My friend Chris is a graphic designer and was kind enough to design our invitations for us. We ordered the invitations and the RSVP postcards. The postcards are perfect. No complaints. The invitations are another story though.

I ordered the invitations with dimensions 6″ x 9″. I ordered them with a treatment that would make them glossy in certain areas like the border adn on the words.

They came in the mail yesterday. And while I still really like Chris’ work, I’m kicking myself for a few reasons.

1. They’re an odd size. Our envelopes are too big for most standard envelopes, and now we have to order envelopes in special dimensions and we have far fewer options
2. The glossy treatment doesn’t look as good as I thought it would. In the areas that are treated, instead of just looking glossy, the color looks different altogether
3. We payed extra for the glossy treatment, and I think the invitations would’ve looked better in a plain matte finish. We could’ve saved money and gone with a different printer that printed in smaller quantities.
4. We have 1,000 each of the postcards and the invitations. What on earth are we going to do with all of them? The only reason we ended up with that many is because this is one of the few companies that does the glossy treatments and that was the smallest quantity they’d print in.

Sneak Peek of the Invitations and the Different Color Borders

Of course, once the company ships your order, all sales are final. After all, I highly doubt two people with our exact names are getting married at our exact venue on our exact day.

I did contact their Quality Assurance department though, because of the blatant color difference. They agreed to review our prints but I have to mail some of our samples back to them so they can see for themselves.

Most wedding checklists suggests we mail the invitations 2 months before the wedding, which for us would’ve been June 22nd. Since we’re already behind schedule, I’m worried that putting it off any longer is not really the best idea.

Regardless, I’m going to send back some samples tomorrow and wait a few days to hear from them. If they take too long or refuse to reprint our invitations for us without the glossy treatment, we’ll just be forced to order the specialty envelopes.

Lesson Learned: When doing something in a non-traditional way, investigate the traditional way to understand why it’s worked so well for so long. Don’t blatantly neglect these standards when going your own non-traditional route.

Possibly Related Posts:

• DetroitGyrl is in the Building!
• Wedding Invitation Mailing Tips
• Wedding Invitations!
• 101 Ways to Save on Your Wedding: 76-101
• 101 Ways to Save on Your Wedding: 51-75

Technorati Tags: DIY, Invitations, non-traditional, printer, RSVP, wedding invitations