I’m helping to plan a baby shower for a friend. We just decided on the date about a week ago- and it’s two weeks from this Sunday, so we haven’t left ourselves a ton of time to do things like send out invitations. So the same day we decided on the date, I ordered invitations online. They arrived arrived yesterday, and I am proud to say they’re already in the mail and on their way. Last night, I was a model of efficiency, addressing like a fiend while Netflix streamed Center Stage direct to my Wii (“I’m the best goddamned dancer at the American Ballet Company. Who the hell are you? NOBODY!”)
But lest I get too smug about this accomplishment, allow me to tell you about the snafu that came with ordering them. We ordered absolutely adorable invitations on TinyPrints. We’re having the shower at my cohost’s house, and she was busy at work so I looked up her address, entered it into the invitation, and hit “order.”
Imagine my chagrin when she emailed me two hours later and said “um, Pseudo? Are we still doing it at my house? Because that’s not my address on the invite.”
Well, crap. Turns out I’d gone into our book club email thread to find her address and had just absentmindedly selected the address of an entirely different book club member. Congratulations, random book clubber! You are now going to have 40 people bearing baby gifts show up at your house two weeks from Sunday!
So I called Tiny Prints in a panic, hoping against hope that there’d be time to correct the order. After all, it had only been two hours, right?
“Oh, ma’am, I’m so sorry,” the incredibly nice man on the phone told me. “Your order has already printed and shipped.”
Side note: holy efficient business model, Tiny Prints!
So I had to order an entirely new batch of invitations. I’m a genius! I’m thinking that I should send one of the goofed up ones to the book club member who lives at the goofed up address (she’s invited to the shower) just to freak her out. Oh, did you not remember that you’d volunteered to host? Surprise! Haaaaaa!
So yeah: for everything I manage to do where I feel like a somewhat competent adult, it seems like there’s at least one thing that makes me feel like a total numbskull. It’s probably just as well: I wouldn’t want to get cocky.
We ordered our wedding invitations online and also had an amazingly positive experience. I’m quite certain when I need to get baby shower invites, we’re moving postcards and so on, I’ll be heading back to the Internet. It’s amazing how that whole industry has changed (and likely grown) as a result!
That is super fast production and shipping, Tiny Prints! Very impressive.
Oh, that sucks! I can’t believe that happened! I hope it wasn’t too expensive.
If this isn’t the best advertisement for Tiny Prints, I don’t know what is. I think I’m going to send them a link to this post and hope they reimbursement you for at least one of the sets of invitations because I will forever and always remember how amazingly quick they printed and shipped those invitations now!!
That is so something I would do. When I order Xmas photo cards, I like PANIC before I hit send because I’m like “what if I just misspelled something? What is I meant public and wrote pubic? What is I have an Elaine boob Xmas card incident?!”
I should note: Tiny Prints also gave me a discount on my reorder, which was very gracious of them since this was 100% my fault.
Oh don’t feel bad. It’s totally a murphy’s law thing. Anytime you’re being totally efficient and competent, you’re bound to have missed something big. Like when I threw a baby shower (for a kind of fussy-pants type woman) and misspelled her kid’s name on the cake.
Oh, that sucks! I can’t believe that happened! I hope it wasn’t too expensive.