Doe, a dear - Patti's Recap Part VIII

So, back to the recap. For anyone who wants to catch up, you can find the other million parts below:

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part V1, Part VII

In the event that you haven't noticed before... I'm long winded.

So! Last time we chatted, I had just went on a rampage writing up a storm about the webpage that I created for our wedding. That's not really very interesting, in retrospect, but then, this post probably won't be, either. That's okay, though! Just preparing you for later!

I had designed the wedding website, and the Save-The-Dates, which worked out awesome for me because, since, in my mind, those pieces weren't as crazy intimidating as the actual invitation, it meant that I was inspired to make some more fun pieces.. like Stag and Doe tickets..

Again - I didn't have a photo. So I (very poorly) mocked one up, just for you!

A lot of people don't know what Stag and Does are. And a lot of other people think they're tacky. Some people call the Buck and Does, some people call them Jack & Jills, and did you know that lesbian Stag and Does are called Jill Does?

Hilarious!

In this part of the world (Ontario), a Stag and Doe is a fundraising party of sorts. Weddings are expensive (surprise, surprise), and a lot of people want to support the new couple-to-be, including those who aren't expecting an invitation (like colleagues, high school friends, acquaintances, etc.). Typically, you would rent a hall and then people buy tickets to get into this killer party. There are door prizes, raffle prizes, games and cheap booze. And the best thing of all is that a Stag and Doe is like the biggest craziest most fun party ever, because you a) don't have to be dignified, like at a wedding, b) are encouraged to drink because it means you'll spend more money and c) YOU CAN WIN COOL PRIZES and d) anyone can come! It's a hell of a time, and I was so excited for ours!

In some necks of the woods, people think it's weird because the purpose of the Stag and Doe is, after all, to fundraise towards the Big Day. I say it's awesome - it's cheaper than a night out at the bar, and you're supporting your friends in the process.

Which reminds me.. can someone please get married soon? I want to go to a Stag and Doe!

See, I'm the girl deer and Ryan is the guy. Get it? We love each other. This is a poster I put up at work - they were incredibly supportive, and man, can my coworker HUSTLE!

Our Stag and Doe was a blast - we had an amazing turnout, and there are some pretty terrific photos floating around on facebook involving my future (at the time) husband and this sexy costume:

I've got my eye on you.

But I'm going to spare him from sharing those badboys. He was a good enough sport, and I'd like to stay married, if at all possible.

We knew that we had our work cut out for us - stay tuned for the story of how theGuy and I thought it would be a great idea to build a letterpress, design invitations, learn how to letterpress and press 100 double-sided invitations, rsvp cards and reception cards. It's amazing that we made it down the aisle! hah!

Happy Thursday! One more sleep 'til weekend!

It's the end of the world as we know it - Patti's Recap Part V1

Happy Tuesday! Muahaha! Okay. I know some of you are all like "Tuesday? It's not Tuesday," and you're all confused, but this is a trick I've learned and it really works, so get on the train already!!

You know how, for some inexplicable reason, 4 day weeks seem to take forEVER To pass? Like, seriously. Is this a joke? I have a theory on how time warps work, but I've found a way to beat it on short weeks, and voila! It's like a fancy party at the end of the week.

I tell myself it's Monday on the day back from work. It feels like a Monday. It looks like a Monday. So I call it Monday. And then I tell myself all week, "oh my goodness... four whole sleeps until weekened" or, on 'Wednesday', "thank goodness it's hump day.. only two more days." Then, all of a sudden you find yourself at the end of the week and it's all "wait! I don't have to come in tomorrow?" It's like a SURPRISE day off! Which DOUBLES the benefit of the long weekend prior! Winning in every sense of the word! It makes the week fly by, really. Try it! And even though I've spent some time explaining this concept to you now - Happy Tuesday. I'm sooo good at tricking myself. 

I should market this train of thought. Really.

Anywho - back to the recap, and HAPPY TUESDAY!

Fact: As a graphic designer, I've encountered many different types of clients. Many clients who could be described as difficult. But throughout this process, I quickly learned that I was, in fact, the most difficult client I have ever encountered.

The pressure I put on myself! I figured that everyone would have an expectation of something super fancy because I'm a designer. That I could ruin my reputation and career if the design elements were not perfect. That the world would end if everything wasn't absolutely fantastically amazing!

I was stuck. Totally stuck. And not for a lack of ideas. In this case, my first-world problem was that I had way, way, WAY toooooo many ideas. So many ideas. Sewing! Glueing! Typography! Illustrations! Textures! Paper! Posters! Twine! Wood! Die-cuts! I didn't know where to begin, I had way too many different concepts in my head, and since I was the client, I couldn't decide what I liked most, and so, didn't know where to begin.

TheGuy was a champ. He tried to console me as I shared my devastation with him. I was going to have to change careers. I was a hack of a designer if I couldn't even design my Save-the-dates without a bazillion meltdowns. I may as well hand in an application to McDonald's, except that I was paralyzed by options and HAVE YOU SEEN ALL THE TOPPINGS YOU CAN CHOOSE FROM at McDonald's? The moment I'd been looking forward to for my entire graphic design career: designing my wedding invitations to the love of my life, became a crippling, game of: "that might look nice! NO, that's stupid! What about this? That's dumb, too." And time was running out.

In my career, I'm usually able to manage stress. I adore working under pressure, I do my best work when under the gun. I like being able to manage my time, prioritizing the needs of others - it's a thrill, really. And I've never missed a deadline. But this was just nuts.

TheGuy said that I couldn't postpone the wedding because I was over-inspired, and that the show must go on. He also let me know how sad he was that I wasn't having fun with it, because, really, shouldn't it be fun? I was finally able to regroup. After weeks of agonizing (ok - actually months, because I'd been thinking of marrying him for a long time.)(Okay, actually - years), I decided to just go for it. To design something for Ryan and I, and not for anyone else. And a Save the Date could be whatever I wanted to be - simple, easy. As the initial panic of the blank paper in front of me wore off, I figured to go with what I loved - typography, and hand rendered typography. So I did it. It wasn't fancy, it wasn't award winning, but it was us. And that was the most important thing.

So, I didn't actually have time to take a photo - so I just made this in photoshop. And that's not our real website address, because I feel like being sneaky.

Creative concerns - Patt's Recap Part V

I have to start out by saying how ridiculously proud I am that I remembered the roman numeral for 5. At least, I think 'V' is the roman numeral for 5. Either way, I feel totally badass and medieval (except that I had to use spell check to find out the way to spell 'medieval' for some reason and that cancelled out the original awesome so this sentence doesn't really need to be here. Moving on!).

So. my update is moving along pretty nicely, although I don't know that it's all that interesting, but whatever! The good stuff is yet to come. Happy back-to-work day for those who are back at it. And for those with children who are back in school, hooray, hooray!!!!

2011

At this point in the story, theGuy and I had been together for 11 years (ah!). We met in highschool, at 17, and let me just tell you, I was smitten like a kitten. He totally looked (to me) like a bad boy (let's freak out dad!) but he was so kind and nice and smart and awesome.

Me and theGuy - young and in love. And for the record, my hair was very cool at the time (as far as I was concerned, anyway).

 
At 17, we were creative, misunderstood dreamers, and dream we did. One of those dreams was that, if we were ever to get married, we would have a camping wedding, where all of our friends and family could camp with us and we could get married in nature (I also wanted to have bunny rabbits hopping around freely, because I thought that would be super romantic, and I was young and stupid).

I don't think that either of us thought that would be a reality, but when we booked our venue in 2011, we saw our teenage dreams come true We found an amazing venue with two cottages (built mostly from materials found on the property), campsites nestled along the Saugeen River, a beautiful pavilion in the center of it all, and even a labyrinth area in the forest, with beautiful row-planted trees that could act as my aisle. SOLD. The first place we saw, it was better than we could've dreamed of, and the casual but beautiful wedding we wanted to have was beginning to come together.

The signs I had IMAGINED myself making were already THERE!

This got me started for the wedding planning! A rustic but beautiful space where I was only limited by my imagination (oh yeah, and money).

I adore planning parties. Absolutely. However, I have a tendency to get a little wound up - once I get hit by creativity, my mind spins a million miles a minute and it jumps from one idea to another. The closer I get to any party I've planned, the higher around my ears my shoulders sit, the stronger my inability to sit still, and the higher my voice goes (which is already pretty high, so this is not attractive to anyone, except the neighbourhood dogs). It totally consumes my thinking, and I become more and more consumed as my sleep-bank wears thin due to the midnight inspirations swirling around in my head.

That being said, I love it. Hallowe'en consumes me and I love it! I get stressed, I get amped up, I get wound up, but man, I get creative. Once those creative juices start flowing, it's like someone turned on a tap and they come at me everywhere. Something as simple as walking down the street could lead to a whack of ideas, and they swirl around and around in my head, driving theGuy insane [I haven't seemed to be able to grasp the concept that 1. He doesn't live in my head so when I say "oh my god! We can totally do that paper thing in the corner by the room, and it'll bring the other things together" he has NO idea what I'm talking about. 2. He loves me a lot, but he doesn't really care about colours and textures and decorations (or so he says - "Those wedding colours look like bathroom colours" - thanks!).]. Basically, party planning makes me ridiculously, absolutely, blissfully CRAZY. I love it.

With the wedding planning, I knew that I was going to have to watch it. I knew that I would get worked up at least for the 2 months before the wedding, but I wanted to take it easy and put off the crazies as long as possible (I did, after all, want to make it down the aisle). So in January I decided that it was full steam ahead. We'd lost so much time because of the previous summer and fall, and I didn't want to let a second go to waste. I wanted to enjoy as much of it in as calm and serene-like state as possible. I wanted to be the poised, gracious bride who had it all figured out and looked good in the process. I wanted to start with designing our save the dates.

Baby got back - Patti's Recap Part I

Well, I haven`t posted anything in like two years, but I have good reasons.

It's been a very busy couple years and I have so much to share! I miss putting my thoughts in cyberspace. So I'm going to start by sharing where I left off.

 In Sophia, from Golden Girls' voice:

Picture it. It's December 23, 2010. Patti has been shopping, shopping, shopping, in order to prepare for Christmas, mixed with working on her portfolio and attending a series of interviews for a new job. A new job that's going to be THE job, because it would allow her to pursue her own freelance. It's in an industry she loves, and it seems to good to be true. She's beside herself with hope and anticipation:

 I'm sitting here at my desk. It's the last half day of work before Christmas holidays, and I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to find the time to fit all the exciting holiday festivities into the week that I have off. IHOPEIGETHEJOB. Between parents, step parents, the Guy's parents, the friends.. will mom like her gift? IHOPEIGETTHEJOB. Will theGuy be excited? Will it be nice weather? JOB! JOB! What will I wear? JOB! JOB! I'm exhausted already and the crazy antics of the Christmas season haven't even started.

 "Okay! You guys can take off now!" That's my boss. I go to close my browser window where I've been hitting refresh on my email all day, waiting to hear from the potential employer, and I see that there's something waiting for me. Can't look now, it's time to go home.

I run. I really do, I run all the way home. Don't get too excited; I'm not a graceful runner. More of an arms flailing runner. I'm like a cartoon of the most uncoordinated run put into motion. The whole time, in between trying to catch my breath while simultaneously attempting to look like I'm not totally having a heart attack and trying not to slip on ice, I'm thinking "you got the job! NO! Don't get too excited! They could be letting you down gently! You got the job! Don't get your hopes up, Patti. This could be IT. But don't get excited."

I get home, check my email.

They'd like to extend an offer.

WHAT!? I got the job. I got the job! I GOT THE JOB! And I start two weeks after the Christmas break!

I'm walking on air. I got the job.

Things are going to change around here.