This simple stack of envelopes represents around 8 hours of work and even more hours of stress!
In addition to the work that went into tracking down addresses (special shout out to Charlotte for tracking down all of Andrew's relatives, and Tom for being persistent in tracking down the last few), I literally spent a couple of weeks debating whether I could polish off my calligraphy skills to hand write all the addresses.
In the end, I went with a printed calligraphy font that sort of resembles my handwriting (other than being much neater), after being reassured by my bridesmaids and by fellow Knotties that it was OK to do so according to wedding etiquette:
I think the font ended up looking nice, especially since I went through the painstaking process of printing the addresses on the envelopes, which took HOURS!
While in the beginning, I was uber concerned about following etiquette for every single thing but somewhere in the middle, I decided to follow my instincts and be practical. In addition to printing out the addresses, I used a stamp that my dear friend Camie had gifted me with a few years back. Traditionally, return addresses are embossed on the back. After some debate, Andrew and I decided to stamp the front since our envelopes would look odd with too much white space on the front. Another rule I broke - for the most part, while I did follow the formal approach of addressing married couples as "Mr. and Mrs. Husband's Full Name", there were a few that we left addressed to a person's nickname, such as Ted instead of Theodore. In addition, I added "and Guest" to people who were invited with guests. Technically, you're only supposed to put that on the inner envelope of wedding invitations. But you know what, I felt like it was only fair to let people know whether they were invited with a plus one!
What I came to realize was that while I wanted to make a great impression with the Save the Dates, there was no way that everyone would be noticing the same details that I worrying about, and worse yet, judge me for not doing things a certain way. It sounds obvious, but sometimes you get too lost in the wedding planning process to think practically!
Wedding invites will be interesting as they will involve more pieces to put together and will require true calligraphy. I've got a few months before I have to worry about those.
Finally, a special thanks for my patient fiance Andrew. We formed an assembly line to package the save the dates and get them ready for mailing. We both mounted the magnets and while I checked the addresses against my master list, he carefully applied the stamp to each corner. He also took care of stamping the return address while I sealed each envelope with a damp paper towel. It took us an hour and a half but we were pretty proud of work when we were done.
They're hitting the mail today so that's one more thing crossed off my list. My blogging should resume a more regular posting schedule now that my evenings are free from printing. I'll post a picture of the Save the Date once people have gotten a chance to see them in person, as I want it to be a bit of a surprise.
No comments:
Post a Comment