It's time to get working...

After taking a two month hiatus from the wedding (well, Saurab didn't take any hiatus at all - - - he just encouraged me to given my workload at the job) I am BACK! And there is less than two months to go till the big day...so it's time to get working!

Topic for the day....invitations.

Can you believe that we are two months away from the wedding and our invitations JUST went out. Yep. Indian Standard Time, I guess. Actually, we were starting to get really funny questions from our guests on if they were still invited, which caused us to send out the following email:

Email Title: Am I still invited?

"…YES! Yes you are still invited! Don't double book yourself for the date...

We have been receiving some of these peculiar questions recently, and it wasn't until we looked at the calendar that we actually understood why we were getting these questions. Yes, the wedding is sneaking up on us quickly! And, yes, the formal invitations have still not gone out! So, we now understand the peculiar questions :-)

We have been diligently working on final preparations for the formal invitations, but as is the case with many Indian events, we seem to be running on “I.S.T.” (Indian Standard Time), which means we’ve run into a few minor delays with the invitation company....located in India! We expect formal invitations to start being mailed early next week so you should all have them soon.

However, in the meantime, please do not hesitate to continue making any travel plans. Airfares remain holding steady and not too bad just yet, so it is a good idea to make bookings if you haven’t already done so. Also, for those of you staying in hotels, our dedicated hotel block is already running out of room pretty quickly, so once again we’d like to remind everyone to try to lock those plans in. We are always here and ready to assist with ANYTHING we can do to help!"

Constant communication with you guests - -- ALWAYS the right thing to do. 

Getting everything secured for the wedding has not been too terribly difficult - - - up until we hit the point of the invitations. First off, I very keenly had my heart set on having invitations that matched my theme - - - nature - - - so printing invitations on seed paper that can be planted and grow into wildflowers. That would have been a dream come true. But, we quickly found out that this would cost over $10 an invitation....and that they would not be able to make it look "Indian" enough. Fair enough - - - so the Indian route we went. 

There are a few reputable Indian wedding card companies out there. Namely: Indian Wedding Card.com, Parekh Cards, and 123weddingcards. They are all pretty reputable and have a semi-decent online gallery. 

We chose Indian Wedding Card.com for no reason other than the fact that we liked more of their designs than the other companies. 

So Step #1: Browse though the 100's (literally, if not thousands) of cards they have online and pick a few you like

Step #2: Order and pay for samples of those cards

Step #3: Wait over a week to get those samples

Step #4: Realize that they look totally different in person - or FEEL totally different than you had imagined

Step #5: Get back online and find some other samples

Step #6: Order those

Step #7: Wait another week....

.....get my jest.....this process should be started the day you get engaged because it takes FOREVER. For us, we didn't like any of the samples we received for one reason or another....color, size, paper quality, smell, etc etc....so we got into the business of custom making our invite.....which is a whole another set of timelines and parameters. 

We took one card that we liked as the base then changed the color, the type of fabric / paper, the type of insets, and added an interior envelope, the font we wanted, the design we wanted, and our own Ganesh symbol that we found elsewhere. So, basically - totally new....and while it took a massive number of iterations going back and forth via email with Anurag at Indian Wedding Card what we now have as an end result is a card that no one else in the world has. Which, I must say is pretty cool.

What is even more cool is that Saurab did it ALL. I basically nodded my head every once in a while, but while I was in India doing wedding shopping and galavanting around the world for work the past two months, Saurab took this on as a personal project...and he ROCKED! That's another indication that I'm marrying a great guy! :-) 

I would put up a picture of the card, but we just mailed them out and I would like my guests to see them first. However, I can tell you I was pretty happy when Fedex came and brought this to my doorstep: 

So I got a box of STUFF..... 300 pieces of cards that needed to be assembled - - - - mendhi card, sangeet card, Saurab's invitation for the wedding, Anjani's invitation for the wedding, Reception card, Directions card, RSVP card and envelope, the jacket that holds all the cards, the proper envelope that the jacket goes into, and the main envelope with the pre-printed addresses....so that's 11 pieces of things that needed to get assembled together. 

We got the shipment on Thursday, started assembling on Friday and finished Sunday. It was like an assembly line with Saurab, his mom and I just dividing and conquering....this would have been a simple enough assembly line, but I had to complicate it a little more. In my travels for work the past two months, I went to China where I met an old man who made hand carved old school Chinese stampers. I asked him if he could customize the seal for me by replicating the Om that I have worn around my neck for years and years. He said it would be an honor and got working....so the results is this beautiful custom made Om stamper. 

I didn't want to just put a cheezy stamp on the invitations so I turned it into a wax seal stamper. So for each invitation I hand wax sealed each of the 300 invitations with the Om symbol I wear on my necklace. Pretty amazing, isn't it? 

It was hard work but was SO much fun....and with every card the reality set in that I am actually getting married! When we mailed out the invitations on Monday, we had a huge sigh of relief and quickly crossed our fingers that our guests would actually be able to attend! 

Can't wait till the first RSVP comes in.....

Are invites really this time consuming for everyone, or did we just over complicate?