Naïve \nä-ˈēv, nī-\
adjective
Definition: having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information; credulous

As the three-months-to-go mark for our wedding slowly crept up on us, the bride-to-be and I realized we needed to get our wedding invitations out ASAP. I mean, how hard could it be? Pick up an invitation kit, print those bad larry’s out and send ’em on their way, right? Right? WRONG!!!!!!

Carolyn picked up three lovely kits from our local Michael’s, which included invitations, invitation jackets, precut ribbons, invitation envelopes, response cards, and response card envelopes. Not only that, but the color scheme was very close to what we have planned for the wedding; lavender and sage green¹. Albeit, sage green is not a color found anywhere on the invitations, the lavender and cream was perfect.

Now, here’s where being naïve comes into play². Enlisting the help of my father³, we set course on a journey, one that I was not prepared to take. Thinking it was going to take about three hours, we started chipping away. The kit provided a URL to a website containing a template from the manufacturer Gartner Studios. A couple days prior, I had downloaded the template and filled it out, making sure the wording was what we wanted. Which, if I may add, it’s completely bull that according to the online sources we consulted, for a religious wedding you use “the honor of your presence” and for a secular wedding “the pleasure of your company.”⁴ We went with the former without any consideration of the “rules.” Now, my father being an Excel master⁵ helped clean up our spreadsheet and then with Word, mail merged every guest name into the appropriate field on the RSVP cards. We reworked the RSVP cards just a little to suit our needs—-adding lines for the choice of meal and another for a song request⁶, and then the printing began. The time from setting up the RSVP cards, invitations, and, oh yea, the mailing labels⁷, to the printing was close to six and a half hours. You read that correctly, SIX AND A HALF HOURS!!!!

With the printing done, we moved into phase two—-assembly. Clearing the dining room table, we placed all materials on the table in an assembly line fashion. Before the assembly could actually begin I spent the first, say, hour peeling double-sided sticky squares, placing them on the envelope and then, to the best of my ability, placing them “centered” on the invitation jackets, so the invitations would stay in place, as Carolyn placed all the return address mailing labels on the RSVP cards⁸.

Next, we placed the mailing labels on the invitation envelopes in alphabetical order and then made sure the corresponding RSVP cards matched with those envelopes⁹. After getting everything we could possibly get done, as we did not have stamps at the time, it took way longer than expected, NINE HOURS to be exact. Oh, and that was just the first day.

The next day Carolyn picked up stamps, placed one on each RSVP card¹⁰ and then on each invitation envelope. So at best the whole process took close to twelve hours to address 84 invitations. Twelve hours of work for invitations that will get looked at, max, maybe four or five times. FML.¹¹

¹ Did I mention that yet?
² And I mean astronomically naïve.
³ Poptimus Prime, if you would.
⁴ I’m actually embarrassed I will probably know that fact until the day I die.
⁵ Microsoft Office, actually.
⁶ Thank you Pinterest!!!
⁷ More mail merging.
⁸ We thought it would be nice to make things easier on our guests.
⁹ My father’s idea, thankfully. If we had done this on our own, it would have been very unorganized.
¹⁰ Mostly for our friends. Some of them may not even know what a stamp is.
¹¹ Disclaimer: The last sentiment expressed is that of my own and, in no shape or form, reflects that of the bride-to-be.