I'm usually a pretty laid back, calm person. I don't let too much get to me, I don't freak out about little things and I just kinda go with the flow and make the best of whatever situation when things do go wrong. UNTIL NOW. Wedding plan has made me completely nuts. In the last 2 weeks I have been completely anal about every little thing and really wanted everything to be perfect for the wedding. SO, naturally, I only trust myself to do it. FI has offered to help with some of the planning several times and I always tell him I'm fine....until yesterday when I was so stressed out and getting down to the wire and just starting to put my program fans together. He knows I've spent hours and hours doing some of this stuff and really genuinely wants to be helpful which I was so appreciative of.
So we both spend about 5 hours yesterday printing and cutting and playing around with the program fans to get them right. I'm at work right now, otherwise I would post pics, but just to give you an idea of what they are like, the printing is on white cardstock, but when it wasn't heavy enough, I decided to use black cardstock I had to make it stronger. So I made a template for a black fan just a little bit bigger than the white ones and glued them together so there is a black border around the white when looking from the front. Each fan has six pieces that fan out. Even though we only have 17 guests, that's still just over 100 pieces that needed to be cut out by hand, but we had to do that TWICE once I decided to use the black backing too. So we spent all this time yesterday printing and tracing and cutting. We only completely finished 2 full fans (15 to go!) so FI offered to take them to work that night and finish all the cutting so that all we would have to do today was glue them together and then put the rivets in place at the bottom.
We work in the same place on the 11-7 overnight shift and he called me at about 4 AM telling me he had finished all the cutting and asking where he could find gluesticks in the building he was in. I told him where they would be if there were any but doubted that there would be.
So this morning when we got out of work, I get in the car to drive home with him and he tells me how happy I am going to be and hands me the plastic bag with all the fan pieces in it. I take out the stack and start looking through it. He was so proud because he had glued them all too and he says, "I couldn't find any gluesticks so I just used Elmer's"
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!
He goes on to explain that we would have to redo a couple of them because the glue leaked through the white and made a wet spot, but it was only 3 or 4 out of the 100 total. He also says he understands that they are "a little wrinkly" but he will put them inside books when we get home to flatten them.
A LITTLE WRINKLY? I wish I had pictures to share right now...
My FI is a very bright guy, but I swear the common sense is lacking sometimes...ELMER'S GLUE MAKES PAPER WET! All 100 of them had a wave-like look to them because of the glue. I couldn't believe it.
Atfer all our hard work...hours and hours of our backs hurting from leaning over the paper cutter and trying to get them just right...
So I start to cry. Not a lot, but I was visibly upset and my face was all red and my eyes were welling up. So now FI is all upset and trying to defend himself...saying he was just trying to help and he didn't know and he's sorry and he'll do them over and whatever else.
I'm so mad/upset that I just didn't say anything; I didn't want to yell at him and I didn't want to make him feel any worse and I know he was genuinely trying to help.
BUT AHHHHHHHHHH! What a waste!
Even though I told him not to, he went to the store later and came home with new cardstock and another printer cartridge (since we had had just enough for the ones we made) and says he is doing them all over himself. He started this morning but when I came home from work later he hadn't gotten any farther than reprinting.
I feel so bad and I don't want him to redo them, but I also don't want to use them the way they are. They look AWFUL. They look like a 5 year old was in charge of glueing
And I know no one probably cares except for me, but I don't want to give them out like that. I'm thinking about scrapping programs altogether because I just don't want to spend more money (I'm going to try to take the cardstock back, at least the ones he didn't open yet). I don't think anyone would even notice that there weren't any if we didn't have them.
I also really hate having bridezilla moments like this...
I'll try to post pics later today when I get home too. Am I totally overreacting? Anyone else go through anything similar?
I'm such a perfectionist and I hate when things look sloppy...and its the WORST when he is so proud and excited, then shows them to you and you're like WTF? Men, just don't get it, as hard as they try. I think you did the right thing by staying calm and not making him feel worse. I'm sure he understands that you are stressed and knows that you want things to be perfect. He sounds really loving and patient to offer to re-do them all again! Maybe it won't be so bad since there are still 2 good ones! Keep us posted 
