You Are Not Invited

Do you have any idea how many wedding invitation designs there are?  There are roughly 1,320,975,082.  Each invitation has several different options, accompaniments, accessories, and matching hoopla to go along with it.  You can change colors, fonts, sizes, envelopes, inserts, packaging, etc.  I made the mistake of beginning to peruse invitations two or three weeks ago and have become completely overwhelmed.  Do I want an inner envelope, belly band, or neither?  RSVP card with an envelope or RSVP postcard?  Solid paper or a pattern?  My head is swimming.  Finally, I thought I was getting somewhere, dismissing invitations I didn't think were just right, too expensive, or the quality appeared cheap.  Time to order some sample invitations.  I found three from one company and ordered them so I could see what we were working with.  Quite pleased when they came in, I showed them to my mother.  Bad.  Idea.

Apparently, my mother does not like contemporary or modern fonts, she likes traditional fonts.  And who knew my mother, lover of all things Amy Butler, would think a little damask print on the side with a stripe of color would be too busy?  Certainly, not I.  I thought she would delight in such a pretty find.  Wrong.  So very wrong.

So I began the search anew.  Ryan doesn't like anything that's too feminine, floral, or paisley (I know, I couldn't believe it either).  Desperately seeking something that would satisfy everyone, I sent my mom options.  Loads and loads of options.  Oddly enough, the ones she told me she liked were all ecru, cream, or white, with a traditional font, and a small little doodle at the very top (such doodles included roses, flowers, and swirls).  Puzzled, I went over to my parents' house last night to look at invitations only to find my favorites were her least favorites.

And then, we got to the heart of the issue.  The invitations I love just don't look like wedding invitations to her.  We're doing things the old-fashioned way, with my parents hosting the reception, and my mom really can't stand all those invitations where the children, together with their parents, are inviting everyone to the wedding.  Not to worry, I assured her, we're going to use the traditional wording, complete with the phrase "honour of your presence" since we're having a church wedding, and we'll even use the British English spelling.  Oh, and invitations aren't really supposed to be colorful.  I mean, a little color (like the swirl at the top) would be fine, but all this color all over the place, well, Miss Manners simply wouldn't approve.  My mother was born in Kentucky, raised in the South, and has excellent manners, but I can count on one hand the number of times she has tried to convince me of anything by trying to convince me it is what Miss Manners would say is appropriate.  However, she has grown up with the simple, formal invitation, and that is what she was expecting me to do.

In my mother's defense, she has moved away from the super formal invitation a little and never once did she utter the word "letterpress" or mention hiring a calligrapher.  She knows me too well to think I would dare do anything other than, at a minimum, write each and every address in my very best handwriting.  And just so you know, I bought myself a kit to learn calligraphy in my free time.

All those of you who love all things wedding, I'm looking for suggestions on our invitations.  We may have found a compromise with a different damask print than the one I originally ordered, but I'm not convinced it's going to work.  Unless we come up with something, I regret to inform you that you are not invited to our wedding but only because we won't have invitations to send.