Wedding Recap: Ceremony Programs

Our ceremony programs were something that shouldn't have been as annoying as they ended up being for me. I ordered paper sample after paper sample online. I really wanted to print on plain 5X7 folded cardstock, but no matter how many times I tried...I couldn't get things to line up for me the way I wanted them to when printing, and I'm just not good enough with actual designing and layout - there's only so much I can do in paint. So I finally settled on this paper from paperdirect.com, in gold.

I bought a box of 300 so I would have plenty to test before printing. I tested, printed, tested again, and ran back and forth to Staples over my lunch breaks 52,000 times over the course of the week. Finally, after many, many tests done by the good people at Staples, (I couldn't get things to line up the same on my computer as it was printing on their computer) I had them print a sample for me and it was perfect except for one little spelling error I wanted to rush back to my computer and fix before emailing them the file. I left the paper with them, and ran back to my office to make the correction and send them the file. I attached the file and sent them this email:

Hi Natan, it's Laura and I just dropped off the program paper for my wedding on Saturday.

Attached is the pdf for it, please make sure that the writing doesn't go over the imprinted border image at all...if it does, let me know and I'll make some changes.

I need 250 programs printed.

Thank you,
Laura

I had talked to the guy enough times over the course of the last few weeks that he knew exactly how I roll, and exactly what I wanted. I figured the sentence "make sure that the writing doesn't go over the imprinted border image at all" was pretty clear-cut if you ask me. Well, apparently it wasn't, because when I arrived at Staples this is what I found:

Front - Just fine:

Back: "Order of Ceremony" is completely over the corner border IMAGE!!! It baffles me, and it's truly amazing how every printer and every computer is different, because I printed a ton of samples with that same file and Order of Ceremony didn't touch the border! It nested perfectly between the corner image and the leaf right below it.

I was enraged - how much more clear could I have been? I screamed, I yelled, I became *gasp* a bridezilla. But I mean, honestly, how incompetent can one be? And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. All 250 had been printed and I didn't have enough paper leftover to re-do the print job. The lady I was yelling at wasn't the person who did the printing - he was in the back hiding eating his lunch. In the end, the lady gave me the entire print job for free (which would have cost me about $80) soooo there was a bit of a silver lining. She just wanted me to leave the store so she wouldn't have to deal with me anymore.

After thinking about it - WHY DIDN'T I JUST DROP OF A PRINTED SAMPLE AND HAVE THEM MAKE COPIES FROM THAT, RATHER THAN OPENING THE FILE ON THEIR COMPUTER?!

I guess it's when you step back from a project when you realize what an idiot you've been all along, and the whole thing could have so easily been avoided. It's also key to note I was doing this the week of the wedding...which is just never a good idea...ever.

But that was it, there was nothing I could do about it, and I wasn't about to order another box of 300 programs. So I went home, Chris' mom folded them for me, and that was that. I couldn't be bothered with them anymore.

deja vu studios

I put them in a basket I had on hand and threaded some green ribbon through before adding them to the "TAKE TO CHURCH" pile.

deja vu studios

Here they are in action on the big day:

deja vu studios

deja vu studios

In the end, it was obviously fine, and (to my knowledge) nobody cared that one word happened to be over the printed image. I still wish it hadn't of happened that way - but it's safe to assume they pretty much all ended up in the trash anyway...sigh.

Did/Will you print your own programs? Did you encounter any issues in printing them?
What advice to you have for making DIY Programs?