Feb 22, 2010 12:35 pm

Engagement party at mom and dad's:

1) Spent all day Saturday cleaning what is not a small house! My sister is a hoarder and it's taken over the entire upstairs with nastiness and it was making its way down the steps. I managed to get all her nasty crap back up into the upstairs (and some thrown away) and make the downstairs look like civilized people live in the house again. Required three rounds of sweeping and mopping twice, a coat of Future on the Mexican tile floor and wood floor cleanser on the wood floors, scented candles all over and a massive scrubdown, but the house looked awesome. A kiddie gate kept people from going upstairs and seeing the horror. The cleaning also involved cleaning up all the cat puke and dog pee that never gets cleaned up from the 3 Persian cats and chihuahua because my parents are not physically able to anymore and my sister never cleans up after herself much less her animals. I took the steam cleaner and hit the carpets and furniture and made the entire downstairs look brand new.

2) The table was covered in enough food to feed a third world country: deviled eggs, dips, veggie trays, cheese trays, a bowl of grapes, miniature cheesecakes, slices of mini salamis, chicken salad sandwiches, and trays of olives. None of it was left by the end of the night.

3) My flower girl (2 year old niece) and ring bearer( 6 year old son of some friends) get along great. They were running screaming through the house, which drove my mother up the wall, and my niece was bossing him around. His father told him "Son that's just a prelude of things to come." The kid was very patient with my niece.

4) Family got to meet friends, friends got to meet family, massage coworkers got to meet all of the above. Everyone wanted to hear about our issues with the board.

5) When playing hostess, there is always a level of guilt that you didn't spend nearly as much time with (insert name) as your should have, that you hoped (insert name) wouldn't feel left out or like they didn't know anyone. I did make an effort to talk to everyone and say goodbye to whoever was leaving.

6) Niece wanted me to come in the back and watch Elmo with her. Felt guilty that I really couldn't. Once everyone had left, I went back there with her and collapsed on her Elmo pull out chair with her. (She had gotten her jammies on) My middle sister, her mother, found us nearly out cold and almost hated to pick up niece to bring her home. (We looked so cozy, she said) I for one was not in favor of moving at that point, until Fiance pointed out that if I didn't, I'd be spending the night upstairs with youngest sister because he was going home. =o) Funny how motivating that is.

7) Cleanup was alot faster than I thought since it was all on disposable trays and there wasn't much left! House was still pretty clean. Had to endure my mother criticizing how my friends let their son run around like an animal. OK first of all, he's a 6 year old boy and he's rambunctious and the crush of people and noise wound him up, he's not like that regularly. Second, you knew it was going to be mayhem. And third, we'll talk about who let's their offspring run around crazy after we examine who let their youngest daughter, at 27 years old ( my youngest sister) run around in an outfit she's all but falling out of, forget to take her anti-hyper medicine and in general run around making inappropriate jokes at my and Fiance's expense thinking she's being cute and ordering me around with such jewels as "Ashley, our cousins have been here for 20 minutes, why don't you go say hi to your family rather than jabbering about geek shit over here with your pals?" (in front of my friends) I went, but to get her away from my friends, not because she ordered me. One of our guy friends turned to my fiance and said "Wow. Just Wow." Fiance could only sigh and say "yeah." So let's not go criticizing my friends' parenting of a 6 year old, shall we?

Other than that, though, I think everyone had a good time. I avoided youngest sister and had fun showing my friends where I had grown up.

Can't wait to see what the Bridal shower my sisters are throwing me is going to be like.

Feb 10, 2010 8:57 pm

Me and mom have hit a compromise: we've added fiance's cousins that he wanted and two of her friends she wanted to invite which brings us to 7 people over our limit. Mom will pay for 10 extra people which gives us a little wiggle room should people start showing up with uninvited guests.

Feb 09, 2010 1:07 pm

The wedding stress train has officially hit.

I spent yesterday trying to catch up on stuff that needed to be done, and it was an expensive day, even with the do-it-yourself invitations and Walgreens save-the-date cards.

I dropped off the deposit to reserve the church and fee for the music coordinators and wedding coordinator. Yeow that was a bit more expensive than I had planned for.

Ordered gifts for the bridesmaids, groomsmen, ushers and flower girl. (all siblings, nieces and nephews)

Ordered blank invitations to print on my computer

Ordered save the date cards with our picture on it from Walgreens

Bought wedding favors from Oriental Trader for the reception. (mints in tulle bags and little bottles of bubbles in the shape of wedding cakes, better than rice or birdseed)

Sent in the engagement announcement for the newspaper. (Used to be free, now they're charging for it)

I get home and it's game night with the guys at our house for Fiance, so I locked myself in the back room with the cats and finished the guest list.

Then I emailed it to the mothers. That's when the stress really started. (after checking my credit card statement for all those purchases, it still stings) Fiance's mom is pretty easygoing about all this, but I know there are some more relatives she wants to invite and didn't, relatives my fiance was fairly close to growing up. We only have 120 spaces for the reception and we get fined if we go over that, so we've been pretty conservative on who we're inviting. Then my mom responds and tells me she wants to put on a couple of her friends from work and the third cousins she was close to as a kid, who are sweet people but seriously I don't know them that well and I see them MAYBE once a year. But they invited mom to their kid's wedding so she wants to invite them to mine.

That puts us at *1* spot left in the reception, and what if people bring unexpected girlfriends or boyfriends? And what about fiance's relatives? I pointed this out to her, to which she suggested I take off a few people here and there that are not really people I want to take off. (like my friends)

I told her we'd have no choice but to up the contract for the reception to include more people, which is an expense I really don't need right now with my second income on hold at the moment. (haven't been able to do massage for 6 weeks now)

Here's the conundrum, and I apologize in advance if it makes me sound like a spoiled brat. I'm really trying to take great pains to NOT be a bridezilla and appreciate what I do have and consider how fortunate I am to even be able to have this wedding when so many other couldn't, even priding myself on being able to cut and slash on unecessaries and find cheaper prices than otherwise when I can. My sister's wedding was an extravagant day. My sister got the cathedral downtown, the old governor's mansion as a reception center, 7 various showers, luncheons and parties and a cruise to the Bahamas, all more or less paid for by my parents. (The groom's parents really dropped the ball on us) I know that was alot of money that could have been better spent on such things as house and car payments, and later supplies for my baby niece. But part of me still says "Well SHE got (insert whatever) but I'm not good enough for the same?" I'm trying to quiet that voice but it isn't easy.

I have a limit on what I will comfortably pay for a wedding before I start feeling guilty and eyeballing the flowers and limo and thinking about the home renovations we could have done instead. I am at that point right now. I don't want to spend much more than I have. If my mom wants all this extra stuff, fine, but she can pay for it, because I can't afford it.

I know my sister's wedding put a crimp in my parents' finances. I don't want to ask them for much nor do I want to drive myself into debt again.

Because Fiance and I are older and settled in our jobs, we were determined to pay for as much of this as we could. And so far so good. His parents are retired and on a fixed income, my mom's retired and they still have debt, so we didn't want to ask them for much. But I didn't expect total reluctance on the part of my parents to help at all. Especially with crap THEY want, like extra people at the reception, a bridal sitting with the photographer. I also didn't expect to not have my second income get suspended right before the last few, and most expensive months, of planning started up.

I asked my mom about renting a limo, she said it was too expensive, but I noticed it wasn't expensive when my sister wanted one. (yes I know that makes me sound like a jealous whiny baby) So Fiance and I are renting a luxury car from Enterprise and getting a friend to play chauffeur.

Mom wants to add another $1,000 to the reception contract just so we can have room for relatives I barely know, OR she wants me to remove friends of ours from the list. This is exactly what my grandmother did to her that she swore she wouldn't do to us. Yeah right. I'd be more willing if she were willing to pick up the extra cost, which she said she'd do with other stuff months back but never did so we paid for it anyway.

Meanwhile Fiance's mom is wanting to pay for all the tux rentals, and we're trying to convince her that her grown sons are more than capable of paying for their own tux rentals as well as their sons'. She's paying for the rehearsal dinner and I've already decided to back out on the place I wanted because it's too expensive and I don't want her paying that much money on it. Currently looking for other restaurants.

So I have Fiance's mom wanting to pay for everything but not really financially able to, and my parents wanting all these extras, probably able to pay for it, but neglecting to do so.

So what will end up happening is me and Fiance end up paying for all the extras my parents want but likely wont' contribute to, while convincing his mom that she doesn't have to pay for anything else, even though she wants to, because she can't. (they still have hurricane damage repair payments they're trying to meet because insurance wouldn't cover putting a new roof on the house) Hell, his parents have already contributed their timeshare time to the honeymoon to Hawaii, which still needs saving up for since we've already used the honeymoon fund to pay for the wedding stuff that ended up being more expensive than we had budgeted for.

When is enough enough? And why the hell didn't we elope?

(sigh)

Thu Jan 28, 2010 12:30 pm

It's ramping up! 3 1/2 more months to go!

1) Wedding gown....check
2) Church and reception location booked.......check
3) Honeymoon hotel and flight booked......check
4) Pre-Cana and initial meetup with priest.....check
5) Flower girl.......check
6) Ring bearer......check
7) Bridesmaids dresses picked and ordered.....check

Still to do by the end of next month:

1) Guys need to get fitted for their tuxes, they're going this weekend
2) Turn in paperwork to priest and meet to plan out ceremony (next week)
3) go chat with florist and cake person at reception hall to decide on what we want (appt for that in 2 weeks)
4) Book restaurant for rehearsal dinner
5) Send in engagement announcement to newspaper
6) Contact wedding/music coordinator at church to discuss those details. (turns out she was in my sister's class in high school, small world!)

And to think I'm actually AHEAD of the game in alot of areas! Sheesh!

Moving on down the road

We decided to hire Celeste Relle as our photographer.

http://celesterelle.com/

There's a certain artistic quality to her wedding portraits that we really like, and while the package is a bit expensive, I always said that the photography was the one place I was not going to skimp or cut corners on. People will forget the food unless it's really nasty, nobody remembers the flowers, hell most people don't even remember the dress the bride wears after a certain period of time has passed. But the photos, taken by a good photographer, are the true keepsakes of the day. Celeste does this art book with the photos that is leather bound but the photos are printed on book stock pages for longevity in a collage manner, which we really liked. We get tons of prints and a bridal sitting.

My cousin Sarah is an up and coming photographer and she graciously did our engagement photos, which came out nice. I know my family would have liked to have me ask her to shoot the wedding, and I very nearly did. Still, my fiance and a friend of mine who used to be a professional photographer felt Celeste showed more experience and that if Sarah had been just a bit more experienced herself, it would have been an easier choice. As it was, it wasn't an easy one to make, as I really wanted to give Sarah the business. On the flipside, there's a reason why I didn't ask my chef cousins to cater the event, even though they are experienced and awesome.

In short, I don't want the family feeling like they have to work at the wedding. I'll have someone else work so they can enjoy.

We did Pre-Cana back in September, which was only a day and was actually 4 hours shorter than it could have been. It was the Saturday of the LSU-Florida football game and everyone, including the clergy, were all tailgating! The people who were supposed to talk to us about finances, communication and family planning were all out at LSU campus partying down. So the deacon who ran our seminar showed us a bunch of videos and sprung us early!

Now things are really gearing up. I spent some time on the phone confirming with the hotel in Hawaii that we do indeed have a place to stay, and then booked our flights to and from. My sisters and I plan to go dress shopping soon for thier bridesmaids dresses, and once that's done, we can talk to the florist and cake maker at Mount Hope, as well as send in the music list to the DJ. I'm still trying to get confirmation from St. Jude on that end of the ceremony, since they still need some deposits.

And we are scheduled to meet with Father Mike again to disuss the ceremony details.

And away we go!

(it's a bit like climbing up the first big hill onthe roller coaster and being within sight of the peak)

I'm glad we seem to be keeping the wedding within a reasonable amount. A coworker told me recently that her daughter who's getting married thinks she can't have a wedding for less than $25,000. Thats NUTS. Of course I told her all we're doing and how nice it will be and will not break our bank. But I don't think her daughter hears this reasoning too well.

Snafu correction and honeymoon

So I got an email back from the Diocese and they are going to reschedule us for another Pre-Cana week. No need to pay extra fees! Yay!

Future mother in law, as a wedding gift, is planning to give us their time in a timeshare they are part of for a hotel in Hawaii for the honeymoon. It's been rough because she's sent multiple requests to the company and either gotten no response, or was finally told there were no dates available. It was looking like we were going to be adding expense for a hotel room after all, since the use of the timeshare would have meant no need to pay for a hotel.

But lo and behold, she was able to get us the timeshare in Hawaii! Previously she had been told over the phone with the company that the nearest available date for Ohau would be some time in June after the wedding. Then someone told her to check online, because for some reason, the online data versus the data the people on the phone have access to are different. So after about 3 days of her and the Fiance trying to figure out what case (lower or upper) her logon ID and password were in, they finally got online and found a day open on May 7th, a week after the wedding! They've put in a request for it, and once we get confirmation, we'll be officially set up with a "free" hotel for Hawaii and can start booking flights and stuff.

We'll be staying at the Royal Gardens at Waikiki:

www.royalgardensatwaikiki.com

It's not a condo, and it's 2 miles away from the beach, but at this point, we're not complaining. It has in-room refrigerators and microwaves, and really that's all we need. It also has a breakfast buffet. The photos look pretty nice for the price:

http://www.travelpod.com/hotel/Royal_Garden_At_Waikiki-Honolulu.html

The reviews are pretty good, though any negative ones seem to be from before it was bought out by Wyndham, who immediately started upgrading it. As long as it's clean and no bugs, I'm good.

The first speedbump hits

It was bound to happen...at least one snafu.

Several months ago I registered me and the fiance in the local Pre-Cana program everyone having a Catholic wedding is required to go to. The letter of confirmation was sent to my parents' house back in June. It got stuffed in the junk mail pile on the counter and I only received it this past week.

Yeah, the weekend we were scheduled for had already passed. (eye roll)

(This comment has been censored due to extreme profanity and frustration)

So I left a message with the lady in charge at the diocese begging forgiveness and when can we reschedule. No idea if they'll charge us another $200. Probably will. in the meantime, we both look like asses. At least we still have plenty of time to do it.

On the upside, we took our engagement photos last week! My cousin Sarah took the photos of us around LSU campus, and we're waiting too get them back. The moms are chewing at the bit, so to speak. =o)