I had no trouble with this at all:
First (left) is yours. I added the red square in the middle. Then selected the design, then the red square, and selected Tools > Cut Shapes. It cut. I got the result on the right. You do not have to ungroup first.
Where is it that yours is going wrong?
And the overall size of the production? The size of the project divided by the realistic and manageable cutting size of your laser would give you some understanding of what size your cut shape needs to be.
You are asking us to design this for you working with less than desired information. Please remember, we only have the words you provide. 
Ok, I lied - this should be closing the filled shapes, and it isn’t. I’m going to try to figure out why.
Ok, mystery solved: your shapes aren’t closed properly.
(IE, the first point and last point weren’t the same node, but were in the same place). Did you make this in LightBurn, or import it from another type of file? If you imported, could you email me the file so I can check to see if the source is closed and I’m not retaining that properly?
I did it all in lightburn
The text isn’t text objects, it’s just shapes - So you didn’t create the text in LightBurn as far as I can tell. Did you hand draw this, or trace it, or create it some other way? I’m trying to figure out at what point it became un-closed.
No, I designed it all in lightburn. I don’t have any other program that I use.
Ok, it’s possible that this is something we messed up somewhere. Did you convert the text to a path at some point?
In any case, if you select it all, then un-group everything, then go to Edit > Close selected paths with tolerance, it’ll close everything.
You can then re-group it, and the shapes should cut properly after that.
I didn’t use any text to path on this.
The text in your file is not text objects, it’s just shapes. If you typed the text in LightBurn, using the text tool, at some point it was converted to “not text”, either by using Boolean operations, node editing, or by selecting the text and choosing “convert to path” to make it editable shapes instead of text.
I’m trying to figure out which one you did so I can figure out why the text shapes were left open.
okay, so I changed the layout and this is what I’m up to. I’m having a hard time getting getting it to cut to shape.matt & kelly.lbrn (39.5 KB)
Great. Select the text, then the left-side Red rectangle, then choose ‘Tools’->‘Cut Shapes’. That is the first cut. De-select the text and reselect only the right side text, then select the right-side Red rectangle, then choose ‘Tools’->‘Cut Shapes’.
The result should provide you with the 3 sections as illustrated below:
matt & kelly_Edited_01.lbrn (248.2 KB)
Thats where I’m having the issues, it just won’t do it. I select the text and highlight the red box and to to tools, but the cut shapes isn’t available.
Do you see the option in the menu?
It’s there, but it won’t let me click on it
Select the shapes you want cut, then hold the shift key and click a red rectangle to add it to the selection, making it the last thing in the selection. Then look to see if ‘Cut Shapes’ is allowed.
Nothing, It stays the same
I think i got it that far, went back and started over and used the shift key and it worked. Thank you so much! Now to see if I can get the engrave going!
Just make sure you select the items in the right order:
That should be it - You use Shift to add things to your current selection, and there are other modifiers too. This might help you: https://lightburnsoftware.github.io/NewDocs/ZoomPanSelect.html
