As I'm trying my hardest to stick to our budget for the wedding, I sourced my own invite making materials online. So far, it's cost me approximately £50 to buy all the materials for 40 day invites (with 3 inserts each) and 40 evening invites. I found Wedding Crafter to be a good quality and reasonably priced and have had no problems.
You'd think I'd be over the moon at spending so little on wedding invitations when you can, in this industry, spend in excess of £150 for somebody else to do it for you. That's all well and good if you have budgeted for that expense, or equally don't have the time nor patience or artistic flair to do them yourselves.
I, on the other hand, knowing I'm on a strict budget, bought my materials and then continued on to have a mini meltdown at my complete lack of creative skills, despite, may I add, having completed my GCSE art exam. I thought I could just whip something up. Easy. Little did I know, everything that I thought would look amazingly elegant in my head, did not look quite so exquisite on actual paper. Even when I had spent time on a mock design and then presented it, (albeit with closed eyes and a screwed up face) to Mr S, he actually let out a little laugh until he noticed my wide eyed sad look, said "oh, I thought you were joking with this one". Needless to say I was not amused and was a contributing factor to my meltdown.
I actually nearly cried to my mum about those stupid invites and when I was explaining why I looked so glum to a work colleague, it made me go all hot and anxious at the thought of not having them sorted and not being able to make this part of the wedding planning slip easily in to place like the rest so effortlessly has. That's how much it got under my skin. But my lovely mum gave up her only day off during the week to come and help me out. A fresh pair of eyes to look over the situation.
I can't help that I felt a mixture of joy and dismay as my mum nonchalantly created a beautifully simple yet stylish evening invitation within approximately 3 minutes; I was awash with relief knowing I didn't have to carry on thinking about endless designs yet slightly annoyed that it had taken her 3 minutes and just a small length of ribbon to create. "That's it! No more evening designs, that's the one! Right, now on to the day invitations". Those took longer than the initial 3 minutes and are actually still a work in progress. My fantabulous mum is still knocking up designs when she gets home from work with different style ribbons and the like but I think we have a winner. I'm actually going to start making the final mock of what I'm hoping to use after I've posted this. It then leaves me 6 months to make them all (it took me 3 hours to make my first one). Plenty of time, I know but due to my unfortunate lack of patience, it has to be done. Now.
I'm sure there's a moral to this story; and that is something along the lines of the fact that it is easy to get yourself worked up when looking at a choice or making a decision on something by yourself. The best thing to do is sleep on things and then get an outsider (whom you trust to give you an honest opinion) and start afresh. Things sometimes need a different view and you need to be expressed that view from someone other than yourself (no matter how right you want to believe you are) and your partner in crime.
So don't fret all you wedding invitation designers; I'm officially rubbish and there is absolutely no need for concern that you have any competition coming from my direction.
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