We Are Beautiful People

so some of our pre-wedding wedding photos have started to roll in. of course, they are on facebook. but if you are reading this blog, here's a link to the few i've put up.

more will show up on there when they are ready. and then ordering information will also be available when our photographer is all set to go.

Reception Photos

We made the mistake of putting disposable cameras on the tables at the reception site. Here's a smattering of the photos people thought they needed to take during our reception.

Please enjoy responsibly.

Mission Accomplished

well....look at that. it's august 3rd. less than 48 hours ago we got married.

so right now, we're recovering from the days leading up to the wedding, and yesterday, because now our house is covered in presents.

our photographer peter said he's about half way through editing our pre-wedding wedding photos, so those should be available soon. he took quite a few on the day of a the ceremony as well as at the reception. we'll put up some info on here about how to order those from him, because he's got some kind of cool photo ordering system set up.

thanks again to everyone who helped us with the wedding, and thanks to everyone who came. i hope everyone had a good time. from the amount of dancing that i did, i apparently had a good time.

As Bloggers, We May Lack Initiative.....

Would you look at that? It's July 23rd. The last post on here happened almost two months ago. My how time flies when you're having fun. And by "having fun," I mean "planning a wedding."

But it's not like we've been sitting around watching "Twin Peaks" on DVD in our living room or anything. No. Wait. We have been. Man, that show was pretty awesome. But we've also been beyond busy getting things finalized for the wedding, which is almost upon us.

Where to begin....

Pants-- I got them. So my behind is, literally, covered. I maybe got the best deal of my life because the Versace pants that I so desperately wanted were on sale, and the final price was less than half of what they were originally.

Centerpieces-- They are done. And that's all that really needs to be said about them.

Catering/Booze/Rentals-- The grumbles have returned in regards to the two out of the three folks we've been dealing with when it comes to food and drink and plates. Needless to say, Bomb Catering still lives up to their name and their awful reputation with us.

Other bits-- Everything is, for the most part, falling into place. There are a couple of loose ends that need to be tied up tightly, but we're working on it. But in between jobs (I have two, Wendy has one), dealing with delinquents that did not RSVP by July 1st, and trying to have a life outside of this all-- we're slightly concerned we will be hospitalized for exhaustion like our favorite celebrities often are.

Some friends of ours got married earlier this month, and in going to their ceremony, our enthusiasm for our own wedding was renewed, which was good. Because it'd be bad if we were both phoning it in on August 1st. We also had the foresight to do "pre-wedding" wedding photos, which will cut down on time/frustration spent on pictures the day of. While we've been doing such a superb job of updating this website for the first part of the year, we swear we'll be better post wedding-- putting up our photos and info on how to order them if you'd like something commemorative from the day.

Also, on a final note, if you haven't purchased a wedding gift yet, and are wondering what to get for us-- please visit bloomingdale's dot com, because the Target registry is pretty well picked over at this point.

Thanks for reading. Perhaps we'll see you on August 1st.

Everyone Loves To Be Updated.....

.....and we love updating this blog. We really do. I'm not being facetious. Or am I?

Anyway, here's a quick almost-the-end-of-May round up:

Rings: are ordered. And they should be here during the first part of June.

Pants: I still need those. I was shown, and strongly encouraged, to purchase a pair that was more than $300. So it seems there's a kind of pant out there more expensive than Versace.

Invitations: in the mail-- so check your mailboxes soon.

Centerpieces: um......I think we've figured out what we're doing? Maybe?

An End of The Month Wrap Up

for those of you keeping score at home, here's what happened in april: not much.

i still need to buy pants for the wedding. pants that go with my awesome velor suit jacket that i bought. i wanted to buy a pair of $300 versace pants on saturday, but something told me not to. it was probably the fact that they were $300. so if anyone has some extra cash lying around, and wants to help me out.........

invitations and centerpieces: ask us later about these.

engagement party: we had one. it went well. we learned that if you put three kinds of cupcakes in front of people, one being somewhat plain, two being really fancy-- people will take the fancy ones.

tomorrow is apparently may 1st. that means there are three months until the wedding. and that means there are like, two and a half months left to finishing getting things together.

my my. how time flies when you are slaving away.

also, just as a side note...nothing really "ha ha" funny has happened to us since announcing our engagement. wedding planning is, contrary to the name of this blog, not hilarious. it's sad and tiring and expensive.

Cupcakes, Compromises and Everything Else That We've Been Up To

A lot of people—and by that, I mean, the few people who are actually going to read this—have begun to ask me why we don’t update this blog more often.

The truth is: who has the time? Honestly. I have hinted at it before in previous posts, but we still have lives outside of planning this wedding—although at times it seems like we don’t.

But to quench your thirst for an update, here’s a smattering of what’s been happening lately:

Bomb Catering—is still awful, but like an arranged marriage, we are going with them anyway. After trying to find a tactful way to ask for a different sales representative, Bomb Catering countered our move with a slightly less tactful one. The other sales rep we emailed ratted us out to the one we were trying to get rid of.

Doesn’t she know that no one likes a snitch?

Anyway, after a painfully awkward conversation between Wendy and this awful Bomb Catering rep, this woman’s attitude has suddenly shifted, and things seem to have worked themselves out. So, much to my chagrin, but much to the celebration of everyone else—we are having a cash bar at the reception.

So drink up. Please. Drink for two, even, if you would be so kind.



Cupcakes—if you know either of us, you know we are pretty picky about our food, especially desserts. Wedding cake, to me, is one of the least appetizing things on the planet, so upon suggestion from our caterer, we have gone a different route: cupcakes. Made by a place called Cupcake. That’s seriously all they do. They make cupcakes.

Ok. So that’s maybe not ALL they do. They make sandwiches and stuff too. But they have, like, over 30 kinds of cupcakes on their menu.

At our tasting, we tried three free cupcakes—one from each price point on their menu. While we were there, we also paid for some other cupcakes, and decided on having the following: The June Clever, The Double Chocolate, and the Lemon Meringue. Chiggity-check them out on Cupcake’s website.


Other Bits—

Rentals:

A while back, we met with a rental service called Hire-a-Host: a company that we gladly would have worked with, if we slept on a bed made out of money. They were a little spendy—not only did you get rentals, but also staff to serve the food onto said rentals. So we went with someone else.

Commerce:
We registered for more stuff at Target. And we changed our mind about the XBOX 360. I mean—who would buy us that? We added a Nintendo Wii instead. Because it’s $50 less, and that makes your decision to buy it for us right there.

Slidey Pens:
I suppose now I can let the cat out of the burlap sack about this matter. Way back when, I said that if we ever got married, we NEEDED to have slidey pens for wedding favors at the reception. So when the planning process started moving along, I looked into slidey pens. It turns out you can make your own—but it costs QUITE a bit of money.

Upon further research, I found a website that sells a wedding design slidey pen. It wasn’t exactly what we were looking for, but we could personalize part of it, and it was considerably less.
Once costs of other things (food, booze, et. al) started to rise, the slidey pens had to be dropped. Which is fine I guess. I thought we’d always have the free samples that the person I was working with sent me.

Turns out I was wrong about that. Dude wants them back. Seriously? Seriously. Dude wants his free samples back. WHO DOES THAT?

Well, with only roughly three months left until the big day, I will try to update this more often. Because I know everyone is dying to hear more.

Champagne Supernova

Not to come across like a Debbie Downer, but damn, planning this wedding is really taking a toll on us. An unexpected toll. I knew it wouldn’t all come together on its own, but I had no clue that some aspects would be so difficult.

Take for example—the alcohol.

There was a lyric from a Barenaked Ladies song that went like this—“Alcohol: my permanent accessory.” It seems that if you are going to throw a party, specifically a wedding reception, people are going to want to drink.

Getting the booze for this party, however, is not as easy as going to the liquor store and filling up a cart.

As mentioned in previous entries, the reception site that we booked is SOOOOO exclusive, it only allows four catering vendors. I mean, air can’t even get inside this place. I bet that air will be outside of our wedding reception, saying “I’m Air! I’m on the list! I get in everywhere!”

But I digress.

Of the four vendors possible for food, only ONE of them has the title of EXCLUSIVE ALCOHOL VENDOR bestowed upon them. And one would think, with great power, comes great responsibility, right?

Well it seems that the exclusive vendor is a little irresponsible. And a little rude.

Part of me wants to bad mouth them on here, but if the company ever Googles themselves during the day, this blog may come up, and then we may have a pissed off vendor on our hands. For right now, I will call them something else—Bomb Catering.

And they are not “da’ bomb.” But they bomb. As in an epic failure at customer service.

First and foremost, we had to decide if booze was an expenditure that we wanted to even undertake. We got a lot of “what on earth is wrong with you?” glances from people when we even brought up the idea of having a dry wedding. So booze it is!

The most obvious choice and least expensive route is the cash bar. It basically says to our guests “we kind of care enough about you to provide you with this booze you wanted, but we don’t care enough to pay for it ourselves.”

There was also talk, originally, of having a champagne toast.

So this doesn’t seem like it would be THAT difficult, right?

Well, you forget we’re dealing with Bomb Catering—dropping the ball all over the place. Months ago, when we were beginning the very early planning stages, I had emailed a sales rep from Bomb, and she never got back to me. A week past, and then I called the office, and as I gave my name to the receptionist, she said, “Oh, that name sounds familiar.”

“It should,” I told her. “I emailed your company last week and no one got back to me.”

Nice work Bomb Catering.

So months go by, and we are not again just planning to get around to figuring all of this out. Since they don’t respond well to emails, Wendy tried calling them, only to get the voice mail of the sales rep we’ve had the pleasure of dealing with. This sales rep then called me moments later to say that she received a message from my fiancé, and I should tell her to call this person back. So I do, mere moments later, and Wendy later relays to me that the line is, again busy. And this line is busy for hours on end. And no one ever gets back to us.

Finally, the two of them talk, and The Bomb asks us what caterer we’ve gone with—Wendy tells them The Chow Girls, because we are vegetarian, and they had more vegetarian options. This sales girl from the Bomb then proceeds to get defensive about the catering options she could provide, and berates Wendy, telling her they have “many vegetarian options.”

They have one. And it’s ravioli. Which I’m sure has no flavor what so ever.

The rest of that phone conversation goes terribly, and now we are left with a big decision—should we just call this whole booze thing off? As the prices of everything else for this wedding continue to skyrocket, booze is something that we could both comfortably live without.

Then there’s the cost of booze. The cash bar is pretty much free, as long as you spend the minimum dollar amount. If you don’t, you have to pay the difference. What you end up paying for is a bartender and a security guard (yeah, I don’t get it either.) If you add a champagne toast onto that, you have to pay for a SECOND bartender—because it apparently takes two people to pour champagne. For the entire duration of the evening.

I think not, Bomb Catering.

As of right now, our attempts at getting a price quote (including all hidden fees and gratuities) and haggling down on the amount of bartenders needed has gone unanswered.

But don’t you fret dear reader. We will keep you updated.

Money Greedy, You Trample My Soul

I’m the last person who should be registering for gifts.

But isn’t that part of the fun of getting married? People buy you stuff. Aren’t you supposed to want that?

The whole concept of a gift registry is a bit on the presumptuous side. You invite people to your wedding, and it’s almost expected that your guests will buy you something.

For the last couple of years, I have told people not to buy me things. Birthdays, Christmases, whatever—I make it pretty clear I’d prefer if you didn’t waste your money on someone like me. The sad part about this is that no one listens.

Since I abhor the thought of people spending money on me, registering for gifts has been…interesting so far. And we haven’t even gotten very far yet, because we are very busy and important people, and who has the time to wander around Target, scanning glassware or sets of organic cotton sheets?

Most couples pick two to three places to register, and one of the places we picked is Bloomingdale’s, which to me, is like one of the nicest stores on the planet. Sometimes, I’m not even sure I should be in there, or that they will ask me to leave, because I look too destitute to be shopping there.

One of the things most couples register for is a set of dishes. Traditionally, couples that lived separately and move in together after the wedding would need new dishes, or a set of matching dishes, or something. I already had a full set of dishes, from a settlement with Corelle, from an embarrassing kitchen-related injury I suffered a few years back.

But since people are supposed to buy us stuff—we registered for new, fancy dishes. Dishes so fancy, and expensive, that I will more than likely be afraid to eat off of them.

Since we know everyone is not made out of money, or has access to a Bloomingdale’s (there is only one in the whole state of Minnesota) we also registered at Target, where one thing sits on our registry—an XBOX 360.

Now, those of you who know me, know that I don’t play contemporary video games, and haven’t purchased a video game system since 1993—and that Super Nintendo still is hooked up to our TV and yes we do still play NBA Jam Tournament Edition on it. But somehow, like most people in the world, I have fallen under the spell that the game Rock Band casts on you.

What’s that you say? Our plates at Bloomingdale’s are probably less expensive than an XBOX, so what’s the point of registering for more “affordable” options at Target? Well, for starters, Bloomingdale’s doesn’t have an electronics department. Also, like I said, who has the time to wander around Target scanning stuff?

We barely have time to update this blog.

Getting Dressed

Wedding dress - check!

My lovely sister Amy orchestrated two cold January Saturdays of shopping-until-people-were-dropping, with great success. The first Saturday began with a trip to Rush's Bridal in downtown Minneapolis. We didn't have an appointment to try dresses on, because apparently everyone and their mom got engaged over Christmas and couldn't wait to try on dresses in January. Luckily, someone cancelled their appointment and we got into a giant fitting room.

It's really funny to try and pick out dresses to try on, because you have no idea what they will look like on your body based on their floppy hanger appearance. I had some ideas of what I wanted to avoid in a wedding dress, including sparkles, beads, lace, and other cutesy-overdecorative stuff. That really narrowed it down, actually - I was able to quickly turn my nose up at about 3/4 of the options before me. We had a pretty good system for trying the things on, picking 5 or 6 things off the racks, and the nice helper lady promptly refiled anything that elicited a kooky-faced response. Here are some highlights from Rush's:


This dress was pretty but heavy.


A lot of people liked this one, but it was spendy and I didn't like the way it hugged the ol' hips.


Rachel did a great job holding up the top picks.

Words cannot accurately describe trying on a wedding dress, and I'm not talking about sentimentality, but rather the sheer hilarity of it. Two to three ladies hold up the tons of fabric while one fishes their way through the top to find where the body is supposed to go. Then the person trying on the dress assumes a position similar to blast-off. One crouches with one's arms pointed upwards and then dives into the dress. It's a little reminiscent of finding one's way through the birth canal as one tries to find their way towards the light and shimmies their way into the dress. It was all quite tiring, so we gave our arms and bodies a rest and headed to lunch after the attendant took down styles that I liked for future reference.

The next stop was David's Bridal, which was a tad disappointing for me. It was a madhouse in the store, with half-naked women running all over the place impressing their 10-person entourage with different dresses. We thought that since this was a huge store we could try on things right away without an appointment, but instead they took my information and told me to come back at 4:00 p.m. We did go back later, but I only tried on two dresses and I didn't care for either, so we just walked out. *Disclaimer: if you bought your dress at David's Bridal, that is awesome that you found something you liked. I'm just SUPER picky, and the bulk of the David's Bridal selection consists of beaded embellished gowns, which I was trying to avoid.

We scooted over to a small boutique before heading to a distant suburb for our one scheduled appointment of the day. It was nice that the establishment was smaller, but it too was overrun with women. I found one dress I liked, but it had embroidery on the train, much to my chagrine.


Finally, a picture without my face! It's hard looking at photos of one's self.

The scheduled appointment of the day was in Savage, MN at a fancy wedding center complete with travel agent, bridesmaid store, and cake/reception decor display. Before I was allowed in the wedding dress store, I was told to take off my shoes (this is common and I think it makes sense with all of that white fabric everywhere). Dresses were hung up in giant open closets and I received a whole shower-curtained area just for trying things on. Someone offered me water, which was an accoutrement I was not used to, but was glad to have. Though the establishment was lovely and high-class, I couldn't help but feel a little Julia Roberts prostitute-y when I went in there. I thought the sales girls would surely ask me to leave and I would pin up my thigh-high boot and leave sniveling. I tried on a few dresses and we found one in my price range, but by this point I was getting pretty silly:


Here's my not-happy face as I try and figure out what the thing falling off my bosom is.

The first Saturday ended with a few prospects in hand and a definite idea of what my style, taste, and price range fell within. Thanks to Amy, Aunt Sally, Kerriann, and Rachel for their love, support, and strong arms!

The second Saturday's shopping ended almost as soon as it began. We headed back to downtown Minneapolis to Macy's Bridal, which was having a trunk show. I thought a trunk show just meant that there were a bunch of expensive dresses piled in trunks, but apparently it means that new dresses are shown from a certain designer and are on SALE (always a good thing). The featured designer was Watters, who also makes WToo, a brand made for we brides with smaller pocketbooks. I think it was the first dress I tried on at Macy's that I fell in love with. The rest of the day was spent shopping and looking at other things that paled in comparison to this dress that I loved so very much.


It's so pretty even though I'm holding up a size 5 to my size 12 body.


Please don't look at my silly face. Focus on the dress here, people.

Not only was it luck that my dress was reasonably price and 10% off as part of the trunk show, but there was also a jewelry designer at the trunk show displaying her wares. I was a huge fan of her headbands, made of flat chiclet-looking pearls on a, get this, COMFORTABLE metal band. All headpieces I tried on at other stores hurt like the Dickens when applied to heads, so I wasn't about to let a comfortable piece of jewelry escape my hands. I was never excited at the prospect of a veil, and I am extremely picky when it comes to jewelry - I don't care to look at a piece unless it is really interesting and unique. So I killed two lovebirds with one stone and bought my dress and headband in the same locale.


Ahem. . . Kevin, you should buy me the matching necklace.

Thus concludes the conquest for Wendy wedding attire. Thanks for reading!

Everybody's Got A Hungry Heart

by Kevin


As someone who used to be a wedding videographer, I have had my fair share of wedding food. And as someone who is a vegetarian, at said weddings, I have had my fair share of corn, mashed potatoes and dinner rolls, because weddings held in rural Iowa never cater to vegetarians—especially the vegetarian who wasn’t really invited, and is just there, holding a bulky video camera on his shoulder.

Wendy and I consider ourselves to be people who like food—well prepared, savory, moderately healthy food. (But don’t you dare call us “foodies.”) So when it was time to start looking at catering options for our reception, we knew that we would be hard to please. The reception hall we booked only allows an elite few caterers in, so our options are limited to begin with.

First up was Prom Catering, who also has the distinct privilege of being the “exclusive alcohol vendor” for the reception site. Upon glancing at their menu, we noticed that they were A) pretty pricey, and B) not very vegetarian friendly. But just to start gathering some figures for how much feeding everyone is going to cost, I emailed them to get some quotes.

After a few days, I still hadn’t heard back from them, so I begrudgingly called the Prom Catering office. I really hate talking on the phone, especially with people I don’t know, and especially about things like this—I really have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m sure I will come off sounding like an idiot on the phone.

While speaking to the receptionist, I gave her my name, and she told me that it sounded familiar. I told her it should—I emailed them days ago, and they never bothered to call me back.

Eventually I was passed onto one of their sales associates, who told me that she would send me the quote for a plated chicken dinner.

“No, no, no,” I interrupted. “It needs to be a vegetarian entrée.”

She told me she understood, and that she would email me price quotes for a vegetarian dinner. Another two days passed, and I then received price quotes for a plated chicken dinner.

Apparently, everyone who works at Prom Catering is an idiot.

Following this debacle, Wendy and I separately scheduled tastings with two of the other three vendors allowed at the reception site. First up was Cossetta’s, an Italian restaurant in St. Paul—who apparently has a decent reputation of good food.

Upon meeting with them, and finishing our tasting, we found that they apparently do not have a reputation of having any personality.

The woman we met with was quite possibly one of the most awkward people I have ever encountered. The food that we tasted included bruschetta, a salad primarily made up of ice berg lettuce, more bread, a bland and slightly mushy penne pasta, and a ravioli that tasted like it was filled with saw dust.

We hadn’t even made it out of St. Paul when Wendy realized that something we had was not agreeing with her stomach. On top of that, we had a trunk full of food from the tasting that we were given on our way out the door. Food now that we have no desire to eat again.

Our second tasting was with the hilariously titled Chow Girls Killer Catering. A relatively new catering firm, and new to the small list of exclusive caterers for our reception site, we were pleasantly surprised with most of the food we sampled. We tried many fine appetizers, including samosas, egg rolls and cous cous.

The one draw back with the Chow Girls is that they are kinda pricey. They use mostly organic and locally grown ingredients for all of their dishes. What’s strange is that Cosetta’s claimed to import ingredients from European countries, although I am certain what they meant by that is they import their ingredients from the back of a Sysco truck, into their loading dock, and then into the pantry.

But as the old saying goes, “you get what you pay for.” With the Chow Girls, you pay for good food—you’ll get good food. With Cosetta’s, who were QUITE a bit less money, you pay for bland, crappy food—you’ll get bland, crappy food.

Save The Date/Us

Who would have thought that saving the date would be so hard?
-By Wendy


My fiancé Kevin and I decided long ago that we would like to save a tree and use recycled paper for the many pulpy aspects of getting married: save the date cards, invites, RSVP cards, programs, etc. Trees probably don't care much for marriages.

I started exploring paper options right away, since I was planning on making my own paper products for the wedding. Much to my chagrine, the Michael's and Hobby Lobbies of the world care not for the environment much in their scrapbooking departments. I looked online, but I didn't want to mess around with ordering paper that I couldn't look at and feel in person. Nothing ever looks as glamorous as it appears on the web, and I assume that paper would fall into this category.

Luckily, a small art store right in the town we live in featured recycled paper. What a relief! We could order pre-cut cards for our save-the-date announcements, which would save us the time of painstakingly cutting out pieces of paper (I can't cut a straight line to save my life anyway). Also, the price was reasonable and the salesperson assured me that the size the paper came in (A7) was both extremely common and would be perfect for mailing as a post card (at the cheaper 26 cent rate).

It took about ten days for our paltry order of 100 cards to come in, and as soon as they did, we got to work. We started with our home printer, which we recently purchased. I once thought this machine to be a top-notch piece of technology, but actual use of said equipment proved otherwise. Apparently HP has designed their latest printer-scanner combination to only print a few sheets at a time, nothing more than 5 pages in the standard 8.5x11 size.

A7 is not a common size of paper for home printing. Not only is it not an option in InDesign software, but it proved troublesome for our poor little printer. After painfully wasting cards and adjusting the layout for the darn cards to print out normally, we noticed that although the cards' designs were to be printed in grayscale, some were bluer and some were redder than others. We thought, "No matter, we're already a third through the printing process. No one will notice."

Then Mr. Printer decided that it would no longer accept these pieces of paper we were forcing down his throat. Wimp.

So I decided to take it to work to see if the cards preferred our fancy laser printer. After spending an hour trying to network my personal laptop to the company printer to no avail, I eventually just transferred the files to my work computer. After the files transferred, I readjusted the card layout back to normalcy, as the nice printer would accept paper of any size. How gracious, Madame Laser!

While spending the time on setup, I grew confident that the laser printing was the answer to all of my save-the-date woes. . . until I actually printed one.

Recycled paper does not take kindly to laser printing or powdered toners in general. The texture resulting from the reprocessing of recycled materials rejected the ink I tried to force upon it, rubbing off when touching the sample.

After consulting with Kevin over the phone and basically being talked down from the ledge of a building, we decided that it was time to go to a professional printer.

I contacted two professional printers in our area with specifics about the job, saying that we probably needed to use inkjet ink that could be absorbed into the paper. Their response was disheartening, as no modern printer even dreams of straying from the quality of laser printing.

Things were getting desperate. We were not going to buy a new printer over a piece of paper telling our guests that they will receive more paper from us in the future.

After borrowing an old unused inkjet printer from work and determining that it was left unused because of its inability to output anything printed, I sat sulking in our office trying to think of a way to save this ship. And then my eyes grazed upon our old printer that we had replaced with the snazzy printer-scanner that would have nothing to do with size A7 paper.

Kevin reminded me that we replaced the old printer because it tended to not print the data that you sent to it until after spitting out pages of nonsensical numbers and letters. But this would not stop me.

I created "dummy" cards so as not to waste any more of the precious 100 we had ordered until I found something that worked. After an hour of testing conjectures and hypotheses to find the method behind our printer's madness, I finally stumbled across a ridiculous way to achieve our desired result. Eureka!

I found that if I go through the maddening process of turning the printer off and on again, sending the job to the printer, feeding through a card it could print its gibberish on, and then feeding through the card I actually wanted to be printed, I could achieve the desired result.

So now I am finishing the last of the save-the-dates, and I will wash my hands of this and go to Kinko's for the invites like a normal, sane person. I am hoping that they have recycled paper options, but honestly, I have wasted so much paper up until this point that I think I have undone the good I tried to do with ordering these confounded A7 cards in the first place. Oh, and by the by, Miss Art Store Employee, A7 is too big for postcard postage, so I'll be paying the full 42 cents. Thank you for your expertise.

So now that it's over, if you're invited to Kevin and my wedding, please won't you save the date? And be sure not to compare your card to anyone else's.