On invitations

(Of course I intended to type "invitations", but with the letters being right beside each other, I spelled out "incitations" first, which is actually a good word for the feeling you get when sorting out your wedding invitations.)

I've heard of dashedly cavalier couples (in Malaysia) who photocopied their wedding invites. As you (now) know, copying paper weighs 60 grams per square meter (gsm), sometimes less. It's more suitable as flyers because it's flimsy.

Lest you think I'm an invitation snob, I would rather have Whatsapped/texted everyone I invited. Unless you got the wrong phone number, the message would go directly to the recipient instead of potentially getting lost in transit or having the ink smeared following exposure to bad weather.

Imagine if I had gotten a wrong number though. That might actually liven up things on that day...

My friend did a Facebook wedding page, which is great in theory, but I don't want Zuckerberg and minions tracking my business. Also, not all of my guests are on Facebook, so that kind of defeats the purpose.

So yes, we have hardcopy invitations. We did them ourselves. As in, I drafted the text,* edited it to fit the intended card size, and found and applied a free card template. Enfant Terrible the dictator director signed off on it. Then, we went to Art Friend and looked at their 200 gsm cardstock (perfect weight), and squabbled over the color. I concede that he has a better eye for pretty things (heheh) than I do.

We got a few pieces and burned through them in virtually 2 hours doing the test prints. We learnt that borderless vs. bordered printed can differ vastly. Always ensure that your ink cartridges are filled, as this affects the result when you do high vs. standard-quality and borderless vs. bordered prints. Do nozzle print checks before anything else. You will save time and parking fees and cardstock expenses.

Then, print all the copies you think you need, address the matching envelopes, and get sending. We bought the entire pack of cardstock, which is just as well, because I've had to print a few more pieces since the first run.

Cost-wise, the price per invite is lower than if we'd gone to a purpose-specific card supplier,** envelopes included. But then, ours is a no-frills, double-sided invite (the material is gorgeous). Personally, I couldn't care less about cards with gems and ribbons and other embellishments. I imagine that one of my favorite fiction characters would say they're "too fiddly", because that's exactly what I think. I do like a nice print as much as the next girl though, so that's what we did. I hope damask borders aren't overdone, because that's what we used.

*There really should be a typeface called Swirly Wedding to make everything easier. I used Vivaldi and Candara inWord, FYI. So budget.
**Some will charge for every single piece. They might offer a bulk discount, but still charge for every single piece.