Maura

hmmm i may have to look into that... although jose will kill me if i keep buying wedding related things that arent budgeted haha

jodey i especially love the bouquet, but im biased because thats very similar to what i'm doing. mine will have a french criss-cross ribbon though. if you want, i can send you some pics.

morgan, how do you do your cool siggys using multiple pics? photoshop? i am aspiring to be more like you in the siggy dept haha

those are amazing and hilarious, i love them! cute idea to dress up in 70s garb. also LOVE the red shoes! what fun

post it to photobucket first, and then copy the IMG code into your post here

Quote: Originally Posted by moxie06 We're having our wedding at the Westin and that is what the WC specifically said. She actually mentioned that there would only be one event per week. So the place is all yours and your guests. That was a nice surprise when we toured the resort (after booking the date). same here. a huge reason why we booked the westin was because we were guaranteed we would not only be the only wedding on our day, but also for our whole week so that we would have the attention and support of any staff necessary. also nice so that we know there wont be a second weddings' guests sprawled all over the hotel too!

Quote: Originally Posted by lucy106 Holy crap! That is so awesome!! Congratulations!! What an exciting time for you both!!!!! i couldnt have said it better! how fun, congrats! i have always wanted to go to PR too, cant wait to see pics when you get down there. now show us your vegas pics you tease!

we're doing the RSVP online with our weddingwindow site, which is great. love the invitations, but they dont look mexico-ish to me, but who cares. theyre great anyway!

apologizing in advance because this will be long, and you guys are my personal therapy these days... i am sure i have tons of little confessions, but my big one is that i hate my own family. they are always in my business, telling me what to do, judging me, etc etc, creating drama where there doesnt need to be any. i was just talking to my stepmom last night about how my FI's wonderful family must think i come from a pack of assholes. you all know about my crazy mom, to whom i'm not speaking, and i am not even gonna touch that one with a ten foot pole right now. most of you know about my controlling aunt throwing my shower, who isnt coming to my wedding, but is finishing her basement this year for $40K. then my aunt has the nerve to tell us where we should register so that everyone can afford to buy us gifts, because we "have fancy tastes" --- im sorry but when did i ever say i expected a gift from anyone? I dont! we registered for a wide range of things at 3 stores to try to hit all price points, i dont have to register anywhere she suggests, so why cant she just stop offering unsolicited advice? my sister, who is my MOH, is just barely going to be 22 by the time of my wedding, and she is still in college and has ADD, bless her heart, and is on medications to control it. i have done my best to divide up requests among bridesmaids so my sister is not too burdened because i know she has a hard time with her class load. but she never returns my goddamn calls or emails about wedding stuff in a timely manner. in fact, the only time that my sister usually calls me is when SHE wants something. like for me to help her with her resume, or cover letters, or to edit a paper for a class of hers. i am not a fucking free editing service at her disposal whenever. i wish we were closer, but i feel like theres a lot of animosity because of her behavior, she is very selfish. my mom only perpetuates my sister's behavior by coddling her her entire life, so my sister doesnt know how to do anything on her own. she doesnt even have any idea how much of her college education is in student loans! then this week, my dad has been bitching about the cost of my wedding, suggesting we call it off and do it at home because he doesnt want to pay to go -- says he cant afford to but he just put about $400 worth of upgrades into a laptop computer he BORROWED from me, and thinks now he doesnt have to give back because he paid for half of it in the first place when i went away to college almost 8 years ago, and he and my mom split all those costs 50/50. my dad has a nice photo printer, which is better than my printer at home, and I cant use my office printer because the cardstock for my STDs is too thick. so i asked him if i could use his printer, thinking well he isnt paying a dime for my wedding so the least he could do is let me print my stuff for my stds at his house --- then he f'ing tells me "well the ink is $80 per cartridge, so you'd have to replace it" ---ok yah dad, im gonna spend $80 to buy you new ink, the whole reason i asked was to avoid PAYING someone like kinkos to do it! OH! and btw, my dad has still not even applied for his passport yet!!!!! another related confession: i recently told my stepmom that i wished she was my real mom, because she doesnt judge or manipulate me the way my mother does. my poor FI, sometimes i dont even know why he still wants to marry me because my family is so screwed up. my half sister is not speaking to my half brother (both from my dad's 1st marriage, so yes if you do the math, my dad is on his 3rd marriage), and they are supposed to room together at my wedding. i sent out an email to everyone in my family asking for their mailing addresses because i knew some people had recently moved and i didnt have the new address, and my sister wouldnt give me brothers new address because "she doesnt have it". im sorry, theyre both almost 40, please grow up. ON THE OTHER HAND--- my FI's family is wonderful and loving and amazing. they arent crazy or too judgmental like my family is. they dont yell at each other. they're always kind. and generous. and never once made a single comment about how us doing a DW was going to cost them. and then on top of that, they offered to pay for the whole kit n caboodle. why can't my family be more like them? i am often jealous of FI because of how great his family is, but he doesnt really appreciate them that much. i could go on and on...feeling a bit better though for getting all that off my chest. the ONLY wedding thing im stressed about is my stupid family and all the problems they cause! everything else basically has been smooth sailing compared to their bullshit.

i know what youre saying carly and im not saying youre wrong in wanting to complain -- which i think you should if it really bugs you. BUT... i showed my good friend my STD prototype today and i was talking to her about envelope colors because im going back and forth with whether i should use navy envelopes or cream envelopes that match the cream paper the stds are printed on with navy ink. my friend pointed out that while the blue ones look nice too, if i did the cream envelopes, i can run my envelopes through the printer for each persons address so the fonts match the STD, which i never really thought about before, so i am going to go buy new cream envelopes tonight haha. her main point was that i should do what's easier --- nobody else but me is going to care about the envelope, and almost everybody will just throw it away anyway, so i shouldnt stress about it. i think shes right!

we're going through the same thing kinda. we're sending the invite anyway so that we cant be accused of leaving them out, but we know theyll most likely decline anyway, so we're not worried about it.

from another chicagoan! a bunch of us chicago gals from the forum are getting together in march. do a search for the thread called "calling all CHICAGO brides" and you'll find info there if you'd like to join us, just post under that thread

sarah i love your dining room table, where's it from? i will have to post pics once we get settled into our new place. we move in 5 weeks! i can't say which room is my favorite though because i love them all!

i'm a journalist at an international business trade magazine. on any given day i am in touch with dozens of CEOs, presidents, CMOs etc of large companies in the industry i cover. sounds important but sometimes they can really be a pain in my butt haha. i also manage all our databases (currently access but moving to SQL later this year) that our magazine uses to run data driven rankings, special reports, and data analytics for the industry. its a great job and i am the youngest editor at my publication. i do have one really pesky coworker that i cannot stand who thinks she's my boss when our boss is not around, and i totally put her in her place today which felt so great!

yay heidi how fuN! cant wait to see pics!

ugh rebecca so sorry theyre doing this to you. my initial reaction was cut and run and give your business to someone else. the $80 extra pp sounds totally exorbitant to me. but after reading angelas response i must say she definitely has a point. you dont want people ordering off the full menu anyway because its too hard for the kitchen and no one will be eating at the same time. i dont understand what the extra $80 cost per person is for though. can you explain?

thanks for posting christine, lots of great info! i am bookmarking it

theres some video on CNN about it to, its breaking news. very sad.

Quote: Originally Posted by LC_Rachel Aww... thanks ladies. I would love to party with you all too! We would have a blast. Everyone is so pumped for this party. I thought I would get some haters hating on the wigs, but so far I think everyone wants to be incognito. haha My FI already has a few tuxedo tshirts ready to wear in Mexico- he and his best man have threatened to wear them every day but wedding day. He didn't want all the girls to be dressed up so we came up with tuxedo tshirts for the guys. I can't wait to share pics. To bad it's a month away!! well in the meantime rach, why dont you guys GO REGISTER for some presents! haha you procrastinator you

dont feel bad, last weekend i ate enchiladas for lunch on saturday and then my FI made garlic bread pizza for dinner. i was like are you serious? come on you know i cant eat like this! i weigh in on fridays, but i was too excited to wait and i stepped on my scale this morning, and ive lost 3.5 pounds in 2 weeks so far! so a little cupcake overdose won't totally derail you

rach those are HILARIOUS! i also must say i HAVE to meet you in person, youre so funny i love ya.

Quote: Originally Posted by dallas_texas09 Here's my understanding on this. I thought that for the Mexican government to view a marriage legal it must be done in front of a Judge. This means that if you have a wedding officiated by a Judge then it is fine. However, for a Catholic wedding, it is officiated by a priest, therefore the marriage is not technically legal. From the church's perspective you are married but this is not accepted by everyone else in the world. When we got married in Playa del Carmen, the priest did not give us a marriage license after our ceremony. He gave us a marriage certificate -- similar to what you get when you get Baptized or when you have your Holy Communion or Confirmation. However, the marriage certificate provided by the Church is not a legal piece of document stating that we are married. It is a document ONLY accepted by the Church. So, with that said, it was my understanding that if you wish to have a Catholic ceremony in Mexico, you must also do a civil ceremony (one performed by a Judge). You can do this before or after your Catholic wedding ceremony and can be done in the U.S. or in Mexico. This is when you get your actual marriage license. In my case, we had our civil ceremony in the U.S. prior to going to Mexico. this is absolutely correct for those of you wondering. the catholic part is legal only in the sense that it's legal in the catholic church, so youre recognized as married by the church. the legal thing is something separate. in mexico you are required to do both if you want your marriage to be legal in mexico. however, for example, if you get married in a catholic church in the US, your priest can sign your legal marriage certificate, so your catholic wedding can count as both the legal and the spiritual.

...when you are willing to post a silly photo of yourself in your underwear just to make your BDW friends laugh, even though its possibly the most embarassing photo that exists of you (and you would never even show it to your real friends because you know they wouldnt appreciate it haha)

Quote: Originally Posted by marip123 I think my WC is Lorena. She is the one that has been answering my questions. I'm not 100% happy with her, but she has been okay. Since we didn't do a block of rooms, I'm kind of feeling like we're not so important? Does that make sense. Anyway, has Karina been helping you decide on menu? Has she talked to you about anything else vendor wise? My FMIL sent Karina an email last week telling her that once she assigned me a WC, to tell the WC that they are to carry out whatever wishes I have and to not worry about the cost... so I have the feeling that I am going to be taken care of no matter who she gives me as my WC. But no, Karina has not been helping me with menus or anything. I'm kind of at a standstill until I hear from my WC whoever she assigns to me next week. Karina didnt talk to me about vendors, but apparently she told my FMIL something about paying a fee for outside vendors and my FMIL told her that we were using local cabo vendors and we werent paying the Westin jack to bring them in and that she would agree to that or else we would take the whole wedding and all of our business elsewhere, and we have not had any problems since. I am just so anxious to get my WC assigned so I can get some stuff like the ceremony location figured out and get some questions answered.

Quote: Originally Posted by marip123 I think my WC is Lorena. She is the one that has been answering my questions. I'm not 100% happy with her, but she has been okay. Since we didn't do a block of rooms, I'm kind of feeling like we're not so important? Does that make sense. Anyway, has Karina been helping you decide on menu? Has she talked to you about anything else vendor wise? My FMIL sent Karina an email last week telling her that once she assigned me a WC, to tell the WC that they are to carry out whatever wishes I have and to not worry about the cost... so I have the feeling that I am going to be taken care of no matter who she gives me as my WC. But no, Karina has not been helping me with menus or anything. I'm kind of at a standstill until I hear from my WC whoever she assigns to me next week. Karina didnt talk to me about vendors, but apparently she told my FMIL something about paying a fee for outside vendors and my FMIL told her that we were using local cabo vendors and we werent paying the Westin jack to bring them in and that she would agree to that or else we would take the whole wedding and all of our business elsewhere, and we have not had any problems since. I am just so anxious to get my WC assigned so I can get some stuff like the ceremony location figured out and get some questions answered.