Hello Print Fans,

It’s July. The middle of the wedding season and as always at this time the brides are heading to the print shop in droves. This week alone I have had to speak to 4 different brides about weddings.

Oh how I hate the wedding season! For no other reason than it drives my girlfriend crazy. The merest hint of a wedding and she’s off, much like a shark that can smell a drop of blood a mile away, my missus can smell lace and flowers from across London. I have been fairly lucky for the last couple of years and managed to keep my head down and stay below the radar, but I don’t think that can last much longer. Already this year I have started to get the hints and it doesn’t help that so many of our friends got married this year as well. In any event I can hope that when our time finally comes my girlfriend will not end up like these brides.

The first bride that came in I sat with for about 1 3/4 hour, essentially answering the same questions over and over, before I had the good sense to let her take the samples home to discuss with her mother. She then came back the next day to ask my opinion.

“Which do you think is more fashionable? The embossed invitation with the gold tissued envelopes or this lovely lace border with the little pink bouquet? And do you think we can buy the napkins to match?”

That was just way beyond me. I have as much interest in wedding napkins as I have in a kick in the groin. In fact, I think I have more interest in a kick in the groin because at least I know that pain is going to go away! Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I hate wedding or brides, no really I don’t; its just that some of the questions I am asked test my levels of patience to the limit, and as anyone who knows me will confirm, I have the patience of a saint (most of the time.)

The same bride and her mum came back repeatedly. I became convinced that aliens had taken over their bodies, because they never looked the same and they used different names each time they came through the door. But they were the same bride and mum. I know it for certain because they all asked the same questions.

A lot of times they begin with the phrase, “I want to do something really special . . .” What that means is “I want you to do something really pain-staking that will tie up your entire staff for nine hours producing 75 of these things, then you’ll have to do it all over again because I’ll want to invite some more people to the wedding and I’ll need more.” Machine operators don’t tie bows with little fragments of pink ribbon. Their thumbs are too big. I found that out the hard way.

There already are a couple of blogs discussing what you should look at for a wedding so I’m not going to bother repeating myself, (have a search around and you should be able to find them.) There are a couple of points that I would mention to any women who will soon be heading to the print shop to order their wedding stationery.

1)    Even though I do consider myself to have good taste (although my better half would not agree), I would appreciate it if you don’t ask me which option looks better or fashionable, there are just too many possibilities, instead ask me how I think something will print that way I can say if I believe it will print well or if it won’t

2)    If you have already organized parts of your wedding and you want your stationery to match a theme, bring samples in, because not matter how descriptive the language you use unless I see it I can’t tell you what it will look like once printed or even if we will be able to print it.

3)    Think these things through in advance. I recently had a client who was having a destination wedding on a sunny beach somewhere. She came to us 2 months before the wedding without having sent out any invites, save the date cards, or wedding announcements. We did print her stationery, but unfortunately quite a few of her guests couldn’t come, as they had not been given enough notice to organize flights and hotels. This is possibly the worst scenario so I can’t stress this enough please make sure you give yourself enough time.

4)    If you are organizing your wedding through a wedding coordinator and you would like us to keep in touch with them, please make sure you bring the correct details, I have just had to spend half a day calling up 14 different wedding planners to find the one that our client was using because all he could give us was the name.

5)     Lastly…………………………………………… Don’t mention Napkins

I hope you have a good weekend. I think I will find a nice deep dark hole to crawl into until the weddings are over and life has returned to normal, whatever that is.