Invitation hell

It's only Wednesday but it's feeling like a very long week for me so far. I have been feeling surprisingly frustrated by the question of wedding invitations recently, and I think I'd be even more frustrated at this point if it weren't the fact that I had an unexpected but extremely successful meeting with a consultant at work yesterday that made me very happy. It is so nice to be in a job where you can actually have successes and highs that matter to you personally. I didn't have any sort of feeling of investment in my last job and it's a totally new experience for me with this one.

Still, though. This invitation thing is really driving me nuts. It seems that we are destined to never find an invitation that we like and can afford that can be done in purple and in two languages. We thought we had found the perfect invitation, and then the sample arrived, and while the paper and design concept were nice, the skyline looked bad. Like, messy photocopy bad. It just looked weird.

So now we are back to the drawing board and I don't know where to go. I have looked at every invitation vendor I can find, and either they cost too much, or they don't come in purple, or they aren't that nice, or they are only done in a flat, one-sided design that can't accommodate two languages. I've found a couple of things that are decent, but not special, and I want our invitations to be special.

And the dual language thing is frustrating, because it's not just the invitation itself--it's also the RSVP card and the information insert card. We just ignored the whole issue for the save-the-dates and did them only in English because the language there was simple and minimal, but for the actual invitations we really want both languages there so that everyone will understand, and also because we want both of our cultures and backgrounds reflected on our wedding invitation.

And I'm just letting the whole thing get to me and overwhelm me. I mean, it's just some stupid invitations, but I get so frustrated trying to figure out websites and how to order samples in the right color, and how to set up the wording and whether it costs extra to add the German. I have emailed and called so many different companies with queries and sometimes even when they respond, it isn't clear how I would place an order or specify my special instructions or add in the extra cost and it's just all so much and so, so detailed.

At this point, even when I find a new website that looks good, I can't even look at it, because just looking at a couple of options feels so exhausting. There are so many options and yet none of them is right and anything we do pick is going to have to be dealt with or modified in some way and I just don't have the energy to deal with that right now.

And also, I feel ridiculous whining about something so inconsequential, especially when every other aspect of the wedding planning has gone so smoothly for us. But seriously, WHERE are we going to find our invitations? I honestly have no idea.

I thought of making them ourselves, but I don't know where or how we'd print them, and I also really do not think that I am up to a DIY project of that magnitude, because I am not exactly crafty. Although I am certainly more crafty than Torsten is, which definitely does not help matters. I just know that if we try to make our own invitations we are going to wind up sitting on the floor of the apartment, covered with ribbon and glue dots and ready to kill somebody or call off the whole wedding and just elope. And we've already paid our deposits for a lot of vendors, so eloping now would mean wasting a lot of money.

Okay! I'm done whining now! Let's focus on the positive, which is that even though this week feels really long, it will be over tomorrow, because I'm taking Friday off for our little trip to Chicago. AND it's my birthday on Sunday. That's enough to make anyone feel better, right?