Invitations

Yesterday I had a meeting with a lady who was going to make all of my wedding invitations for me.  Normally I wouldn't spend the extra money just to have someone do something for me, but wedding invitations seemed confusing and I was running out of time.  I had looked at the invitation kits at a couple craft stores and haddn't found anything particularly appealing.

So I sat there with the really nice lady flipping through huge binders of invitations, trying to find something that appealed to me and my budget.  I finally found a moderately priced invitation that was pretty much to my taste.

"So!  Let's put together the invoice.   This $300 base cost covers that of the invitation and the outer envelopes."

Sounds good, I thought.

"And you're going to want a return card with return envelopes, which is another $87."

Well, I need people to respond... 

"And you're going to want the outer envelopes printed with your return address on them...unless you feel like writing your address 100 times by hand...?"

Obviously not, thought I.

"Which will be another $38."

This still isn't too bad. 

"Did you say you wanted a reception card included?"

"Well, the reception is at the same place as the ceremony...we might be having a dance somewhere afterwards, but haven't quite decided yet."

"Okay!  No problem.  If you decide on having those cards, that will be $109 for 100..."

Holy shit.  Holy shit.  

"And that's everything!  Now after you put down the deposit, I'll send you e-proofs for the invitations and response cards about two weeks later.  These will be $8 each, so $16 for the proofs."

$16 for a PDF? 

"And when we send you the invitations, there will be a $20 shipping fee, and just an overall $16 fee for the printing costs."

....

"There we go!  So we'll keep in touch in the next couple weeks and work on the wording, and you can call me sometime and put down the deposit when you're ready!"

"...Thanks so much!..."

There's got to be a better way, I thought, driving home.  I called Nathan.  He talked about how he could design the invites...we could have an RSVP website instead of return cards...I could buy paper in bulk to print on...

"You know, Nathan, the thing is...I wasn't even in love with the invitation I picked out.  If I would have fallen in love with it...then I probably would have paid the ridiculous fees and costs..."

I drove to Michaels, full of the familiar wedding feeling of "Why is society making me pay this money for things I don't want?"  I had felt that way when Nathan and I were cake testing.  And when a dance at Northwestern was going to cost $1,300.

Walking into the craft store, I wasn't expecting to find much of anything; I was more looking for ideas.

But then I noticed them.

A boxed set of cream colored invitations with a light gold paisley accent.  There were little pockets on the inner flap of the invitation to hold reception cards and other notes--a feature that doubled the invitation cost if ordered from the invitation lady.  They were designed to be closed with a seal, meaning I could use my wax sealer I had bought ages ago.  Cream colored ribbon was included to hold everything in place once assembled.  They were classy and elegant, and I would pay anything to have them.

I grabbed three boxed sets and three packages of gold sealing wax, glancing at the price tags, vaguely.  Each boxed set cost $40, and each package of wax, $5.

If $150 wasn't a good enough deal, the total only came to $105.99 by the time I had checked out. Apparently the invitations were on sale.

I walked out of the craft store and right into Little Caesars.  I had, after all, saved $300 that night.  I could afford a $6 pizza.