inDesign Wizard

A major part of my new job involves inDesign, a pretty simple design program. There was a learning curve of a couple days, but since I'd kind of been thrown in the deep end with Canvas Graphics as a grad student, I feel like I picked things up pretty quickly. The program can actually be pretty fun to work with, and if you're OCD like me, finally getting something to come together is one of the best feelings of a work day. "But, Jill, what does this have to do with cheap weddings?" you might be asking.

I created some seriously kick ass invitations in inDesign. I wish I could post them here for you all to ooh and aah at, but I want people to be at least a little surprised (and impressed) when they get them in the mail. A big thanks to Bryce and Keely, though, who were forced to admire them - I appreciate the oohs and aahs!

We'd been pricing out invitations and suffering a little bit of sticker shock - even with the 40% off Michael's coupons that company is so kind as to send anyone who signs up to receive their e-mail newsletters (and then promptly unsubscribes). I have the feeling those invitations you print on your own wouldn't turn out like they look on the box, and home-made cards on Etsy were out of our price range - even when you buy a pdf and have Kinko's print it for you. But the pdf idea got me thinking - why pay someone to make something in inDesign when I know how to use it. It was kind of an "aha" moment, and I'm a little sad it took me this long to think of it.

So I took the time, scrounged the internet, and made an amalgam of all the invitations I've been envying but could never afford, with the added bonus of the perfect wording, the perfect size (no extra postage!) and getting all those bits and pieces I thought might be luxuries. Like matching thank you cards, name cards, place cards, address labels, coasters, matchbooks.... ok, I might have gotten a little inDesign slap happy.