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“Why wait?”
His eyebrows lifted. “I mean, I don’t have a venue yet?”
“Sure. But a save-the-date is literally asking someone to put the event on the calendar. We can tell them the date and time and what it is and say something like details and invitation to follow. But you need to get on people’s December calendars yesterday.”
Cody blew out a breath. “You’re right about that. You really think people won’t be confused when there’s no venue?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t promise, obviously, but the last save-the-date I’d gotten was for a wedding and it had just had the date and registry information on it. “Even if they are? I still think it’s better to get on their calendars now and fill in the details the third week of October. That’ll give them eight weeks to respond, which should be plenty.”
“All right.” He nodded once. “I’ll bow to your superior knowledge.”
I laughed. “I don’t know about superior knowledge. I just rock a web browser. Speaking of which, you wanna look at custom printing sites now?”
Cody groaned and his head fell back. “I don’t. I really, really don’t.”
“Come on. It’ll be fun.” I nudged him with my elbow, then promptly reminded myself that he was one of many honorary brothers. He didn’t think of me as a woman. And I definitely didn’t think of him as a man. “It’ll be good practice for when you get married.”
“Oh, yes. It’s important to practice for that eventuality that may never come. Good thinking.” Cody shook his head and pointed at my phone. “Show me what you think is best.”
“Well…” I drew out the word. “I have a few favorites. It’s true. But since we’re hoping to go with the Torpedo Factory for the venue, I thought this one would go well.”
I tapped on my phone a moment as I navigated through the saved links until I landed on the one that I wanted. I handed it to Cody.
“Hmm. It looks shiny.”
“And wavy. Like a river, right? And the sort of hints of skyline and stars?” I bit my lip. Maybe it was too much. “Of course, you could go with a more standard, heavyweight cream, maybe with a gold accent. I have a couple of those saved if you think traditional is the way to go.”
“No. I like this. It’s different. And you’re right, it’d go well with the location.” He looked up from my phone and grinned at me. “What are the options?”
I took my phone back and went back to the product page. “Okay. I think for the save-the-date, you want this postcard style. You still put it in an envelope, mind you, but it’s just a flat card. Then when we get to invites and responses, I like the folded version and separate card with smaller envelope for replies. But you should also make a way for people to respond online.”
“Online? When we’re sending them a card?”
“Trust me. Some people are going to want to respond that way. And you need to figure out your response deadline when you get your catering figured out. Because they’re going to need final numbers before the day of. Probably before the week of.”
Cody nodded, but he looked a little like a trapped animal.
“Hey. It’s going to be okay. Once you get the big things handled, it’s going to be a lot smoother.”
“Yeah. I get that. I’m just worried about getting those big things taken care of.” He ran a hand through his hair. “So how do we order and what’s supposed to go on them?”
“Seriously, Cody?” I crossed my arms. “You’re not helpless. You’ve been attending these things for what, five years?”
“I know that. But you act like I’ve ever paid attention to the mailers. I work there. I know I have to show, so I put the info on my calendar and call it a day.”
Men. Good grief. “I don’t suppose you have access to the previous year information? It’d be good to copy their wording somewhat.”
Cody shook his head. “If it’s there, it’s not on the drive they gave me access to.”
“All right. That’s fine. We’ll do another web search.” I tapped at my phone and scanned the first couple of links that were returned. “Looks like we basically just say ‘Save-the-date for the Ballentine Coalition’s annual Christmas gala to be held on December whatever’ and then something like ‘formal invitation to follow.’ Seems easy enough. Should I shoot you the link and the wording?”
“Can we order them now? I’d rather know they were underway. I do understand that these need to be on their way to donors like two months ago.”
“You have your corporate card with you?” Because I was not putting these on my own credit card. That poor thing would probably shriek in agony. I ran my finances close to the bone. And sure, Austin would probably love to give me money—but I didn’t want to take advantage of my brother. Even if he was a billionaire.
“Nope. But I can use my own.” He shrugged. “I can either file for reimbursement or consider it a donation.”
Right. Because Cody was also a billionaire. All the guys were. I tried to keep the jealousy down. And the hurt. I wasn’t likely to ever really understand why they hadn’t invited me to participate in their big stock market experiment in the first place. Sure, I didn’t have quite as much liquid cash as the rest of them, but I would have figured something out. How nice would it be to not have to worry about money from day to day?
