World's Most Complicated Wedding Invitation

I have a talent for making things harder than they need to be. 

Kiah first wanted postcards wedding invitations. I thought that was too easy and wouldn't use up enough of my time, so with a short 3 1/2 months between Kiah getting engaged and getting married, the most efficient thing to do was to pick the hardest and most time-consuming option.

Mistake #1 - Thinking homemade invitations would be fast and easy.

My friend, Laura, and I attended a scrapbook retreat in April. We saw two sisters making wedding invitations for friends. The sisters cranked out 325 hand made invitations and made it look easy.

Mistake #2 - Choosing a complicated project

The one sister said she'd seen the cutest wedding invitation in a Scrapbook store.  

She showed me a picture and speculated that it would be easy to make. Said they'd be willing to come help.

After browsing Pinterest options, Kiah chose the invitation I'd seen at the retreat. Then she returned home to LaCrosse while I worked on this "easy" invitation.

Mistake #2 - Not asking my retreat friends to help

They live three hours away. They're both busy and I didn't want to bother them. Thought that between my daughters and friends, we could get it done. The invitation ended up taking two months to finish, much to my husband's chagrin. 
 
Mistake #3 - Not buying a necessary tool

When I bought the metal die, the clerk asked if I wanted the metal shim. The metal what??? She said the shim helps the metal die to cut cleaner. Nah. My husband is great at improvising. He could make something that would work. 

Mistake #4 - Not admitting I'd made a mistake

I gleefully cut paper and shot it through the Cuddlebug. Nothing. No easy, amazing, beautiful die cut.  Turns out I needed a "C" plate for the machine. Who knew? Of course could not be purchased in Ashland. Or any other nearby town. We found it seventy miles away at Hobby Lobby in Duluth. 

Mistake #5 - Not cutting my losses

Round 2. The Cuddlebug shuddered, creaked, and sounded like it would break any second. The crank was hard to turn. The paper was only cut halfway through. Ah! So that's why the metal shim was necessary. The metal die won't cut all the way otherwise. Drats! The scrapbook store clerk should have insisted I buy the metal shim! At this point I didn't want to spend any more money so used an improvised shim Keith had made.

Mistake #6 - Enlisting Laura's help

Everyone said the invitations were too much work and that I should do something simpler. Laura thought they were really pretty and offered to help. Laura spent many hours helping me assemble the invitations. If she hadn't helped, I might have listened to the 20 other people who I was crazy.

Cranking paper through the Cuddlebug was hard so we took turns. Every crank sounded like it would be the last. The paper had to be gently coaxed from the die. All the cut out pieces of paper were still firmly stuck in the die. 

Fortunately the die had holes in back to push the paper out. Unfortunately, there were over a hundred holes. 

We had to poke the paper out with a needle or toothpick before the die could be used again. EVERY STUPID TIME. No fast mass production here. I conscripted my girls to push the little pieces of paper out, cut paper, turn a few cranks, color letters, and cook dinner while I worked.

We originally planned to make 100 bases in one color and 100 tops in another. We planned to cut letters off the top layer and glue them to the bottom layer. After making 100 bases, it became quickly apparent that our wrists couldn't handle 100 more cranks and Kiah would be celebrating her tenth anniversary before we finished. 

We nixed cutting the second set of 100 die cuts. We colored the letters on some with gel pens. For others, we cut letters with Laura's Cricut, put them through a Xyron sticker machine, and attached them to the base. Couldn't decide which color combination we liked best so few people got the same invitation.

We mostly made white bases with either gold, silver, or royal blue letters. Anna asked for a pink base.

The machine broke and sort of exploded on the 101rst crank. The crank unwound really fast and hard and banged my wrist. Thankfully Keith fixed it.  

Mistake #7 - Not listening to my husband

My husband sighed when he walked through the dining room. I avoided eye contact. Ignored him when he said that nobody keeps wedding invitations. That they get thrown away after the wedding. I didn't care. I wanted the invitations to be unique and beautiful. 

Mistake #8 - Using beads

We attached eight small white pearl beads to the invitation fronts. Hobby Lobby's self-adhesive beads for some reason did not stick.  Keith said to forget the beads, but I thought they looked better with. Laura figured out that the beads could be stuck on with a glue pen. 

I ordered pictures from Shutterfly when they had a free 101 prints offer. 

Kiah and Dayton didn't have many pictures to choose from since most of their dating had been long distance.

I expected making the invitation insides would be easy since I'd made lots of computer cards before. Unbeknownst to me, when we upgraded the computer, my trusty card making program had been deleted. Microsoft Publishing 2013 is not near as easy or intuitive as the Microsoft 2000 program I'd used for years. Took me awhile to figure out how to make it work. Lots of wedding invitation rejects landed in our scratch paper pile. 

Same thing with the mailing labels. Needed to learn all over again with Microsoft Word 2013. Printed a set of address labels before Amy noticed our return address was wrong. Sigh!

After I finished printing, Kiah informed me that she'd changed her phone number so her R.S.V.P contact number wasn't correct. Instead of reprinting, I wrote the new number with black pen. 

FINALLY - the invitations were done. The pretty beads meant the invitations had to be hand cancelled in the post office and required an additional .21 cents postage.  Double sigh!

Then there were bloopers. Dayton's grandmother received a blank invitation. A friend received two of the same pictures. The invitation beads made indents in Kiah and Dayton's picture. Two weeks before the wedding, Kiah's friend mentioned that she hadn't received her wedding invitation yet. A search turned up eight invitations still in the envelope box. 

I don't regret making them but wish they hadn't been so time consuming. Before all was said and done, eight people had helped me. The invitations cost .60 each, but if all the woman hours were tallied, they'd be very expensive. 

Last week we received a postcard wedding invitation. I marveled at it's simplicity. When the next daughter gets married - we're doing a Facebook invite.