Weddingbee Blog

I saw all these things online, including on Weddingbee, about brides who had designed their own save the dates. There were the picture-booth STDs, the refrigerator-magnet STDs, the personal-photo STDs. And then there were STDs that were some lovely combination of the three.

I thought, “I could do that! I work 12-hour shifts sitting in front of a computer. I can knock those out with my occasional free time in a couple of shifts!” So I headed over to Vistaprint to see what I could come up with.

I quickly learned the easier thing to do was to design something myself about the right size on my beloved Microsoft Word and upload it as my own design. Making it the size of a postcard was waaaaay cheaper than paying $7.99 for every 10 invites of a different size.

Wedding Planning Tip #5: If you have a large guest list, don’t order anything that only comes in sets of 10, except party favors.

I got to work designing the invitations. I used that first color that we came up with. The one that’s on the thank you wreath. I felt pretty proud of my design. I was feeling confident that I could easily design our wedding invitations as well since this had been so painless.

Personal image: Original STD design

I thought they were perfect. They were fun and casual, like an STD should be, but they also set a great tone for the wedding. They looked fun and full of love, and they used our colors beautifully. Plus, I was able to feature some of my favorites of the e-photos.

I was very satisfied with these and *brushing off my shoulders* in a very smug congratulatory manner. Trust me, hive, when I say, “the higher you sail, the farther you fall.”

I emailed these to Momma Kettle and Mr. Kettle. Mr. Kettle said they were cool, Momma Kettle said they were all right. Not quite the standing ovation I was expecting.

Then more things happened.

1. I realized I’d forgotten to use the save-the-date-bunting picture. The one I spent hours preparing with FSIL Hon. I’d completely forgotten that ever-so-important-at-the-time project.
2. We changed our wedding colors. The guys had been waffling between gray and black, and when they settled on black that fade to gray in the picture just didn’t work.
3. We hadn’t actually sorted out how many people we were inviting, so I didn’t actually know how many to order. At first I wanted to order 300 because that’s how many guests we were inviting. Then I realized we’re not inviting that many households!!!
4. Apparently, I worded it wrong, too. “Formal Invitations to Follow” should read “Formal Invitation to Follow.” My mother is a huge fan of appropriate etiquette and wording, as am I, so this just wouldn’t do.

This was quite the epic fail on my part. Epic fail. I was lucky enough that the order I placed, for 300 STDs in the wrong color, could be cancelled and re-done.

I then began changing the STDs over and over again. My confidence shaken, I changed the design at least six more times before settling on one. But by then, it was time to send out invitations for our e-party and our Moo cards. Sigh. It was quite a process. I’ll show you all the final product after I’ve talked about planning our engagement party, which actually took place last Saturday!

Did you grow wiser and smarter after a DIY-attempt fail? How did your STDs turn out?