Wednesday Wedding Weecap (or why I never get anything done)

Alternative Title I: The dilettante's guide to wedding invitations
Alternative Title II: I sure hope no prospective employers ever read this...

...

Dear Internets,

I've been feeling guilty about procrastinating about doing our wedding invitations, so I decided to just do them. I got some of the print your own invitations (I know you hate those, Internets, but that's because you're all graphic designers and/or millionaires), and the process seemed like it would be pretty straightforward:

1. Collect addresses for guests
2. Print invitations
3. Address envelopes
4. Update wedding website to reflect new information
5. Affix postage to envelopes
6. Drop invitations in the mail

In reality, the process has gone more like this:

1. Email friends and family members for their addresses
2. Assure friends and families that I just need their addresses because I have some chain letters I need to get out
3. Ask Achilles for his addresses
4. Ask Achilles for his addresses (again)
5. Look up possible invitation wording
6. Second, third, and fourth guess wording decision
   
7. Decide that inviting people places in the third person is just going to sound weird no matter what
   
8. Print invitations
9. Ask Achilles for his addresses again. Feel like a nag
10. Begin hand addressing envelopes
11. Decide hand addressed envelopes look awful
12. Print addresses on envelopes
13. Tell Achilles he's on his own for his invitations
    
14. Go to post office near house to buy stamps. Find that the only stamps they sell in the denomination we need have creepy dolphins on them
15. Drive to main post office across town on MLK Day. Find that post office no longer has stamp vending machines
16. Decide to use vintage postage stamps instead of creepy dolphin stamps
17. Spend far too much time on eBay looking at vintage postage stamps
18. Second guess decision to use vintage stamps
19. Order them anyway, figuring it will give Achilles time to get me his addresses
    
20. Decide to update wedding website while waiting for stamps

Notice how "update wedding website" just took up one little number in the first scenario? Here's how it really went:

1. Correct date, time, and location information on website
2. Decide that I'd really like people to be able to RSVP and request songs for the reception through the website
3. Research options for RSVP widgets
4. Discover that most existing options are crappy and/or seem to be phishing for guests' personal information
5. Decide to use Google Forms so that everything will be conveniently stored in a Google spreadsheet once the guests input their information
6. Realize that Google Forms doesn't really let you modify the form they give you
7. Find a way to hack the form so that it doesn't look so fugly
8. Realize that after people RSVP, they will be sent to a website to create their own Google Forms rather than back to the wedding website
9. Read Google forums for possible solutions. See that this is a "known issue that will be corrected in a future update."
10. Seethe
11. Realize that if I knew how to write JavaScript code, I could keep people from being redirected to the external website
12. Learn enough JavaScript to fix the form
13. After 946 tries, finally get JavaScript working correctly
    
14. Realize that people won't be able to RSVP online at all if they have JavaScript disabled
15. Decide that this doesn't really matter for a group of 20-30 people anyway
16. Realize that I will probably go back and fix the form so that it works with or without JavaScript because I'm anal
    
17. Decide that it is time to start drinking

This is why I never get anything done, Internets. I am like the kid from those Family Circus dotted line comics. Remember those?



Oh well. I will survive. The invitations don't have to go out for two weeks anyway, and as long as I get Achilles's addresses (COUGH COUGH), we should meet that deadline easily.

But seriously. Sometimes the extent of my distractibility frightens me.

Love,
Jane