Maura

omg!!!!!!!! so cute!!!!!!!!!!!!! i wanna hug him!

Quote: Originally Posted by AlmostMrsForbes Thank you! I knew I was not completely crazy! Anyways, I have a theory that she likes to pretend that I don't even exist! Most parents want their children to be happy - and have fulfilled lives. Not her. I seriously believe that she'd like FI to single forever and to move home with her. Weird. The last time she was up, someone mentioned us starting a family. You should have seen the look on her face. She was like ... "whoa, one thing at a time." Come on! We've been together 4 years! Won't she get a big surprise ... we plan to start a family soon! Oh ... and by the way ... she still insists that I call her ... "Mrs. ____" I swear - I don't know how FI got to be so wonderful! Obviously, it was a rude thing for her to do. Your FI's mom sounds like, sadly, my own mother. Those kind of people are only happy when the people they love are miserable too, so that they have someone to be miserable with. My mom never remarried (or even really dated to my knowledge) after divorcing my dad in 1992. To this day, she depends on my sister and I even though we are both grown and no longer living at home. I had a huge fight with my mom over a number of things when I told her I was getting married -- and she actually accused my FI of trying to force her out of my life because I don't call her 5 times a day. Hello! I am a grown-ass woman! I don't need to call my mommy 5 times a day to ask her how to cut my sandwich, wipe my butt, etc etc. However, unlike your FI, I am hip to my mother's games and I don't play them anymore because I'm an adult and pay my own bills and do not live under her roof. When she's being ridiculous I just cut her off. She threatened to not come to my wedding the other day, to which I told her I would be sorry if she did that but please realize whether she's there or not, I will still continue my plans to get married in Mexico. She hung up on me. This was... Wednesday last. She has called me at least 15 times since like nothing ever happened. WTF, right? My best advice to you is that there is nothing you can do to change the way his mother acts, so just realize that. My mom has been like this since the divorce. She's very manipulative. It's a source of contention for us that my mom is such a bitch to my FI (look up my other posts and see what she did back around Nov. 12 or so if you want to hear the extreme story). You can kill her with kindness, or you can just remain distant, but know that no matter how much you butter her up, she will go through crazy cycles and do rude stuff. Good luck!

oh yay, congratulations on finally setting a date! (and i notice you're a chicago bride too! woot! )

jeez morgan i just saw two different photos today of ring wraps like youre describing, how odd! ....let me see if i can find where i saw them. one was on the internet and one was in a wedding magazine...

Quote: Originally Posted by JulieG Now, when he spits up on it, or ruins the cashmere bear, it will be pretty funny to you. You get to have all this great fancy stuff that you did not pay for that you also don't care if he ruins, sounds pretty perfect to me. I hope you made sure to sign your name on the note, I think that is perfect. hahahahahahaha jules you crack me up! i can just see the baby spitting up on the cashmere bear and jessica taking a photo, and crazy nurse seeing the photo hahaha

p.s. is it juts me or does anyone else think its kinda deranged for someone to gift a cashmere teddy bear to an infant? i mean, all babies do is eat, puke and poop, so if you actually let your kid touch it, it would be ruined in 2 seconds!

ugh! what a tacky tacky bitch, that nurse! you KNOW she left out your name on purpose. but here's what you should do. keep the baby presents. then write a thank you note, preferably on some stationery that has your married name on it or something that says "Jessica and Brian X". write something like "dear X, it was very sweet of you to think of us and the baby. i appreciate the thought and look forward to showing off my and Brian's baby when he is born. Thanks again and best wishes, Mrs. Jessica X" just send the note from you without brian and aiden's names so that she gets the message. tell brian to thank her verbally and also to mention how much his wife loved the gifts. writing the thank you note yourself when she intentionally left your name off the card is a written bitch slap which she will recognize and will hopefully put her in her place. what a skank!

woot! i cant wait to hear what it is!

aw leia. i hear you. my FI gets 3 weeks of christmas vacation thanks to his job. he left for mexico this past wednesday. i cant fly down there to join him and his family until dec 29 because my evil boss told everyone we cant travel outta town for christmas because last year he got stuck losing vacation days because a bunch of us traveled. (how is that our fault something was needed last minute and he was the only one in town) anyway so now i have to work dec 26 (when nobody is even going to be in our NY office, so we cant do anything without them, so i will probably sit at my desk twiddling my thumbs looking over pages ive already edited 20 times) and dec 27 and 28 to ship pages to our printer for the magazine. these 10 days FI and i will be apart are the longest we've ever been apart, so we bought me a webcam and he has one built into his computer and we've been video chatting every night which helps a lot. i'm just freakin annoyed that i have a 4 day weekend where i am sitting here wallowing in self pity because i would rather be in mexico with FI and his family doing fun stuff. my family lives here in chicago so ill spend christmas with them, but my parents are divorced, and not amicably, so it is always a fight over who gets me for the holidays. sometimes it makes me really feel like a commodity and not a person with feelings. i sorta feel like just telling everyone i want to stay home, but i know that wont fly! ive agreed to go to mom's family's for christmas eve and dad's for dinner christmas day. but still, ugh. sending a big hug your way!!!

erica can you link to your stds so i can see them? leia, i totally love this postcard idea, my FI better like it too haha

nice! i didnt realize the rsvp was a postcard, how cool! but is the rsvp side the front of the postcard or the back? like is there still a side to put an address, or will they go into envelopes?

leia those are so lovely! im so glad they turned out great! now im thinking about using them for my invitations for my american guests! can you post the measurements of your invitation and enclosures so i can get an idea about how big they are?

i LOVE that these are bilingual! FI and I are doing 2 sets of formal invitations because half are going to mexico and half are going to the US, but i think its gonna be a huge pain in the butt

As a fellow degree holder, I salute you for making it through! It was tough, but you did it! Hope you're doing something fun to celebrate this momentus ocassion!

Quote: Originally Posted by niels408 Thank you all for the warm welcome! I am so excited! We are pretty sure we want the wedding to be in Mexico, its just deciding where in Mexico we want to have it! i don't want a resort that is so gigantic (like Iberostar in RM sp?) that our guests have to walk miles or ride a golf cart to get @ it. Also, do you have any recommendations on what time of year is best in Mexico? I hear summer is $$$ due to tourist season & then Aug-Nov is hurricane season..is that correct? You guys are life savers, being apart of this forum takes alot of stress of my shoulders now! Thank you! Laura Welcome, Laura! Ok, if you want Mexico, there are lots of good options that are decently close to Colorado --- Cabo, Puerto Vallarta, Las Caletas, and then if you wanna go a little further south theres Ixtapa and Acapulco on the west coast. I'm pretty confident you should be able to get direct flights to all of those from Colorado. If you want east coast Mex, there's fun places like Playa del Carmen, Cancun and the like. If you're looking for places that aren't huge all-inclusive resorts, Las Caletas is really cool where AnnR got married (based on the photos I've seen from everyone around here, but I'm sure they'll vouch!). There are also smaller resorts, or resorts that arent AI in just about every location that can accomodate both small and large groups. Rainy season begins mid to late Aug on the west coast. Late Oct and Nov are generally pretty safe -- if it rains, its not an all day affair. Give us some more details about what you are looking for, how many guests etc etc and we will help you come up with some options that match what you're looking for! I can only personally tell you about costs in Cabo, but May-July is pretty pricey -- our group room rate for Aug 9th is HALF the price someone else I know got for their group in May. Kate (LALA) could probably tell you more about the Cabo prices in December, she just got married there.

If you like Cabo, my reception will be at the Westin Los Cabos in August, and they are able to accomodate 200 people. (I'm having about 100) But I would definitely tell you to look into the Westin, it's really beautiful. If you'd like more info, please let me know and I'll be happy to pass anything along that can help! The Westin also has a timeshare portion of the hotel called the Regina Club, so if your family and friends want to stay for longer than a weekend, it would be more economical to rent the time shares (like $500-1000 a week depending on the size -1 bed to 3/4 bed I think). The timeshares are still part of the hotel like you can still get room service delivered and everything else like a regular hotel guest, but the timeshare rooms have microwaves and big fridges and a kitchen sink. Also, my FI tells me that USA3000 (the airline) is going to start offering direct flights to Cabo from Chicago starting in the spring. Welcome and good luck! OHH, also just remembered this: a friend of mine honeymooned in Mazatlan and they absolutely loved it. I remember her raving about the snorkeling trip they went on!

i love the idea of the personal note too, and just like abbie said, you can add in there something like if their plans change, youd still love to have them, if not, then youll be thinking of them!

GREAT photos!!! This makes me so excited that we have already booked Bradley for our wedding in August! If we're able to do a site visit, I am totally going to ask Bradley to take some photos while we are there. And I LOVE that dress, where's it from?

omg. give your husband a big kiss from me! i have been in wedding forum withdrawal all day! haha

actually you CAN do it in itunes! best way to do this is first start by making a playlist with the songs you want. this way it will only shorten it in the playlist and not for the song in the library. click on the song you want to shorten, click get info and then go to options. there should be an option there for you to click a box that says both "Start time" and "Stop time" i did this for a friend's wedding in 2006 because i sang ave maria and i needed to cut some of the intro and the 3rd verse out. it was super easy though! holler if you have questions and I can try to walk you through it.

Hey girls --- I know there are several of you getting married here and I can't remember exactly who. My best friend just got back from a vacation with her in-laws in the Riviera Maya and what do you know, they stayed at Riu Palace! She didn't take a ton of photos, but here are the ones without her family in them. She said when they got there, there was a wedding going on, and it was really lovely. Enjoy! Mariachi Show at the Riu the back of the hotel at night

wow leia! cool! i'm definitely going to check this out. keep up updated on how it works out for you and maybe give us a sample playlist when you get more familiar with the program ;-)

i think a party beforehand with 150+ people would be both so expensive AND overwhelming. why not something small and simple? the reality is that you cant make everyone happy or make it up to everyone who cannot make it to your DW. if you do want to do a party, what about a smallish backyard BBQ type thing after you get back from the DW and have the photos you can share with your friends who couldn't make it? or if you wanna do a shower, what about just limiting it to family and your absolute closest friends? you dont HAVE to include everybody and their mom ;-)

thanks dino, i sent an email to my FI and asked him to pass the message along to his mom!

i really like the idea of how you spent new years! i think people could get pretty creative with it