Step one: cry. Step two: problem-solve. Step three: cry again.

Last I left you, we had discovered a set of typos in our invitation suite, and we weren't very happy about it.  I immediately worried that I had put the misspellings in myself and the printer had simply reproduced my errors.  I speedily rifled through my email archives and discovered that my documents were clean of the typos, indicating that the error had occurred during the vendor's side of production.  While I was relieved that I was free of spelling guilt, I was just so emotionally spent that I couldn't even focus on problem-solving.  I deteriorated into a moderately weepy mess while Mr. Snow Cone started rallying our Pittsburgh troops to brainstorm for some other options available to us.

Once I had wiped away the tears from my eyes, I notified our vendor of our unhappiness.  Given that the errors in production were caused on her end, I felt it was appropriate to either get a new batch immediately, at no additional cost, or to receive our money back, as we had not received the product we intended.  Fortunately, she responded very promptly, and immediately offered to do a second batch for us in under a week.  Unfortunately, she pointed out that she had sent along some proofs for me to examine a few weeks back, which I had approved.  I had no recollection of this, so I went through our conversation archives, and sure enough, she was right.  And sure enough, the typos were in the proofs that I had given the go-ahead. 

Looking back, here's what happened.  At the time I placed my order, I was worried that we'd be cutting it close with getting our invitations to our guests in a timely manner.  When she sent me the photos, I was really interested in signing off on them to keep production going; I decided to view the photos on my teeny, tiny cell phone screen instead of waiting to get back to my laptop to view them at a fuller size.  On top of the screen size issues, I also let my eyes focus too strictly on little details.  Immediately prior to the photos, the vendor and I had been discussing font and color details; when I got the photos, I focused on the fonts and colors only, allowing my eye to pass over a handful of typos that had crept their way into the proofs.  The fonts and colors looked good, and I wanted to keep things moving along, so I said A-OK to the photos.  Meaning I said A-OK to having them printed with the typos.  Meaning I most definitely played a role in my own invitation demise.

I was perfectly content to let myself be all riled up at the vendor for what I perceived to be her errors; when she pointed out that I had indeed weighed in on this matter inadvertently, I completely crumbled.  I was a sobbing, runny nose, drippy, wet mess.  I was so disappointed in myself for not taking the time to really look over the proofs to ensure that no errors had arisen.  I was angry at myself for being so stern with her about her mistakes when they had, indeed, been our mistakes.  I was upset that our invitations would be delayed by another week.  I was experiencing a maelstrom of emotions, none of them positive.  It was easily the most bruising experience of our planning thus far.

But!  All's well that ends well, right?  The invitation vendor got us a second batch of invitations in barely over 48 hours, and they are exquisite.  Every last detail is beautiful and perfect, and we couldn't be happier.  Now that I'm a week recovered, I can most definitely tell that the invitation typo saga will be one of those stories that gets told to children and grandchildren to illuminate how things can seem downright horrible in the moment, but everything patches up pretty swiftly.  It seems like nothing more than a distant memory now that our lovely invitations are en route to their new homes.  Despite the hundreds of tears that flowed freely on that fateful afternoon, the ultimate conclusion is that we have invitations we love being delivered to people we love, and even Hank 'n' Pat can't really beat that!

Did a miscommunication ever cause a wedding mishap for you?  How did you react?