It's Soooo ETSY: A Shout Out to Support Artists Working From Home

When is the last time you sent out a party invitation? Not an Evite, but an actual hard copy, in the post, invitation? Your wedding? A child's birthday?

Well, if you haven't recently been on the invite scene, let me tell you this - it's changed BIG TIME. Gone are the days of sitting in a bridal shoppe or at Hallmark pouring over fat, pleather bound binders; those days and ways have been replaced by my friend and yours, the internet.

It's really true - a girl can plan an entire wedding on her WiFi laptop from the comfort of her couch. I can't begin to discuss all of the remarkable changes in the wedding industry that are the direct result of the internet; perhaps I will devote a post to that once the wedding is over and I've had a chance to put my wedding planning experience into perspective, but that's not the point of today's blog.

Today I want to give a HUGE shout to one of my favorite online marketplaces, ETSY and in particular, to one of its vendors, LaurenLoweDesigns.

As some of you may know, this past week was marked by a few late in the game changes to our wedding celebrations and I've had to think fast and re-organize. Fortunately, they came on the tail end of my FML attitude and were quickly diverted and embraced by my new Zenish one. Because I am leaving the country two weeks from today (yikes!), I went to work immediately taking care of business and one of the first details was to find new invitations and someone to print them.

I considered my options and it went something like this:

• Although I ADORE our custom design invitation to our Scottish ceremony, there was no way I was heading back up to Washington Street and emptying what is left of my dwindling bank account on 3 times as many invitations (note to all non teachers: in New Jersey, there is no such thing as getting paid in the summer. The paychecks end on the last day of school and in my case, do not commence until September 15th. This is week 8 without a paycheck - not ideal when you're wedding is three weeks away).
• EVITE is EVIL. I will NEVER send another Evite, so help me god. The Evite, in my opinion, engenders procrastination and removes responsibility by devaluing the event and, sadly, by doing so, devaluing the event planner/honoree. I've learned my lesson the Ehard way.
• I checked out the big online retailers that have jumped out to me from the pages of the 23948239847 bridal magazines I've purchased over the past four months, ones such as Weddingpaperdivas, and was frankly, overwhelmed by the options and complexity of the ordering process.
• I hit up Etsy. If you're behind the Etsy curve, it's an online marketplace for mom and pop type stores and home based artisans, craftspeople, retailers, etc. and focuses primarily on handmade and vintage goods of all kinds: jewelry (check out WiredbyWhitney), clothing, decorative items, stationary, antiques, etc.

I spent about 15 minutes browsing the hundreds of vendor before making the solid decision to use an Etsy vendor. I searched by theme and color combinations and narrowed by choice down to 3 vendors. I emailed a brief request to each and explained my situation, asked if she required a minimum order and inquired as to how quickly she could have the invites on my doorstep.

Within minutes, Lauren from LaurenLoweDesigns emailed me back and said not only could she do my number of invites in a timely fashion, but she could even start on them immediately that evening! We emailed back and forth a few times (sorry Isabella and Pete for my iPhone emailing rudeness the other night while we were out and thanks for being so understanding!) and before I went to bed that evening, I had the invitation proof in my inbox!

Lauren was amazing - she was eager, efficient, and effective and I am impressed by her professionalism, workmanship and artistic flexibility.

More so, however, I am shocked by her turn around time - I sent her my initial email Tuesday evening at 8 pm and this afternoon, I received an email that she Fed Ex'd my order this morning! I'm so excited that I'm about to email her and ask if she'll do a custom design for me for another event I'm planning!

I truly believe that the internet is going to save small business persons, artists, writers, and craftsman; it's a bridge that affords artists a way to traffic their work out into the world so it can reach people like me and dammit, that makes me feel really good. I was happy to send money to an artist for the employment of her specific skill set and doubly happy knowing she was earning money doing what she loves to do from the comfort of her home.

So, the next time you need a gift for someone, new business cards, a set of thank you notes, decorations for your child's birthday party, a special dress for a party, a veil for your wedding, a storage option to organize your desk, or a pair of pretty earrings, check outwww.etsy.com and support an artist!