Our Honeymoon

Rather than go on the exotic honeymoon that we had talked about (really $6K for a week?), a friend of ours offered us her timeshare for the week and we were more than glad to take her up on it. We ended up staying in Villa Rica, Georgia, a tiny town just outside of Atlanta.

We left Sunday about noon, and checked in just as the sun was setting over the lake – yep, that’s right our free accommodations faced the water. Then we head back out for some dinner and shopping.

Rather than rehashing everything, I’ll spare you (and keep this G-rated) by giving you bullet points.

• At O’Charley’s, I splurged on a Cotton Candy cosmo. They bring the alcohol out and pour it right over an actual piece of cotton candy! It was to die for!!

• Wally World for some grocery shopping. We picked up a couple of frozen pizzas, some cans of soup, poptarts, and popcorn

• We purchased 4 $5 movies to watch during the week.

• We also picked up a bundle of the fire starter logs – you know the ones that are way over priced. As a local you walk by them and laugh, wondering who would be so stupid/desperate to pay that much? Next time remember that some poor guy probably is buying it because the one thing that his wife requested for their honeymoon was a fire to snuggle in front of.

• Walking around the lake till we reached the hiking trail that led into the woods.

• An afternoon sitting on a rock by the lake. He took his laptop (since he’s self employed he had a few business things to see about) and I took the book I was reading.

• Dinner @ local pub. I’d been craving fish and chips for a week or so and I couldn’t have asked for any better. Since I’d had such good luck with choosing the comso earlier in the week, I decided to be adventurous try a St. Patrick’s (Jameson’s, OJ, Blue Curaco). It was yummy too!

• Consignment store shopping. I ended up getting a new pair of dress pants & a new pair of cords and Mr. Right got a dress shirt and a pair of jeans.

• Antique store shopping. I found a gray pearl necklace/earring set that I immediately fell in love with. My husband has two things he wastes money on – his nicotine addiction and me. So even though I would have very few places to wear the necklace in the course in my lifetime, he forked out the $100 because he knew it would make me happy.

• Panning for gold, and walking through the gold mining museum.

• Relaxing in the room and watching cable TV that we never see.

So why am I posting my honeymoon, where I made an impulse purchase on a probably overpriced piece of costume jewelry? Because my husband and I only spent $500 for an entire week on our honeymoon. That includes everything, room, food, gas, entertainment, new to us work clothes, and one pricy souvenir.

My point? Accept gifts from those who offer, and use them to their full advantage. When planning a vacation, its not really about the location. Its about the people who are going with you. Going to a less expensive place will allow you those little splurges that make you feel rich. Going to a more expensive place will have you watching every penny, feeling poor.

For more money-saving tips, check out Frugal Friday over at Biblical Womanhood.

The wedding - the finale

The garter toss was something I was concerned about. I knew in advance that we had very few single men coming, and I worried that the ones there would be too shy to come forward. Thankfully the DJ was able to coax them out.




The bouquet toss was another story. My friend that caught it swore she wasn’t trying – but then again she was standing in the middle of all the girls so she wasn’t running from it either!





Some of my family isn’t comfortable with dancing, so I worried that the DJ would be a waste and no one would dance. Thankfully that wasn’t the case. Everyone seemed to have a great time.








Mr. Right was anxious to get home, so after a couple hours of dancing we called it a night.








The getaway car was his dad’s Hummer, so after just a few feet of driving our Coach turned into a Pumpkin as we traded the Hummer for Mr. Right’s Durango. Since this is a G rated blog, I think the story stops here.

The wedding - part 3

Finally it was time for the moment Mr. Right had been dreading since we got engaged – the first dance








He’s not a dancer, and certainly didn’t want all those eye watching him mess up. I told him not to worry, all slow dancing involves is swaying back and forth. But I wish I’d check on the length of the song – we danced to Keith Urban’s Memories of Us and it seemed to last forever!
Next up was the father-daughter dance. I had set up a surprise for my dad. All along I told him we weren’t having one. When he heard Butterfly Kisses start playing you could see the surprise and delight in his eyes. He started crying immediately. I hugged him tight because I knew what was coming and couldn’t control the laughter.
He looked confused at the record scratch then the familiar stoic opening. “He had plastic bags wrapped ‘round his shoes, he was covered in the evening news...” Everyone told me that I couldn’t play a song about a homeless guy at my wedding. The only problem was that Almost Home by Craig Morgan is our song. My father is a sap who cries at everything. So when the song came out in 2003, he cried every time he heard it.
And being a good daughter, I mocked him every time. Whenever I hear it on the radio, I quickly call him, turn up the radio, and put the phone up to the speaker. I knew it was the perfect choice for our father-daughter dance. I had given the photographer heads up and he got it perfectly. The sweet tears of my dad, the laughter from me, the confusion of the record scratch and best of all the “you little sh*t” look on my dad’s face when he realized that they were playing our song. This picture was taken by my sister after the real song started playing.




Then it was time for the mother-son dance. I mingled, going from table to table saying hello while my new husband danced with his mom.

The wedding - part 2

Since there are no facilities at this one room church (no electricity either), we stopped at the camp ground parking lot before we headed into the loop. Safe to say, my dad was tailgating as we left the camp ground. The truck in front of us decided to be a smarty pants and go 3 miles an hour, even though there was no reason to. My dad put the pedal to the metal and passed the truck. As we zoomed by (at about 30 MPH) the driver of the truck gave us a big California howdy.
Once we got to the church, most all of the guests were there – got their early wanting to be the traffic no doubt. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures to share with you all of the church, or the gorgeous scenery. My sister took all the pictures that I’m posting. We got a CD of all the pictures from our professional photographer, but I’m not sure if I can post them for copyright reasons. Here is one that my sister took of my grandparents.





We did have a couple of hang ups. The florist shorted us one bouquet, so my cousin walked down the aisle empty handed. The princess apparently had a growth spurt b/c her ballet flats didn’t fit and she had to walk down the aisle barefoot. During the unity sand, the pastor said “and for that reason a man should leave his wife” when he meant to say “leave his mother and father”.
All problems aside, the wedding was perfect. Parking was less of an issue than we had anticipated, the music was great, the kids did wonderfully (a remarkable feat given that my niece aka the flower princess is only 4 years old and the ring bearer was my 6 month old nephew). We did a fair amount of pictures, but we were still able to get to the reception hall pretty close to the same time as the rest of our guests did. Due to park regulations we couldn’t invite everyone to the wedding, but tried to include friends/family in the reception even if they could be a part of the wedding.

The wedding - part 1

I completed my wedding blog - but in Word it was 6 pages long! I decided to break it up into segments...


Since the whole family was a part of the wedding party, the morning started out pretty hectic. My mother had made biscuits and gravy the day before so that we’d all have a hearty breakfast that would stick with us through the morning. My brother-in-law and nephew (groomsman and ring bearer) had to be at the church at 12:30 with Mr. Right and the rest of the guys.

Parking in the National Park is at a premium, so we had to have a plan to get everyone to the church in as few cars as possible. Mr. Right’s mom had the first hair appointment of the day since she had to be at the church with the guys. BIL and the little man went to the hair salon with my sister and I to catch a ride to the church with the rest of the groom’s peeps.

Once the stylist (who’s also my cousin) finished with the Mother of the Groom, she started on my hair. Originally I wanted to keep it very simple. I contemplated doing my own hair, and just doing a low ponytail. Every time I did a test run, I found something wrong with it. I’m a perfectionist and wisely decided that I wouldn’t be able to suit myself. I didn’t need that kind of pressure on my wedding day.




I’m so glad I made that choice. She did a great job of keeping my hair simple, like I wanted, but still very elegant. While my sister was getting her hair done, I did my makeup. 10:30 and the day was drama free…but not for long.

My parents and my niece (the princess) met us at the salon in my sister’s minivan and we were going to carpool to the church. I had taken my makeup bag and veil into the salon, my parents had my dress, and my shoes were in the car my sister and I had driven. I asked for the keys to get them out and transfer them to the van. Only my sister had no clue where they were. She looked in her purse, diaper bag, pockets – practically everywhere.

She started freaking out, but amazingly enough I didn’t. I had on a pair of camo flip flops, but I knew that the dress was so long the shoes would never be seen. My sister offered me her shoes and said she would wear the ugly ones, but since her dress was tea length I shot that idea down right away. Just as we were about to give up and head on to the church, my mom found them. To be honest, I can’t remember where, but I do remember feeling a twinge of disappointment that I had the heels to wear instead of the more comfortable flops.

Even before the shoe drama, we were running a few minutes late, so there was a little tension about getting to the church at 1:15 as we had originally planned. Of course I reassured myself that they couldn’t start without me! If we were late we would just have to push pictures until after the ceremony.
My parents:




We worried about traffic getting to the wedding – we were marrying in a church in Cades Cove in the National Park. Cades Cove is an 11 mile, one way loop. And I was getting married on the weekend that the leaves were the prettiest of the fall. With no traffic, the fastest that the road can be traveled is about 20 or 30. When people are stopping to take pictures, traffic can be a bear.

Literally in our case. About 5 miles before the loop, traffic in front of us came to a standstill. At first we were worried that the road was just that backed up from people trying to get to the loop road. Turns out, they were just stopping for wildlife. Two bears were on the side of the road up ahead. My father has never been a patient man, so on such a high anxiety day he was extra jump. He tried honking his horn to make noise to chase the bear away. Then he rolled down his window and screamed “if you wanna see a bear go to the d*mn zoo!”

Both actions were less than helpful. As we approached the spot where the bears were my mom yelled up at my dad “slow down, the princess wants to see.” So after berating the entire line of cars for stopping, my father stopped the car so my sister could get a picture and my niece could see the bears through her window.

Bridezilla

Leading up to the wedding, I had several people comment about my bridezilla status. One friend even commented that I could potentially be the worst bridezilla in the history of the world, or at least she’s ever seen. While part of me was offended by the comments, I have to say that the assumptions were based on fact.

While I’m not proud of it, I do have an explosive temper. More than one hair brush has been beaten against the side of cabinet when I couldn’t get my hair to suit me. I’ve even cried for weeks about a bad hair cut (as a matter of fact I’m just now getting one grown out from bad in January). And then there was the cheeseburger incident…although I’ll still swear that I was provoked. So the possibility of the diva in my coming out was quite likely.

With 5 months till the ceremony I picked out a $25 dress at TJ Maxx for my bridesmaids. I also approved a hand-me-down dress that my niece’s baby sister had from a wedding her daughter was in. “Run with it now before I change my mind.” As easy going as I was at first, I thought there would come a point where I wanted what I wanted when I wanted it. Thankfully for all involved, that never happened.
I never met in person with my baker. I just picked out a couple of pictures of the internet and said “make it look something like this”. When they asked for specifics, I told them that I wanted strawberry icing. With any other questions, from them as well as other vendors my common response was “You’re the professional. I’m sure you know better than I would.”

I thought that the stress and anxiety would kick in with a month to go. But it didn’t. Then a week. Nope, no stress, just a little excitement. Surely the day before I would start to get anxious/nervous/cranky/hateful. Ordinarily I would credit the mimosa, but since that wasn’t until later on the evening of the rehearsal dinner, that couldn’t be it.

The only sign of nerves was Thursday night/Friday morning. I woke up at about 3 AM and couldn’t go back to sleep. I consider myself an organized person, and I have an infatuation with lists. Going over the Friday to do list in my head, I had difficulty going back to sleep. There was that stack of laundry to put away and packing to do. Rather than lay in bed and waste precious hours, I got up and started on my tasks.

About 15 minutes into my chores, my mother knocked on my door. She has sleeping problems on a regular basis, so I was glad to see a sympathetic face. Until she told me to be quiet and go back to bed. Thankfully, shortly after that my sister got up to feed my nephew and invited me to go out into the living room with her and the little man. She said she would have come and talked to me sooner because she thinks there isn’t anything worse than being awake and alone in the middle of the night, but she thought my mom getting up was to make me feel better.

Once the day got started, the nerves subsided and I finished off my checklist. My sister and I headed into town to get relaxing pedicures, and I got my nails done so they would look like their ragged selves for the pictures the next day. Then we headed to work to drop of some items for the reception with a friend/coworker. She is the queen of organization and event planning and so as I had in the past, I deferred to her professional opinion.

The plan was to meet my parents, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew at the rehearsal dinner site and all ride to the rehearsal site together. (We got married in the National Park, so it was a bit of a drive). Rehearsal was to start at 4, so we decided to meet at the restaurant at 2:30 to give us plenty of time. 2:50 my mom called. They were still at the tux shop, as were Mr. Right and his parents. The shop insisted they try on their tuxes before they picked them up. Good thing, because my future father-in-law popped a button on his trousers and my brother-in-law’s shirt sleeves would have properly fit a midget. Also, they had set aside white shirts, rather than the ivory I had requested, so the ivory shirts weren’t pressed.
My father, the expert negotiator, said that my mom would press the shirt if they would toss in a garter for free. The garter was a last minute purchase because I had misplaced the original. Not sure if my mom agreed to the deal, but like it or not they were in there car on the way.

In the mean time, my sister takes me in CVS to show me her mad drug store deal shopping skillz. I get free and more than free stuff there all the time. I was not impressed with her two calming lemon waters and two chocolate bars purchase. “You mean CVS actually makes people pay for things???”
My parents finally arrived only we couldn’t leave until the princess went potty. My mom waltzed into the restaurant asking for the bathroom. “We’re not eating here now, but we will be later.” After a strange look from the hostess, she explained that we would be coming back for the rehearsal dinner. “We never got a final number. Is the bride with you? We need to talk to her.”

No really you don’t. At this point I was more frustrated than anything. I had nothing to do with the rehearsal dinner, so I didn’t know numbers or menu or any other of their nitpicky questions they had. I gave them my soon to be mother-in-law’s cell phone number and suggested they call her with any questions.
Still not anxious. Maybe concerned that the preacher would actually be on time for the rehearsal and wonder where we were. But never anxious or nervous. The remainder of the night was a breeze. We walked through the wedding order several times and then headed to the rehearsal dinner. The food was wonderful and I think everyone had a great time.

The rehearsal dinner was at the restaurant where Mr. Right and I had our first day, so we took a picture of us on "the" bench, where we sat and waited for a table and got to know each other. But even he says it makes me look bigger than i am so i'm not posting!

Logistically Mr. Right and I had figured that he would need to drive my car to the house, so that Sunday morning it would be there for us to leave for the honeymoon. I double checked that my honeymoon bag was in my trunk. My only mistake was not checking to see if I got everything OUT of the car that I needed. Half way home I realized that he had the wedding bag. The bag with everyone’s folders. The bag with the marriage license. The bag with my “to do” lists. Being a control freak, it was hard to know that someone else was responsible for something so important. Thankfully, I had already given my sister and mother their folders, and they had copies of everything (marriage license excluded) that we needed.
Were I bridezilla, I would have demanded that he bring the bag to me. I decided that if I couldn’t trust him with this one detail of the wedding, how was I going to trust him with the rest of my life? Amazingly enough, I slept better that night.

Bridezilla

I've figured out why so many women get the "bridezilla" label.

Because she makes decisions for months and months, carefully plan everything - taking every possible problem into consideration. She makes plans based on what's best for her fiance and herself.

And then when the work is finally over, people step up and start criticizing her plans. "you should have..." "it would have been better if you would have..." "why didn't you..." "i can't believe your not..."

If you wanted to help, your opinion would have been helpful about 6 months ago. Now all you're doing is putting me down. Because I tried my hardest. I'm sorry that wasn't good enough for you.

I've already encountered several Debbie Downers...and I'm not going to put up with it at the rehearsal. So it'll be my turn to stand up for myself and my choices. And in the process earn my "bridezilla" title.

Only 4 days left!!!!

Just putting the finishing touches on the wedding plans. :) doing the slideshow tonight, meeting with the chef at the reception site tomorrow.

and it goes without saying that next week i'll be on a bloggy break for the honeymoon.

I get my wedding dress today!!!!!!

Sorry, I was too excited about it to think of a good title :)

for today:

*wedding dress pick-up
*thank you cards for all the awesome stuff i got at my work shower yesterday
*early vote (tomorrow is the last day)
*dinner with my parents @ the new house

10 days and counting!!!

Bullet point heaven

okay so from now till the wedding i don't see myself getting to do more than bullet point updates. prayers for me and mr. right would be greatly appreciated.

*the bestman officially backed out, so mr. right's dad will be filling that role.

*mr. right found out Sunday night that his hourly independant contractor work ends on Nov. 1st. He's straight commissions after that.

*mr. right has clients coming in this weekend, so he won't be able to go out of town with me as we had planned to visit some of my friends.

*today is marriage license day!

*we hung the pictures in the new house last night, everything looks good but the master bedroom and that blue/green is a difficult color to match. i'm thinking minimalist for its decor. the color on the wall is decoration enough.

12 days...

and counting.

still don't have a best man.

or a slide show.

getting a little stressed.

RSVP Headcount

RSVPs to our wedding were due in on Monday and as of right now we have 100 people saying they will attend. Quite a low number, considering I sent out 200 invitations. Right now we only have about 30 people yet to respond, but I'm certain that most of them will be in the "regretfully decline" catagory (we're starting the phone calls next week).

Our reception site will seat 150, so I'm going to put up an invitation at my work. I felt bad that they were throwing me a shower even though most of them weren't on the guest list. That will absolve me of guilt and keep anyone from being offended. A guy in my office did the same thing, and no one from this building (of about 50 people) went to his wedding this past weekend.

I'm really looking forward to the wedding. Not just the marriage - I've been looking forward to that for a while now. But I get excited to think of the special time I'll have with my friends and family. Like prom - only way better.

I've got a surprise in store for my father, and my mother agrees that it will be the highlight of his year. :)

At this point I still have a couple of areas of uncertainty, but I'm thankful that they aren't overwhelming me.

*the musicians (if everything falls thru i can get a battery powered cd player)
*the best man (if he can't come, the groom's dad can step in)
*alcohol @ the reception (i have some people that expect it to be there and others that will be offended if it is)

Wedding Stress

I have the following things on my plate to deal with:

* still no musicians for the wedding ceremony. i have someone "looking into it" but i haven't heard from him since last week

* circulating rumors that the portion of the national park where we'll be getting married will be closed the month of November. i'm praying this one will be debunked. they did issue me a permit for that date after all. i have an email and a voicemail in to check on this. no word yet.

* an aunt who decided that she needs to bring a guest to my wedding. a wedding so private that none of her children are invited. i suspect she's bringing her great grandson. have i mentioned there are very few children in this world i actually like? so instead of my closest friends at the wedding, this little brat will be there. because my mother is a peacemaker and thinks it would just be best to leave it alone. but i HATE people who always have to get their way no matter what. people who think the rules don't apply to them. why should i give in, when her being there or not means nothing to me?

* a mother who likes to hide things from me (like my aunt's rsvp card) for "my own good". i was in a bad mood this past week, so she decided to save it for a day i was in a good mood. so you can ruin this day as well mother? excellent plan. :|

* 141 (of 212) guests still yet to rsvp. Monday was the deadline. I'd better get to making those calls...

Things I Love Thursday

I could make an entire list of things that I love. Maybe Rachel won't get annoyed with me for stealing her bullet list idea.

*Mr. Right, for trying very hard to break his addiction to smokeless tobacco
*Taking a night where all we do is watch a movie together (no wedding or house work)
*30 days till the wedding
*My super-duper organization skills that have me only 14 things on my The Knot checklist, which include "tell your parents you love them, this is a sad day for them" and "relax & enjoy your day"

But I know that she was looking for a product so...

*looks around desk*

So this week's "Things I love Thursday" item is Bath and Bodyworks Deep Cleaning Antibacterial Handgel. For when gross people come into work and hand me stuff. Or when I sneeze (which happens a lot).

Check out the Diaper Diaries for more products people love.

Shower gift vs Wedding gift

In this area, you take a gift to the shower if you are invited instead of the wedding. If you aren't invited to the shower (or can't attend for some reason) you just take the gift to the wedding.

So it wasn't until I decided to marry a Yankee that the thought of two gifts ever crossed my mind. Apparently its customary up there to send a gift to the shower, then a gift card or money to the wedding.

I considered the fact that his mother is very generous and maybe that is practiced by her alone. Until yesterday. A family friend of Mr. Right had given us a Target gift card for our shower gift. Then yesterday, we received their RSVP card regretfully declining, and a visa gift card in the mail.

How cool is that?

*desperately hopes that I'm not the only one in bloggy land that has never heard of this phenomon

Secret No More

I found it!!! :) I pulled my suitcase out to pack up some clothes in my dresser and found the Victoria's Secret purchase! I was looking for it still in its original bag. Instead it was wadded...erm...folded and placed in the front compartment of the bag!

I have to pick up a few gifts that were special ordered at the store today, so I went through my gifts to see what needed taking back (I have gotten some duplicates). I picked up the walnut clock/picture frame and looked it over to see what store it had been purchased at (it wasn't on my registry, but I did receive a similar clock/frame that I had registered for). That's when I found the "father's day" bar code. Then I noticed on the front the tag that they had attempted to remove said "free gift".

That's right, I caught my first regifter. Since I can't take it back, I'm not sure what to do with it. I'll probably either put it in my yard sale, or see if anyone helping with the wedding likes it and they can keep it.

33 days till the wedding and I haven't felt that super stress yet. I mean I've freaked about individual things (like the lost wedding night apparel), but not over the wedding in general.

I went for my 2nd fitting this weekend and fell in love with my dress all over again! :) The veil I bought at Hobby Lobby is perfect in color, and my seamstress is just going to take out a layer for simplicity sake. From the waist up I look so skinny!! :) The dress flairs out at the waist so that's no big deal. And my target jewelery looks perfect with the dress!

My sister told me I look like a Primpress (apparently she's been around my niece just a little too long). Translation Primpress = Princess.

My friends shower was this weekend and we had a great time. One of the games was Mr. Right being interviewed by my friend and after the question was asked, she would pause the tape and I would have to answer. I had to lol (well as best I could with 4 pieces of gum in my mouth because of the 4 questions I answered incorrectly) at the specific questions about things my friend knows I hate about Mr. Right (his massive t-shirt collection, his dip spit cup collection.

Melt Down

After planning a wedding for the past 5 months and planning a move for about 4 of those same months, I've reached my boiling point.

I was so excited last night to get all my kitchen boxes unpacked. For the final time I wiped down the "work zone" counters and scrubbed the "paint brush cleaning" sink. Its now my kitchen.

I was thrilled as I started making a checklist in my head.

Living room - done
Kitchen - done
Dining room - waiting on table and china cabinet to be moved this weekend
Library - done (for now)
Guest bedroom - up to Mr. Right (that's his closet space)
Guest bath - put out spare CVS toiletries for guests
Master bedroom - full of wedding gifts
Master closet - waiting on my extra special control freak "a place for everything" touch
Master bath - done, excluding gifted towels (is it bad luck to wash these things up before the wedding?
Man room - done, also none of my business

Then I realized we had one major problem - I had purchased wedding night attire at Victoria's Secret in June. It made the move (or so I thought) from my apartment to my parents house. When I thought about it, I just assumed it would turn up when I unpacked. Only now I've unpacked almost every box and its no where to be found.

$35 down the drain. I thought about not buying it. If Mr. Right new how much I paid for it, he would think it was the most unsexy piece of cloth he'd ever seen. But I rationalized that this little splurge wouldn't hurt anything. It was a once in a lifetime chance.

36 days till the wedding night and Victoria's Secret is where she decided to hide herself.

The good news is I found my pert plus receipt (it was wrapped around the Walgreens gift card). Not much comfort when your net loss is $30.71.

Frugal Friday - Green Wedding Ideas

Only 6 more weeks till my wedding!! :)

What's better than a frugal idea? A green frugal idea! (That way you can have something to blame your cheapness on when someone mocks you.) Mr. Right and I decided to go the cheap...erm...green route when it came to invitations.

I was reading the etiquette I found that the reason for the double envelopes, was that back in the day the mail system wasn't as reliable and sometimes the invitations would arrive damaged. The extra envelope was just to protect the invitation. Since the mail system is more reliable, the only purpose they serve now is to cost you more money and fill the landfills.

After a (very brief) discussion on this topic, Mr. Right and I had no problems eliminating this extra cost. Although I will admit I have received an invitation in the single envelope and thinking "how cheap" as I threw everything in the garbage. Funny how perspectives can so quickly change.

Another idea we borrowed was the idea of sending a RSVP postcard, rather than card and envelope. We got our cards printed on each side for only $5 extra dollars - one side had the RSVP information and the other had my mother's name and address already printed on there. All I had to do was add the postcard stamp and the RSVP cards were done!

For more frugal ideas, head over to Biblical Womanhood and check out Frugal Friday!

its official...

my first conflict with my future mother-in-law. apparently the next-door neighbor came crying to her about not being invited to the wedding, just the reception. so they want to invite her. i say that if we invite her than it opens it up and we have to invite more friends (how offensive to say that someone is invited because they are a "close friend" implying that your friendship is secondary.)

i made mr. right mediate last night, and of course he agrees with his mother. i'm not sure what to do. give in and be done with the stress (for now) or stand firm. they are coming in next week so i suppose we'll discuss it more then.

RSVP

Our wedding invitations went out last Monday, and we're already starting to get RSVP cards back-some as early as Thursday! One of my relatives said that they received their invite on Tuesday, which means that a couple of the guests immediately filled it out and dropped it in the mail on Wednesday for us to receive it the next day! At least we know 4 people that are excited about coming. :P

Unfortunately, I have already had a couple "regretfully decline"s. Because of my large family (I have 24 first cousins invited, plus spouses), Mr. Right and I haven't gotten to invite a large number of friends to the wedding. 6 of our "no" responses have been friends. One couple can't come because she has been training for a while for a bike ride in another state. The other couple (how has two middle school age girls) can't come because a family member is getting married on the same day. I understand, but I can't help but be disappointed that they won't be there to help celebrate.

I'll confess that a mailbox full of "yes" cards would have stressed me out as well. The reception hall comfortably holds 150, and we invited around 200 people. I realize that you're no supposed to count on people saying no, but there was just no way around it. And if all 200 would have said they were delighted to join us, I suppose everyone would be eating pot roast off their laps in a folding chair.

Thankfully, Mr. Right has said he will be the one to solve for any seating problems that arise. I doubt that he's confident that he can do it, but rather just sick of hearing me stress about it!

My dear mother, bless her heart (as we say in the south when we really don't mean it), ended up inviting more people. I had invited my great aunt and put "and girls" on the invitation, because I knew that she would have to get one of her daughters to drive her. On the phone with one of the daughters, my mom ends up extending the invitation to even more of the family - telling them that they are all welcome to bring their husbands also. So now instead of 2-3 people possibly coming, we have a potential for 8.

This is not to mention the wedding versus reception invite stress. The national park only allows weddings to have 50 guests, so we had to limit the guests to the wedding to family - parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and only a handful of cousins. Everyone else is just invited to the reception, although we want to play the wedding video at the reception site so everyone can see it. But now I'm stressed that people will be offended that they are only getting invited to the reception. My sister told me that it would look like I was just being cheap, but in fact its quite the opposite. If I was being cheap, I would have just invited them to the wedding or not at all!