Take a look at that picture for a moment. Ancient Egyptian scroll? Nope. Writings of a revered Greek scholar preserved through the ages? Wrong. Something out of the DaVinci Code? Wrong again. It's a freaking WEDDING INVITATION from some woman who got married in Toronto. On her blog she explained that with 60 people she thought she had been really thrifty with her $16,000 budget. $16,000?! For 60 people? Based on my initial research into what wedding invitations cost I have to assume 1/4 of that was for the invitations alone!
The more I dig into this wedding thing the more disgusted I become. Not with the vendors. I understand, people need to make a living (especially these days!). But what is wrong with the BRIDES? How can you let someone talk you into spending $4,000 on invitations!? It must be that these women go temporarily insane after they are proposed to. I think that's because they have bought into the fantasy idea of what getting married is about. Look, I don't mean to sound unromantic, but it's not all roses and kittens once you get married. That's when the hard work BEGINS. You are going to spend the rest of your life with someone. Think about how tumultuous your own life has been over the years. Now you have to deal with all that and whatever his issues will be? That's no piece of wedding cake, I know that and I haven't even been married!
You marry the person who you think you can best get through that stuff with. Thankfully, I have found the right person (and he found me!).
I went this weekend to look at what invitations would cost from some local print shop. First of all, apparently the idea of a wedding invitation is to kill as many trees as possible, what with the envelopes, the invitations, the pieces of velum that are apparently supposed to separate each piece of paper from the next, the rsvp cards, their envelopes, etc. Then you have to have the lettering imprinted onto the cards, rather than just printed (it's called "letterpress"). And of course, you want color. If you want you can have the lettering in actual gold leaf, and really, anything less would be so gauche, don't you think? Then there is the fact that most of the invitations are square, which cost more to mail. And you need to have information about lodging, the agenda, etc. It's never ending! By the time you are done you don't need to worry about the extra postage to send the square envelope because you are sending a package via UPS! When I looked at the cheapest option they had it was going to cost $1,000 for invitations. INVITATIONS! That's 10% of my budget, and that's just crazy!
My friend Betsy, who is getting married around the same time, offered to take a letterpress class. She would have our friend Kristi (who is also getting married) and I pay for the class, and she would make the invitations for us. That is a very nice offer, but I am having trouble seeing it for some reason. She is an amazing designer, and I know she would do a great job (better than I could do, I know). And it does sound better than using the office color copier at night and pilfering the bond paper.
Sigh. Live and learn. I'd just like to learn that the trappings that come with getting married are actually connected to the bond you are making with your partner, rather than the result of an overexcited princess running amok with the checkbook to create a fairy tale for one day.
2 comments:
I know lots of people (including me...both times) that made their own invites. If you want any suggestions or just a shoulder to cry on, let me know.
Don't spend too much energy/money on them--they will end up in everyone's recycling bin! (Except for mine. I am sure you have that framed on your mantle). Easier said than done though. For some reason I had my wedding planning complete meltdown moment over my invitations. We made our own and probably spent less than $100. But they didn't have gold embossed font. I think only our snootier relatives cared about that though, and they didn't come to our wedding anyway!
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