates on the same small paper, so I knew I could coerce the printer in to doing this. The 10″x12″ paper was the WORST. So many pages were ruined. There were so many that I had to redo. It would NOT line up properly, and it kept jamming. I finally got ’em done, though.

I used Photoshop to flatten, combine, and line up my cards to correspond to the size of paper on which they were to be printed:

• Six “You’re Invited” cards on each of twelve 12″ x 10″ pieces.
• Five “About the Couple” cards on each of fourteen 12″ x 10″ pieces.
• Four “Directions” cards on each of six 12″ x 11″ pieces.
• One “RSVP” card on each of seventy 4″ x 5.5″ pieces.

Here’s an example of one of my layouts.

Each of them was 400 DPI. You can see those orangey-yellow cutting guidelines I mentioned in my previous post. I picked that color because orangey-yellow is less harsh than black, but still visible over the ivory.

And here they all are, not yet cut (aside from the RSVP cards, which were all the right size already)! Notice the photo of us? I had those printed at Walmart. My dad took it (with my camera) last week, when we were visiting my family on the East Coast. Once cut, these’ll be 4″x4″ prints which will fit nicely on the inside front flap of each enclosure.

Did I mention that my oh-so-helpful man cheerfully rounded the corners of 70 enclosures and 70 belly bands while I was choppity-chopping all of these pages up? ’Cause he totally did. A few hours later, we had this.

Finally it was time for…. The ASSEMBLY! I can’t complain too much about the assembly process because Mr. MJ did the bulk of it. I was feeling very loved indeed! With the exception of the first one — which I made to show him what I wanted the end-result to look like — I didn’t punch a single hole or insert a single brad. He did it all. All 67 of them. Even after he made the statement every bride knows is true, but we all refuse to believe: “Most people are just going to throw these away anyway.” He was more meticulous about it than I was, too. He kept asking me if various issues were OK (Example: “The texture on this piece of paper is vertical, not horizontal like most of the others!”). I felt like a very passive bride because my answer was almost always something like “Eyeball it, it’s fine. They are DIY, after all!!”

A major issue we encountered with the assembly process was the size of the cards. Due to printer line-up errors, none of the cards were exactly the same size. For example, half of the “You’re Invited” cards were about a quarter-inch too short vertically, and a third of them were a half-inch too narrow (they didn’t adequately cover up the “About the Couple” text). What a P-I-T-A. I’d wanted to just be able to grab one off of each stack, stick them together and call it good. Instead, I had to hand-pick and re-trim each “set” of cards to match. So I’d grab a set of cards, trim them up, and set them in a stack in front of Mr. Mary Jane, like this:

You can also get a taste of the mess my 1/16″ hole puncher makes. Its clipping catcher is not up to par, at all.

He’d then line them up with an RSVP card (which we’d be attaching separately, later), punch two holes through the stack, insert the brads, and affix them to the brown enclosure. Then he’d fold the enclosure so it’d cover the invitation text, like so:

The one he’s working on here is one of the “no directions” invitations.

We made 24 “suites” with directions (one for me to scrapbook!), and 43 without directions since many of the invitees are relatives and neighbors who don’t need the directions. Only 56 are needed (20 with directions, 37 without), but FMIL suggested we make some extras just in case she needed to invite more people. I also wanted one for my future scrapbook!

We had used mail-merge to print each RSVP card with a guest’s name and address (because nobody likes a mystery RSVP!). This means that when stuffing the envelopes (which we also used mail-merge to address), we had to be sure we had the RSVP card correctly matched to the right envelope. I matched each RSVP card to its corresponding envelope while Mr. MJ gathered a few tools for his next task.

Since we had two types of invitations suites, I also sorted the envelopes and their corresponding RSVPs in to two piles: guests who’d need directions and those who wouldn’t. Then it was time for a new assembly line.

Remember my paper clip idea? The clips didn’t make the front-and-center appearance I’d originally planned, but we did still incorporate them! I didn’t want to attach the RSVP with a brad (I wanted it to be easily removable for mailing). So, Mr. Mary Jane would grab an invitation, stick on a photo of us (using a double-stick tape square), make a small slit in the back of each enclosure, insert a paper clip, and stamp its corresponding RSVP.

Then he’d pass it all on to me. I would line up and attach the RVSP using the paper clip he’d inserted. Then I’d fold the belly band, apply the pink sticker, put it in the envelope and seal it up.

It was really fun to work with Mr. Mary Jane on this project. The work went twice as fast - especially since we tended to have unspoken contests in regard to who could finish their assigned task faster. After we had everything assembled and sealed, it only took us about 5 minutes to divide-and-conquer the stamping process.

And, color me relieved! They were done 4 days ahead of the deadline set by FMIL and I for their mailing. And thanks to Mr. Mary Jane’s willing and persistent help, it only took us about 4 evenings’ time. We made some extras too, in case FMIL needs to invite a few more people. Each of them contains a stamped RSVP with lines where the invitee can write their name and address.

And yes, my envelopes are so thin that you can see through them. No, I didn’t care about that enough to add a liner.

Up next, close ups the final product (and a costs-breakdown (including postage)).

Previously in this series:
It began with a Post-It note on a Friday.
I had a change of heart on Saturday.
On Monday, new plan emerged, and a crisis was averted.
Monday night revealed a new design (and a lot of paper-cutting).
On Tuesday, we took a break.
On Wednesday and Thursday, all of the happenings above took place.
And soon, I’ll share some detailed photos and the costs of making these.

Have you taken on any complicated crafting projects in record time? Did you have help, and did you meet (or exceed) your deadline?