Computer Apps 101

You remember taking Computer Applications... right?  I'm pretty sure we were required to take it in both junior high and high school, then again in college.  You know, that class where you learn all about how to use Microsoft Office.  Everything from formatting a paragraph in Word to making charts and graphs using data in Excel.  It was an easy-A class for me.  I used to borrow my dad's laptop and make powerpoints for FUN on roadtrips (seriously, how lame is that?  man, I was a nerd!).

Well, I vaguely remembered using Mail Merge to take a list of names (like our guest list) and using that to create labels.  I thought I had it in the bag!

Well, my first problem came when I couldn't figure out where the "Mail Merge" option was in Excel.  Problem solved when I realized you had to use Access.  Easy fix: just copy and paste the list from Excel to Access.  WRONG!  According to Access, my Excel data was "damaged" when I tried to copy the whole thing.  But don't worry, I found a solution... copy and paste them one-by-FREAKIN'-one.  gggrrrr......

So I get that done, then click on Mail Merge and open Word to create my labels.  After playing around with it for a while, I think I finally got it figured out and got my labels all printed, stuck them on the envelopes and stuck them in the mail.  Yes!  DONE!

WRONG... A couple days later, an invited guest randomly popped in my head.  I couldn't remember seeing their name on a label.  So I went back and checked.  Sure enough, no label for them.  They were on my original guess list, but where they should appear in the Access list, there's no # for them.  Access automatically numbers your entries in order of entering them.  Where my missing guests should be, it jumped from 18 to 20.  Crazy.  It skipped a number every time I got the error message too, so I didn't think much about the missing number the first time through the list.

Well, good thing I remembered them!  Just hand-addressed that envelope and sent it off!  Well, I kept coming up with friends and family that I knew were to be invited, but that I didn't remember seeing their address label.  Geez.  Right now we are at 8 invites that didn't make the list.  Guess I'm going to have to go through and verify that everyone who was supposed to get a Save the Date really did get one.  Grrr...

Epic Fail, Mail Merge.  Epic Fail.

Now I just have to figure out how to make it work for our actual invitations!  I already have the labels "designed" in Word.  I figured I'd just have to type (or copy-and-paste) each address from Excel into the document, but maybe I can get mail merge to work if I can make sure the Access file is good first.  Wish me luck!

Save The Dates - Unveiled!

Enjoy!

Our STD's Have Gone POSTAL!

(Corny title, I know.  But hey, you gotta have fun with these things, right???)

Well, it's official.  Our Save-The-Dates are In-The-Mail!  Guess we are really doing this thing!

Our Save-The-Dates were a two-part thing.  We ordered the actual STD's (sorry, that abbreviation always makes me giggle!) a couple months ago... then I realized about New Year's Eve that HOLY GEEZE we are 5 months out from the wedding and don't have our Save-The-Dates out yet!

So I got on Vista Print and had them ordered the next day!  I don't want to put pics of them up until I know everyone who reads the blog has received theirs in the mail, but I'll give you a sneak peek:

A Pink By Any Other Shade...

So we had ordered out Save-The-Date's a couple weeks ago... guess what arrived today (a week ahead of schedule)?!?  As anxious as I was to see them, I was also nervous...

You see, there are SO MANY different shades of pink! 

Our color is a bold hot pink/magenta... Not too purple, not too red, and DEFINITELY not light pink.  I've had so many issues trying to get that color right.  Depending on which printer I use (2 at school, 1 at home, etc...) I get a different shade even printing the exact same thing.  The shade of pink that I like printed at school (I use it on all of my answer keys) actually looks like a funky light purple on the screen.  But the shade I like on the screen prints red.

If I had printed the myself, I could've done guess-and-check (yes, I'm a math teacher) to see when color I liked best... But as it was, I had NO CLUE how the printers at VistaPrint operate, and had to print them all at once, so it was pretty much a crapshoot on picking the color of pink.  I just picked one that was somewhere in between the ones I liked on all the different printers and crossed my fingers.

So as I opened the box, my eyes immediately went to the pink...

AND IT'S PERFECT!

A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  If it came out wrong, would I have to re-print them?  Change the wedding color?  Let it clash with the other wedding stuff?

^^^ Not stuff I have to worry about anymore! ^^^

Another thing crossed off my to-do list!

And I'm so anxious to share them... don't know if I should post a picture, or wait to mail them out this fall.  That's been the hardest thing about this blog... I get so excited about things (BM gifts, favors, details, invitations, etc...) that I can't wait to share them.  But I also kinda feel like it's ruining the suprise...

To Share, or Not To Share.  That is the question, but what is the answer? You tell me!

(And I should get some Kudos for putting versions of two different Shakespeare quotes into one blog post!)

Ordering our Save-The-Dates!

...or the post that was originally titled "STD's... Check!"  but I thought that sounded too much like a doctor's appointment! :o)

We had a little something to get out of the way this weekend... Ordering our Save the Dates!

I had bought a Groupon a couple months ago for VistaPrint ($50 worth of stuff for $10)... that expired this weekend.  Since we were going to Pitt on Saturday and Sunday, I knew we had to get the order placed Friday night.  I had a couple of ideas on what I wanted to do... Well, I had made some changes to it based on some friendly input (thanks, guys!) and some internet browsing.

Remember this???  I changed it up some.

We haven't had our "official" engagement pictures taken yet, so we had to take the pictures on our own.  We spent a hour or so Friday night taking some 70 pictures of ourselves.  I don't have a tripod, so we went outside and propped my camera up on a box on the steps outside our apartment.  It wasn't angled quite right, so I had to wedge a rock under the camera.  It was pretty pathetic!  Our neighbor walked by and laughed!  Jason, who usually limits my number of pictures, was actually a willing participant and had some genuine smiles... probably because he was laughing at me trying to run down the stairs back into the picture in 10 seconds!

Then I saw a post on WeddingBee of an invitation that I fell in LOVE with...

From Miss Hyena on WeddingBee

Those polka dots are just too cute!  I couldn't decide if I wanted to stick with my original idea or spend a couple hours revamping our STD's.  I wanted the photobooth strip, but I wanted the polka dots too!  And I thought combining ideas on one 4" x 6" image made it look too busy.

What did I decide???  The original idea?  The polka dots?  Well, you'll just have to wait a few months until I send them out!

STD's

No, I'm not talking about what you are probably thinking... in the wedding-planning-world, STD's stands for Save The Date's!

I've looked forever online to try and find exactly what I want to do for our save the dates.  I found two ideas that I really liked:

The photobooth:

And "Taking the Plunge":

So I played around in powerpoint for a while on my day off and came up with this combination of the two. 

 
I want the photo strip to have pictures of us with signs that say "Save" "The" and "Date"... and hopefully not wearing red that clashes with the pink.  I'm sure I won't have to talk Jason into taking a picture of us jumping into a pool this summer.

But I'm worried there's just too much going on.  Seriously... What do you think?  Do I need to just pick one idea?  It's going to end up being on a 4" by 6" postcard or magnet.

Help!