Stressed about invitations…to no longer stressed

Like I was saying yesterday…

I lost it, I was completely stressed out about wedding invitations, frustrated with all the companies, and irritated that I couldn’t settle on the right invitation….

I went to Michael’s with my mom. I found one do it yourself invitation that was okay…

Then we went to Party City. I looked through one binder with my mom, and made 1/4 of the way through a second binder, and then I thought I was going to scream. After looking through 1 and 1/4 binders, I didn’t see a single one that I really liked. The thought of looking through the rest of that second binder and the several other binders that they had was pure torture to me. So I told my mom, “I QUIT! I can’t take it anymore! If I look through one more binder, I think I’m going to vom. Let’s go please.” She easily agreed, and said she was willing to come back another time if I wanted. I LOVE MY MOM!

So for the rest of the week I suffered through looking at countless websites American Wedding, Wedding Paper Divas, Rexcraft, to name a few…

THEN….Last weekend Zach and I went to Michael’s to have another look, and we found two that we sort of liked…

Zach came up with the great idea of simply designing our own. So we got a picture of one more invite that we liked, so we would have some inspiration….

Then on Sunday, Zach and I went over to his parent’s house and his mom and I spent the afternoon looking at invitations…having some idea of what we both liked and knowing that we either wanted something grape/winery/vineyard themed or with some type of design like the pictures above, we looked through the catalogs she had, looked at websites, looked at the options for designing our own

Then we stumbled upon Invitations By Dawn! Within minutes of looking through the website, I found an invitation that Zach and I both thought was okay….

The sample arrived a few days later in the mail…the sample was not like what I saw online and I realized, this invite was not what I wanted after all. *UGH* All this searching, and I thought I found what I wanted…

But all was not lost!

When Zach’s mom and I were browsing the internet, we found Wedding DNA, a website for downloading the graphics or templates that you like. I knew there was something on there that I liked, showed it to Zach, he liked it too…and the decision was made…we created an account with Wedding DNA, got the graphic we liked, and began designing our own invitation!

Now it’s time to work on the honeymoon!

stress-free wedding planning….to stressed about invitations

Throughout the wedding planning process I’ve had a few goals

To remain as calm and relaxed as Catherine…she was the calmest bride I’ve ever known! Had 5 months to plan her wedding, never seemed to worry about anything leading up to the wedding or on the wedding day itself. She’s my bride-idol!
To keep things as an affordable as possible. Just because you place the word wedding, bride, or bridal before a word does not mean that the price needs to double, triple, or quadruple! I’ll do something myself before I overpay for something!
I want to go on a great honeymoon! Of all the wedding things we’ll do, this is probably what we’ll remember the most. Yes, I could spend tens of thousands on an event that lasts a few hours or spend a few thousand on a trip that last several days….i’ll take the trip!
I want a nice invitation that sets the stage and gives a preview to the theme of our wedding day. And just like all things before, I don’t want it to cost an arm and a leg.

So this brings me to the point of this post. Through most of the planning process I’ve remained fairly calm….not quite Catherine calm, but calm for me.

Wedding Dress: Found the dress on the first and only day I went shopping with my mom, stepmom, and cousin Meg. No worries that day, knocked dresses off the list, and settled on one that day.
Ceremony Location: I knew exactly where I was getting married, at Z and I’s home church. Easy, stress-free decision.
Reception Location: Originally planned on my dad and stepmom’s house, but decided that it was best to do things indoors rather than chance the weather. Moved things to a beautiful indoor location! Easy, stress-free decision.

I’m not one of those girls that has a dream wedding color, bridesmaid dress style, flower, etc…I’ve known from day one what I didn’t like, liked, but had nothing that my heart was dead-set on…

Bridesmaid dress: Managed to get 4 of the 6 bridesmaids together for shopping and picking out their dress (I didn’t care if they picked different styles) and the color they all liked. Turned out that the girls all settled on one dress that they picked out and looked stunning on all of them. They decided to go with eggplant as the color because it would look great at one of the picture locations. Easy, stress-free decision.
INVITATIONS: This is where calm, Catherine-inspired, relaxed Crystal lost it. This was not an easy, stress-free decision. How in the world could there be so many choices?! How in the world could invitations cost this much?! How in the world was I supposed to sort through BINDERS of invitations at Party City without losing my mind?!

To be continued….

New Beginnings

It’s been a few years since I last blogged…since college to be exact.

I used to blog when I was in college, and then seminary happened.

Life got busy! Who had time to blog when seminary classes, reading, activities and the like keep me busy?! Plus, college taught me that i had facebook to keep up with too, so i ditched the blog…

But now, seminary is done (in may of last year) and so is CPE (clinical pastoral education)! Then I got to thinking, why not try again.

So here I am…today begins a new beginning for me…blogging again and learning to adjust to some new things

It’s nothing all that strange to adjust to really…I will only have one job to focus on (full-time youth minister), no school commitments, no second job to balance time against, just life and work. I know to most people it must seem weird to think that this will be an adjustment. See, for the past few years I have juggled my undergraduate work or seminary coursework plus a job (full or part-time) and perhaps a second or third job. It was crazy. I’m not sure how I managed it, but those times are now gone.

Now I get to focus on my work at the church, plus having more free time to spend with my wonderful fiancé, family, and friends. And to top it all off, I have a wedding to plan for! I think that will help fill up some of the free time, but not as bad as school or extra jobs.

Here’s to new beginnings!