Invitation Issues

Problem #1: Some of our Gocco screens didn't burn too well towards the edges. So when we printed our invitations and RSVP cards all the way to the edge, some of the little flower petals were less-than-stellar.


Solution: We ended up trimming all our cardstock post-printing. Luckily, Ryan's work has a laser cutter, which made the trimming process super quick and easy.

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Problem #2: This is the doozy. We had a screen where too much carbon stuck to it during the burning process. The prints were coming out awful. I was going to power through (because the thought of throwing out an expensive screen makes me cringe), but as soon as I started squeezing a brand new tube of navy blue ink onto the screen, it squirted oil everywhere! There was oil all over the screen, all over my clothes, all over my face. It was horrible.

So that screen went into the trash, and after attempting to fix the oily ink situation, we gave up on that too. I burned one more screen, which, again, turned out badly. Then I covered it with my own homemade navy blue ink (blue mixed with black), and printed... but it was blotchy, and not at all the right color.

Solution: We totally gave up on the Gocco-ing. We were out of usable navy blue ink, and I couldn't bear to waste another screen. Ryan sent our design to a local printer, and a few days later, we received this...


We were originally going to Gocco a Reception card, then have the map professionally printed on a different card with our information Gocco-ed on the back, but in order to save money, we squeezed it all on one card.

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Problem #3: After I had already stamped our return address on the back of over half our envelopes, I realized that the ink wasn't drying right. When you rubbed your finger over the address, it smeared pretty bad, and left silver all over your finger.


Solution: We went to Michael's and bought some fixative spray. We had to take every single envelope out on the front porch and spray them to set the ink. Now, if you hold the envelopes at an angle, you can kind of see where they were sprayed... but we figure none of our guests would notice.

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Other Problems:

• I didn't want the ring stamps. I wanted the King and Queen of Hearts. When I went to the post office and asked for 44-cent stamps, the guy handed me a roll of flag stamps. "Uhh... do you have anything else?" I stammered. He groaned and pulled out all his 44-cent stamps. "Do you have the King and Queen of Hearts?" I asked. "No," he responded. Then the lady at the next register asked what the stamps were for. I told her they were for my wedding invitations, and the guy went into the back room, and presented a stack of ring stamps. At the point, he was annoyed and I was frustrated, so I just went with it. Lesson learned: I should have just bought the stamps I wanted online. It only costs $1.00.
• Our invitation assembly process was a bit of a mess. We didn't have any friends or family to help us. So we sealed at least 3 envelopes with un-stamped RSVP cards. I hope the guests who receive those notice there is no stamp and remember to attach one before they drop it in the mail!
• We also forgot to stamp 4 invitations! I dropped them off at the Post Office in a big stack, so I didn't notice. But a couple days later, we got 4 returned invitations with a post-it on them that said they needed postage. Woops!

Overall, the whole process was a giant pain. When we were done with it, and I had calculated out how much it had cost, I told Ryan he was right... we should have just had the entire thing professionally printed. Lesson learned.

But I'm just totally thrilled to be done done done with them. And the RSVP cards are pouring in! 24 Yeses and 5 Nos so far!