Category — Save-the-Dates

You have no idea how hard it’s been not to make incessant save-the-date/STD references. Really. Maturity is not my strongest suit. But I think I get one freebie: Brian and I are officially free of STDs! Yay! OK, I’m done now.

It may not sound like much, but getting those darn things off in the mail was a major accomplishment. I actually sobbed like Chris Crocker over envelopes last week. Twice.

All right, it wasn’t just over envelopes (I had a generally rough week), but still. Here’s a little timeline of the crazy.

Monday: I talk to the gentleman in charge at Sir Speedy downtown and determined we were go for launch. He has the design files, the Excel doc and font files for the mail merge on the envelopes and promises me a proof by the end of the day.

Wednesday: No proof yet. I’m now working with two new sales people, and somewhere in the transition the design files are deleted from the FTP. I let them know that Brian, my fiance who is fighting terror in Iraq has the design files and won’t be able to send them until later that night. I politely express my displeasure. Brian resends the files.

Thursday: There’s a problem with the Excel doc, and I end up having to make two separate spreadsheets. I have to approve a proof in person, so I drive downtown and spend 20 minutes cursing at businessmen and parallel parking like a mofo. I get back to work and see the envelope design file open on my screen. There’s a typo in the return address and I flip out like Jessica Stein. I call the printer and have them stop printing the envelopes (luckily they had only done 20). I have a breakdown on the phone with Brian… something along the lines of “Now they’re not going to finish the project by tomorrow and they won’t be done until next week and I’m terrible at wedding planning and I’m falling behind at work and I’m being a total bitch to everyone around me and I haven’t seen you in five months and I am failing at liiiiiiife.”

Friday: The project is done on time and turns out beautifully. I realize we left off our parents and my sister from the guest list and there are no extra envelopes, but I mostly shrug it off. I stop for gas on the way home and am verbally harassed by a charming young man who tells me, “Girl, you a white girl and you look like that? You got more booty than any black girl I know! My friend here’s a rapper. Wanna be in his video?” I try to make daggers literally come out of my eyes without success. I go home and spend 10 minutes examining my ass in the mirror. Later, I go to FedEx to ship the save-the-dates to Bri in Iraq (our plan was to have him send them out because he gets free shipping). I find out that sending the box to him will cost $156, twice as much as just mailing them from here. I have another sobfest on the phone with Brian, the most patient man in the world, this time mainly about the cost of postage and my fast-developing eating disorder. Poor Chuck makes the mistake of jokingly pointing out I got our own address wrong on his envelope. I don’t laugh.

Saturday: I mail the save-the-dates, go for a swim, get a pedicure and drink some wine. Someone please save me from myself.

I was going to write a couple blogs last week, but life has been a little nutty with:

1. Hurricane Gustav- WTF, dude? Thanks for not hitting New Orleans directly, but it’s still awfully inconvenient to evacuate. My house still doesn’t have power (sorry you’re going through this alone, Chuck… I promise I’ll replenish our whiskey supply when I get home) and I’m praying Ike defies his abusive name and goes elsewhere.

2. Traveling- See #1. I spent a few evacuation days in Jackson, Mississippi and now I’m in Chicago invading the Ide-Crank household until Sunday. We managed to get a huge New Orleans posse up here this week, which can only mean trouble. Chicago didn’t know what it was in for.

3. Work- The only bad thing about working from home for a California-based company is that work doesn’t stop during mandatory evacuations in Louisiana. So I’ve been that loser college friend who sits on Ide’s futon all day and doesn’t shower till 6 p.m. (at least I’m working on my laptop and not watching “Tyra” and drinking a six-pack of High Life).

Anyway, those are my excuses. I’ll try to do better next week… if there is power in New Orleans by the time I get back. You may have already seen this on Brian’s blog, but… drumroll please… here are our save-the-dates! We still need to write final copy (I’m totally calling that guy at Gem Printing for some pointers), but the design is finished. What do you think? Isn’t Brian fantastically talented (in addition to being ridiculously good looking)?

It’s sad, but I think Brian is doing much better at accomplishing his wedding tasks than I am. And he’s off defending freedom in Iraq. Turns out I’m a failure not only as a future wife, but also as an American.

[Side note: He just got promoted to the rank of Lieutenant JG in the Navy! I got to see the teleconference of the ceremony via the military version of a webcam. Look, there we are together. Just like a particularly bad episode of Lonelygirl15.]

Anyway, back to Brian kicking my ass at wedding stuff. Bri, being the graphic design guru that he is, will be designing all the print materials for our wedding– save-the-date cards, invitations, place cards, ceremony programs, CD covers, score cards for the reception dance-off. We looked for a good quote or poem or song lyric to set the theme for everything, but that proved harder than we’d thought. Apparently, there’s a ton of icky “Love is patient, love is kind” crap out there.

I finally found a quote we both liked and could translate well visually– “Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” (Lisa, I’m pretty sure you want to make a “My other ride is your mom” comment, so go right ahead.) Kind of a fun, carnival-like theme– minus the clowns. By the way, some Web sites attribute that quote to Elizabeth Barrett Browning and some to Franklin P. Jones… anyone know the truth?

Here are Brian’s works in progress (click for bigger versions):

Colors, names and other fun stuff will come later. So… favorites? Which elements do you like the best? Feel free to mix and match.