Invitation Gratification

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This post may end up reading like an ad spot for Paperless Post. I promise that it isn't, even though we did decide to use it for our wedding invitations. We'd received invitations via Paperless Post before - first among them from our friend Jess, who used it for her 30th birthday invites early last year. As the name implies, it's an online service that lets you send out all kinds of cards that would normally be popped into the post. Party invitations, thank you cards, birthday cards, and save-the-dates can all be sent with this service, which can be free or cost a bit of money, depending on what you're after.

It struck me as a great idea for our own wedding because, well, Blake and I aren't really sure how much a stamp costs anymore. You send your guests an E-mail containing the picture of an envelope, and when they click on it, your invitation flies out of it and displays on-screen! The designs are very customisable, right down to the stamp you want to put on the envelope (we chose one with a dinosaur on it).

You can choose to use totally free designs (as we did for our Tea Ceremony invites), or spend a bit of money on the flashier ones (as we will for our Wedding Ceremony invites). It will all cost us way less than it would have if we'd decided to print and mail them off instead.

For me, the money-saving aspect is just one small, teeny tiny advantage of doing invitations electronically. The big winner is the instant gratification aspect of it. Not only can I get RSVPs right away, Paperless Post in particular lets you see to whom you've sent the invite, who has opened the invite, who is attending, and who isn't attending! So I get to look at our entire guest list and giggle with overly enthusiastic glee as an invitation goes from being "sending" to "sent" to "opened" to "attending"! And what if I put in a bad E-mail address and it bounces back? No worries - Paperless Post will tell you if it's undeliverable, too!

I can also send RSVP reminders with the click of a button, which I think is awesome, especially after I'd heard some of the RSVP nightmares from coworkers and friends. Evidently there are some people out there (family, mostly) who say things like "of course I'm coming, you already know I am, do I still have to RSVP to the Tea Ceremony?"

HEY. LISTEN. I'M A BRIDESMAID AT A MATE'S WEDDING AND I STILL RSVP'D USING THE RSVP OPTION PROVIDED TO ME. IT'S POLITE, GUYS. A NON-RESPONSE IS NOT A "NO" OR AN "OF COURSE", IT'S A NON-RESPONSE THAT PEOPLE HAVE TO CHASE UP AND THEY HATE DOING THAT.

That's not just me talking. That's every single person I've talked to about their weddings, whether it was online, paper, or something in-between.

I cannot imagine what it must be like for people to mail off a paper invite, wonder if it's arrived yet, wondering if the reply's in the mail, and wondering if you haven't gotten a reply because they didn't receive it or aren't coming or if the reply's still on the way! Not to mention some people on the other side of the world who think that popping it in the mail on the date of the RSVP deadline means that it totally counts as getting it in on time!

I've heard from a few folks who feel that an electronic invitation doesn't replace the personal aspect of a paper one. I kind of get this, but only kind of. To me the sending of a paper invitation is only more personal insofar as there might be some DNA of ours left on the envelope after we'd touched or licked it. That's kind of creepy, guys.

It's not like a lot of thought didn't go into our invitation. We put plenty of effort into creating and customising everything on it; we just skipped a few steps after that! Now I'm not saying that a text-only E-mail is somehow less thoughtful or not an okay option; shoot, I reckon that if you want to send someone a text saying HEY COME TO MAH WEDDIN' <STRING OF EMOJI> then that's fine and dandy!

Now, a very close family friend of ours doesn't "do" the internet. Like, no computer, no smartphone, no E-mail address, nothing. She's made the point that some people might want to keep a copy of the invitation as a memento of the occasion, particularly for those who might not be able to attend themselves. Ah, now there's something that makes sense to me.

Incidentally, a service Paperless Post also provides is that you can order paper versions of most of their online designs. It could be an idea for us to order some of these for our immediate family members, just as something for them to hold onto to mark the occasion until the photos are sent through! Something that's still being considered, largely dependent on how much longer I really want my To-Do List to get!

An Amusing Freudian Slip

The Wire is one of my absolute favourite TV shows ever. I have lots of "favourites", but this is just a greatly constructed series. It's a 5-season series from the early-to-mid 2000s about drug dealers and cops in Baltimore, and in each subsequent season the story expands to include how their conflict impacts on (or is impacted by) politicians, schools, dock workers (i.e., middle-men for drug suppliers), and the press. It's a fantastic show, and I re-watch it start to finish every few years. I highly recommend it.

Anyway, I'm in the middle of rewatching it yet again. Blake comes home mid-episode and settles on the couch with me, iPad in hand, poking through the internet and occasionally watching the show. At some stage,  the funeral of a prominent character is shown.

Blake goes, "oh, is this [CHARACTER NAME REDACTED]'s wedding?"

Hmm. A promising sign.

He quickly corrects himself, but naturally I teased him about it for a while before letting it go.

Hiccup the First: Wedding Favours

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I've said this before in a recent post - having a short engagement means that things have to move relatively quickly, but it also means that if things go wrong, I just have to accept them and keep going. This philosophy lasted me just over 2 months.

Neurotic perfectionist that I am, even I know to expect a hiccup or two. My first one popped up two weeks ago, involving our wedding favours (aka "bonbonnieres" but I can't say it without giggling because apparently I'm 6).

A box came for me at work, and the energy was building the second I was informed that it'd been delivered. This was the first thing to arrive in the mail that would actually be a part of our wedding! I somehow managed to wait until I had a free moment before I tore into it with much glee, ready to be overwhelmed with giddy excitement.

So, physics! The higher up you are, the harder you hit the ground when you fall.

Without going into too much detail, what arrived was not what I had been expecting. And while I'd been prepared for it not to be 100% up to my expectations, I was also painfully aware that these were meant to go out to our guests as gifts. Which meant that I was determined for these, at least, to be of an acceptable enough quality that we can happily give them away.

Nope. Not a chance.

The disappointment that kicked in wasn't debilitating so much as it was, in hindsight, melodramatically motivating. There were no tears, but instead a very rapid series of messages sent to the supplier, noting in point form my initial issues with the items in question. I examined them further after that and found even more issues, which resulted in more messages being sent to the supplier. Somehow in the midst of this, the rational part of my brain managed to get me to fire off a text to Blake to inform him of the problem.

As much as I like to think myself an assertive person, I am absolutely awful at being the wronged customer. Rather than dig in my heels and demand this or that, I'm one of those people who slowly folds in on themselves, wondering if I deserved this because they only cost this much or maybe I shouldn't be so picky or if I missed something in the transaction or item description that had previously indicated that there would be a problem. I absolutely hate making a fuss unless it's about something far more important in the grand scheme of things - like, you know, marriage equality. After all, as a pragmatically self-deprecating part of my brain says from behind its newspaper, it's only money, and aren't I lucky that I can afford to spend it on things like wedding favours in the first place?

I want to say that if this wasn't going to be something that my guests will be taking home with them, I would have been happy to let it go and run with it. But, like I said, this is meant to be a gift - a thank you for sharing our day with us. It needs to be done right if we're doing it at all.

So when a fuss needs to be (rightfully) made, Blake usually gets called in to assist. Sometimes he takes the phone off me to handle the situation, and sometimes he'll just coach me on what my rights are. Over the years, he's gotten really good at knowing when to offer himself up as my megaphone and when to give me some space and let me get on with it. In this case, he ran me through my options after calming me down and I was able to deal with it myself.

Which I have - I took it up with Paypal. The decision did not go in my favour and I am now upset because the seller escalated the dispute and I was never given the opportunity to explain my side of the story. I have complained to Paypal just to have my say, though the outcome is unlikely to change. Oh well.

As hiccups go, this one was relatively small and minor. Mostly, I'm glad I have enough time to roll out a Plan B. And for those reading, a cautionary tale - if you've lodged a dispute on Paypal, make sure you're the one who escalates it because it looks like they'll side with you!

Tail Status: Tucked Between Legs

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When I say that I wanted our wedding to be "simple", it's really a socially acceptable way to say "affordable". Surprising no one. But we're also not glitzy or glamorous people, preferring understated elegance and comfort over being showy or extravagant. It's fine if you are a bit showy - it's your day, after all, be as showy as you want! But for me, and as I touched on a bit in an earlier post, I'm just not down with spending gobs of money unless it's meaningful and important.

Blake and I reached our first major disagreement on the wedding in the last couple of weeks. I had previously pictured us being transported to and from the wedding in cars driven by friends, not just to save money but to keep things comfortable and intimate. Blake, however, had a preference for hiring chauffeurs and cars. To be clear, I was not opposed to this idea and was happy to pay for this if it was reasonably priced.

Then along comes this gorgeous fucking car. (Note: make and model have been redacted; it's not a secret but why spill before the big day if it can be a surprise?).

Quick tangent. Blake will argue until he's blue that he found it, but the story as I recall it was that I was looking at hire car options shortly after our discussion about transportation for the wedding. In my poking around I found this gorgeous car and showed it to Blake, who agreed that it was so awesome that he looked into it again a few days later to get a quote (which is when he thinks he found it). This conflicting account of events wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't for the fact that I had felt like a damn good fiancée for spotting it first and knowing he'd like it, so I'm really not going to let this go.

Anyway. I made my own bed, as it were, because the quote that came back was firmly in my definition of "extravagant". But it being a gorgeous car, Blake was not down with dropping the idea. 

Ever since the car entered our universe, we've been having sporadic and brief discussions about whether or not we should hire it. I was firmly on the "no" side because I just couldn't justify spending that kind of money on a car. I used reasons like "it's just not us to ride around in something like that", "it's really not in the theme of a simple wedding", etc etc.

In the end, however, Blake did manage to get through to me when he mentioned my wedding ring. We had a budget for how much we were going to get to spend on it, because it was coming out of our joint savings - Blake's not paying for it on his own. Well, after researching and searching high and low for the right ring, I eventually had to ask if we could raise the budget by about a third. Blake's response was simple and consistent: "if it makes you happy, then that's fine."

And honestly, that's been his mantra through ALL of the wedding planning so far. He's not the sort of person to dig his heels in about much unless it's really important to him, and it pays for me to be reminded.

I need to make it clear that Blake didn't "throw it in my face" when he mentioned the ring; he was just letting me know that getting the chance to ride in that car would make him as excited as I was to find the perfect ring. And while I didn't initially see it that way because for me it's "just a car that you'll ride in for one day, STOP BEING SO UNREASONABLE", to Blake it was going to be a lot of fun to ride in and relax with his groomsmen before rocking up on the biggest day of our lives.

Well shit, I think to myself. I've been an ass.

Naturally, I felt completely abashed and retreated into my shame-cave when I came to this realisation. I think I've only just crawled back out, and I've agreed for us to look into hiring that car now. I'll be riding around in far less expensive but completely enclosed air-conditioned comfort myself, but I do admit that Blake's car will look amazing in photos. So that's definitely something to look forward to!

The Fedex Emotional Rollercoaster

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Singling Fedex out in this instance is perhaps a bit unfair, because they're far from the only company offering tracking information when a parcel is sent. But they are involved on this particular parcel, plus it keeps the title of the post shorter.

My wedding ring is being mailed to me via Fedex. It took several weeks of searching and calling around and trying things on and whatnot, but in the end it came down to two candidates: a ring in Townsville (QLD) to be made by my good mate Kalina's father versus a ring to be made in the USA where I actually got to choose each individual diamond (more stressful than exciting, as it turns out).

In the end, as I referenced in another post, what made the decision was palladium. I really did want a ring made in palladium and between the two options, that left me with the USA one.

After some to-ing and fro-ing about certain diamonds not being available and getting suitable alternatives and whatnot, I received a shipping notification and tracking information from Fedex late last week.

I have checked the Fedex tracking information at least thrice a day since then, following this tiny shiny thing across the US, through to Singapore, and as of the writing of this post it's currently in Belmont, WA. Guys, I drove through Belmont today, which is rare because I very seldom drive to work.

I PROBABLY DROVE RIGHT PAST MY RING AND DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT.

The status is listed as "In Transit" but it also says "Clearance in Progress". That was at 01:33 this morning and there have been no updates since then. So is it in a truck now and the website just didn't update? DOES THAT MEAN IT'S ON ITS WAY NOW? COULD THERE BE A PROBLEM WITH THE CLEARANCE? WHAT DOES CLEARANCE EVEN MEAN? WHAT IS TAKING SO LONG? WHAT DID I DO WRONG?!

Tracking information is one of those curse-as-blessing things that looks amazing and useful but, for me at least, actually causes an undue amount of stress and over-excitement. What this means is that if I don't get my ring within the next 24 hours, oh my gosh I'm going to be SO UPSET, probably more upset than I would have been had I not known that it's somewhere in Perth right this minute!

A Magical Place Called Taobao

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Growing up, my English was pretty terrible; I was actually in an English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) class up until the age of 9 or 10 in Hong Kong. My parents made me watch Sesame Street on TV at home to improve my English.

As we began moving around every few years to a new city and country, I got more use out of the English side of things. In many aspects it's an achievement of which I am proud, not least because I know I well outpace many native speakers in vocabulary and the rules of grammar. But sometimes, dependent on context, it's also a deep-seated and secret shame, because it came at great cost to my Chinese.

SIDEBAR: I would totally just watch a bunch of Cantonese cartoons until I heard the elevator clanging up and the lock turning, then quickly switch to Sesame Street and act like I'd been watching it all along. I'm pretty sure my parents knew.

When we lived in the Philippines, we had a Mandarin tutor come around once a week. I hated it, but my parents made me stick with it. When we moved to Beijing after 5 years in the Philippines, well, let me put it this way: I still haven't apologised to my mum and dad. I went on to use Mandarin regularly in Beijing and years later in Shanghai when I started working.

Then, I moved to Perth. Needless to say, I have not used much Chinese - Cantonese or Mandarin - at all except in very specific situations. It's a weird feeling, knowing that an important skill that makes me a huge part of who I am is slipping away, bit by bit. It got to the point where I became flustered when trying to read Chinese, because I was starting to see words I have known in the past, but can't seem to pronounce anymore.

Now that's a lot of context to set up what is really just an amusing anecdote. I have been trying to find a variety of items for the wedding and was looking on eBay and Etsy for cheap but quality items. I'd found a few that matched most of my criteria, but nothing that ticked all the boxes. A few days after beginning this search, it hit me: I was thinking too small. I was constraining myself to English search engines.

There's this place - I don't know if you've guessed what it's called yet - known as "Taobao" (rhymes with "bow" as in "lowering your upper torso"). It is essentially China's version of eBay and Amazon all smashed together, and it connects you with the same suppliers that sell all the stuff you buy everywhere else that's Made in China. And let me put it this way: there is so much stuff on Taobao. You can find almost anything for any price, including, as I recently found out, virtual girlfriends.

In one specific example, I found an item listed for about AUD1.50 on eBay. I found the exact same item (same photos, same zoom-in photos, same specs, same city of origin) on Taobao for AUD0.50 each!

The downside, of course, is that you have to be able to read Chinese. The former of which, much to my delight, has been coming back to me over the past few days. I did struggle at first, but then you get used to seeing the text and something about being immersed in it just brings everything else out, too. It's almost like warming up before a workout. I started out reading a word here and there to get the gist to suddenly realising that I'd been reading everything on the page for the past hour and hadn't even noticed!

Something interesting I've noticed is that the product reviews on Taobao are hilarious. Chinese reviewers will never, ever give something "5 stars" or say it's "perfect" or "awesome" unless it really, genuinely is. More often than not, the good stuff gets reviewed as "satisfactory", "not bad", and "adequate". It's all done with as much brevity as possible, too - rarely will you find any review longer than two sentences of text, even if the product is horrible in quality. Plus, they write like they talk, and then I hear it in my brain, and then I smile a bit.

So, basically, being Chinese is pretty awesome. Not only am I going to get stuff for the wedding sourced at a fraction of the cost from English-only websites, I also get to flex my atrophied Chinese muscles. I get to feel at least a little bit in touch with where I came from, even if it's the most superficial way possible. And, on an emotional note, I really cannot express how valuable that feeling is through this whole process.