Wedding Biz Update

As those of you who follow the personal details of my life already know quite well, I am getting married to my long-time girlfriend Shelley in January. I proposed in May, and then promptly left for Kyrgyzstan for the next 2 months. Not the best way to bask in the post-proposal glow, btw.

While I was abroad, Shelley was not adequately preoccupied - professionally or otherwise - and decided to go back and visit family in Houston, just a (very long) stone's throw from our wedding site in San Antonio. Whatever the chemical formula for (Shelley) + (time) - (distractions) is, it needs to be plastered in all places of employment right alongside the beloved Choking Ahogo placards.

By the time I returned to the states, Shel had virtually the entire wedding planned. Venue, menu, reception, officiants, flowers, cake, even her dress was done. What remained were those items designated as my responsibility: Invitations, Music, and Groom's attire.

So how's all that coming?

Let's just say that (Ryan) + (time) tends to = (distractions).

What can I say? I'm a curious little critter.

Or, as I like to say, "Hey, I already did the proposal..."

But progress has been made, and without giving anything too juicy away, I thought I'd post a few whatnots for anyone who might be curious.

This is what our Save the Date looks like (go go VistaPrint) when tacked to my bulletin board - a constant reminder that I have a girl I love even when she's far away - and a helpful reminder that even happy things like weddings still have deadlines.

If you haven't received one of these yet... well, I don't know what to tell you. It's either lost in the mail, we simply don't have room even though we love you to death, or we're just jerks.

The invitations themselves will be printed in San Antonio - hopefully by a former business contact... if he'll ever get back to me! We scoped out a lot of wedding invitation specialists, but most of them wanted to do much fancier details than we cared about ("will that be Letter Press, or Thermography?"), and all of them were beyond the budget we set up.

So we just designed it ourselves. We could have gone with a pre-made design - there are certainly lots that look excellent - but what's the point of having a working knowledge of Photoshop and a very talented Graphic designer as a close friend if you can't pull off something custom when the occasion warrants? (btw - Thanks to Laura Glaess, for creating our key graphic element).

Here's a tasty teaser for what the Back of the invitation and response card should look like.

While we sort out the specifics of getting the invitations printed, preparations continue on the other miscellany of sending out an old-fashioned snail-mailing to 150 of your closest friends/relatives/etc. We've been checking, double-checking, (and no small amount of fretting) over our invite list, confirming spellings and getting addresses. Then there's the issue of envelopes.

Finding and purchasing the right ones was no big deal (thanks to paperandmore.com), but they all still need to be addressed, including return addresses. Lots of wedding stationary people will print this info directly on the envelope for you... for a price.

But I'm marrying a former elementary school teacher. "Why don't we just buy a custom rubber stamp for $10?" Most useful M.A. degree ever?

With the addition of a black ink pad (for the "soft orchid" return envelopes) and some super-cool silver ink (for the main "deep purple" envelopes), I was in business.

Pronouns switch from "we" to "I" because at this point Shelley left New York for a 2 month tour based out of San Antonio, and thus my responsibilities became exclusively mine to achieve.

I won't bore you (further) about the difficulties and delicacies of working with silver ink, attempting to maintain horizontal stamping, or finding enough work space to lay out 200 envelopes to dry in a New York studio apartment. Instead, I'll let the visuals (and results) speak for themselves:



And how are we/I coming with the music and Groom's attire...

I'll have to get back to you on that on. But I'll promise not to watch the ink dry, if you promise not to hold your breath.

Weber
::(lame) Texpatriot