Right before our crazy move to Austin (we found out on a Tuesday that the scheduled closing date on our house was going to go through on Thursday after all), I managed to finish designing the invitations for Henry's birthday party. I had to take his 11-month picture and then PDF the document, so I could upload it to the copy shop. Sadly, Microsoft Word kept screwing up the alignment on the document. It wouldn't print the way it looked on the screen, which meant I had to blindly shift the alignment on the screen and print out test copies until it was just right.
Note to self: Stop using a word processing program to do graphic design!
At the very end of the design process, I decided to check the post office website, and I realized that my cards were too big to send as simple postcards, which meant I had to fork over almost twice as much for each stamp. I worked around the issue by personally delivering as many as possible (since there was still plenty of time before the party).
Note to self: Check the USPS website before designing something, not after.
And, get this, I mixed up our address on the invitation! I reversed two of the numbers and didn't realize it until they were printed and cut.
Oy.
But since this is a birthday party and not a wedding, I'm in a much saner planning space. When folks RSVP yes, I'll simply reply with the corrected address (although we did already confuse some new friends who tried to come over to our new house for dinner, using the invitation's guidance).
Although I had a lot of fun designing the invitations (and my new hobby is rounding corners with a punch), I didn't think about how much work it would be to follow-up with people and get them to RSVP. When I send electronic invitations (through Evite or Paperless Post), all the tracking and reminding is done for me. Since I opted to go the DIY route for the design part, I also have to go to DIY route for the rest of it.
I'm also realizing that I should have had a better system for tracking who received an invitation. I had an original list, but then I handed a few out to folks who weren't on the original list.
Note to self: When sending out invitations, keep an organized Excel spreadsheet that includes names and addresses. All the addresses are scattered in e-mail messages, and it's going to be difficult to send out thank-you cards.
What a major lesson when it comes to planning our 5-Year Anniversary Party and Family/Friends Reunion!
Note to self: Stop using a word processing program to do graphic design!
At the very end of the design process, I decided to check the post office website, and I realized that my cards were too big to send as simple postcards, which meant I had to fork over almost twice as much for each stamp. I worked around the issue by personally delivering as many as possible (since there was still plenty of time before the party).
Note to self: Check the USPS website before designing something, not after.
And, get this, I mixed up our address on the invitation! I reversed two of the numbers and didn't realize it until they were printed and cut.
Oy.
But since this is a birthday party and not a wedding, I'm in a much saner planning space. When folks RSVP yes, I'll simply reply with the corrected address (although we did already confuse some new friends who tried to come over to our new house for dinner, using the invitation's guidance).
Although I had a lot of fun designing the invitations (and my new hobby is rounding corners with a punch), I didn't think about how much work it would be to follow-up with people and get them to RSVP. When I send electronic invitations (through Evite or Paperless Post), all the tracking and reminding is done for me. Since I opted to go the DIY route for the design part, I also have to go to DIY route for the rest of it.
I'm also realizing that I should have had a better system for tracking who received an invitation. I had an original list, but then I handed a few out to folks who weren't on the original list.
Note to self: When sending out invitations, keep an organized Excel spreadsheet that includes names and addresses. All the addresses are scattered in e-mail messages, and it's going to be difficult to send out thank-you cards.
What a major lesson when it comes to planning our 5-Year Anniversary Party and Family/Friends Reunion!
6 comments:
Serif & Inkscape are nice freeware work-arounds for design software.
They look awesome, Sara!! So original and I love how it shows his growthfrom utero to 1 year :) So who needs Tiny Prints?!
When we got married, I used an EXCEL template on google docs to record all the addresses of our peeps. It has come in handy so much. I recommend!
I love the invite! What kind of an envelope did you use? Did you make the envelope by hand too?
-Jodi :)
Hi, Jodi! I just used some extra envelopes we have in our craft room.
Thanks lot for this useful article, nice post
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