In a pickle

Well, here's a snag. It appears that the DJ i've had lined up for a year now suddenly is unable to do the wedding. He got a new gig working sound for a local band and they have a show in Canton on May5th. I had been trying since Sunday to touch base with him. He finally called today. He said he had a cell phone accident and lost my number and didn't get my messages. I'm inclined to believe him....but kevin not so much.

Anyway, he called today and he's working on a slution. I thought I had one too. My friend Cindy gave me the number to Amber's brother who Djs on the side. So i called him yesterday to feel him out. I told him i had all the equpiment...all i need is someone to run the stuff. He told me he wouldn't be able to get there until 7pm. That causes a bit of a problem since we want the DJ there no later than 5:30pm. I had to cut the phone call short cuz I was working (karaoke for a BASF party @ Indian Lanes). It got very busy in a short period of time.

So when i get off the phone with Robbie i think i might have a solution....Robbie work an hour just to be there when people come in and announce our entrance and Joe come in @ 7pm and work the rest of the night. I'm even willing to pay Joe $125 for 5 hours...that's a fair price in my eyes since all i need him for is a body to DJ. It's not a wild party. I just need someone to play some decent music (which I'm burning & my boss also has on his laptop) and keep the festivities going....so I call Joe. Now he wants to bring in his own equipment & charge me $50/ hr. WHAT!?!?! First of all you can't be there until 7pm. So I'm supposed to have you lug in equipment as people are eating and have my guests who are providing the equipemt free of charge as a gift to me break down their equipment.

.......
(much later)
.......

So i decided after writing this out to call the guy and tell him thanks but no thanks. It just wasn't a feasible situation. So now I'm racking my brain trying to think of people we know taht might be able to do it and calling around for help.

And now i have to get ready for work tonight...why did i ever agree to work 6 days before my wedding?

Dress dilemma solved (i think)

So, after much web surfing (10 hours at least...no kidding) and some help from myd and connie...and a 2 hour phone call to chicken... and some consulting with Kevin....I have come to a decision. If Jenifer can fit into a medium we will get that for her. I don't think that's really an option, but it would get her in the same dress as the others and Velisia then would pick a dress that would stand out. Which is expected as she is the matron of honor. If Jen doesn't feel she would be able to fit into a medium (which I think is going to happen) then we're going with the red cherry swing dress from the same manufacturer. The red isn't going to match my dress perfectly and there's nothing we can do about that, but it shouldn't clash too much. And since it's 2 of them it will be like we planned it all along (i'm hoping) And it will still have that vintage flair.

the original dress:


the alternate dress:


(OMG! Blogger has made it so easy to add pics to their website! Must add more!!!!)

ON a side note i think my sister is mad at me for telling her that I was disappointed that they waited so long. She did try to order it in March and it was out of stock then too. And I know she's got financial things to deal with as well. I never meant to hurt anyone's feelings...but remember this. It's less than 2 weeks until my wedding day and 2 of my bridal party still don't have their clothes. It's frigging stressful! I shouldn't be having to worry about crap like bridesmaids dresses. It should already be done...or at the very least handled by someone other than me. I still have a ton of stuff to do for the wedding that had to be put off because I had to spend 10 hours looking for suitable dress alternates yesterday. Plus I missed the Red Wings playoff game on TV and had to settle for listening to it on the radio cuz there's no TV in the computer room.

But...what's done is done. I can't change things. We have to move on and deal with things. I'm not going to let this get me down or stress me out 13 days before the wedding. That day is ultimately all about me.

totally stressed out

so, I picked the perfect bridesmaid dresses. And 2 of my bridesmaids wait until this month to order them...and as a result...the size they need is out of stock. No big. It's supposed to be back in stock by the 28th. So I call them today (i ordered the one for Jennifer...I asked her if she wanted me to and she said no...until about 3 weeks ago...she insisted she could order it @ my mom's herself) to check on the backorder...they tell me another 2 weeks. ummm...that means may5th POSSIBLY! too late. so now I'm in a panic trying to find something comparable. Luckily Chicken was available to talk to as she's at work. I'm trying so hard not to stress too much.

And then...to add insult to injury...I call my mom to talk to her about things and she tells me that I'm too mean on my blog and I should tone it down.

Finalizing the guest list and stuff

Well we sat down yesterday with all the response cards we got, plus the list of people in the bridal party and others we invited by word of mouth and the magic number is 100. Which means we're planning for 120. I sure as hell hope not. My friend Karyn says to always expect less than the number of responses. Which would be beautiful cuz I only have favors and champagne glasses for 100. That was the magic number. If i have to, I'll not give stuff to the bridal party i guess. I'd like to order 25 more of the shot glasses, maracas and champagne glasses, but kevin won't let me. *pouts* I suppose he's being the smart one. I mean do i really want all those extra things crowding our house after the big day lol.

I finally ordered our wedding cake topper. It's a "B" with swarovski crystals. $30. gotta love ebay. I also got some crystal hair jewels for me and my bridesmaids to sparkle. ummm...today I have to print out the last of the invitations to send to people that didn't get them (altho I don't see why I should I called them already...but hey! Kevin's insisting...so we are)

I'm almost 1/2way done with Jayson's scarf. It's going to be HAWT! I love it! Iwasn't too sure about it at first, but i can't wit until it's done now so I can show people! I hope he likes it.

We opened one of 2 gifts from Kevin's Aunt Sue. It's a homemade wedding album. I *LOVE* it! I'll take pics later on today. I'm just waking up, so i'm so not in the mood to deal with plugging things into my pute.r..specially since this is an old school model and the USB ports are all in the back

And we seem to have changed our honeymoon destination. Cancun, Mexico. We're looking into an all inclusive package deal for us. It would be about the same price as New Orleans believe it or not.

I am so upset

Ao apparently my sister called my mom and told her that none of my dad's list got their invitations. I'm sure that's not WHY she called...but it came up. So my mom called me. I told her it was all taken care of. That I talked to my dad yesterday and it's cool I was going to call them next week (meaning april 17th or 18th) and she just kept on and kept on me..."you should call them tomorrow" ummm HELLO!!!! Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. It's a little rude to call people. So I'm crying and choking back tears and in the process my voice is raising and all of the sudden she's all "Everyone's put alot of $$ into your wedding! You better start showing us some respect. Your father and I deserve it" WTF?!? Where did that come from. So I say that I appreciate everything everyone has done for me and I prolly wouldn't be able to get married if it weren't for all the help I've gotten. (From my mom and dad...who this "EVERYONE" is i have no idea, but no one else has stepped up to help us. Not like I'm expecting it, but for goodness sake Kevin and I spent $300 on a DJ for Bob's wedding...he hasn't even offered to help with anything...and let's not even get started on Kevin's family....) And she proceeds to talk to me like I'm 12 saying "you better change the tone of your voice. I don't like your tone. You're being disrespectful" blah blah blah. So I say "I have to get off the phone. I can't talk to you anymore. I love you and I'll talk to you some other time. bye." and I hang up.

I"m so upset! I just wanted to break things. Instead I grabbed a sup of chai and started prepping the roses I just got today for the centerpieces. taking off the leaves and extraneous flowers and cutting them down to size. Fun stuff. It calmed me down enough to where I'm finally okay. I was so upset when I first got off the phone I was hypervetilating. I couldn't breathe.

I mean seriously. I understand that people are concerned and all about not receiving the invitations, and I'm going to call people starting monday...but I was going to call people starting Monday anyway. And seriously what do they expect me to do but that? I can't change the Post office. I can't understand how I can have mailed them off around March 15th and not ONE has gotten an invitation. My cousin Michael was in that catch, as was Kevin's cousin Mike, and we got their responses back a week later. And why is it my mom's issue anyway. I told her My dad and I sorted it all out. She shouldd have stopped there. Instead she continued until she had me so frustrated and upset I couldn't even breathe!

I know she's under stress right now with her elections, but you're talking to me about something i have no control over. Once those invitations left our hands all we could do apparently was pray to the gods and goddesses watching over us that they reached their destinations.

Does anyone know the god/dess of mail?

I made such a mistake!

There's this show called "real Weddings from the Knot" on Oxygen channel on Saturday afternoons. I'm such a sucker for wedding shows (except the TLC "A Wedding Story"...I can't stand those) And one of the stories is about blending cultures (american and Chinese in this case) so I think"hey! This could be good for me to see"....WRONG!!!!!!

In this episode they show the bride's friends all getting together with her 8 days before the wedding and having a kind of "girl's night" where they let off some steam. Sounds nice right? Well it gets me to thinking how the friends I really want with me aren't gonna be here until the day before the wedding (except chicken...if things go well she'll be here Monday or Tuesday) And I know a week before the wedding I'm gonna be a basketcase. I even have to work karaoke @ the Livonia Elks club the Saturday before the wedding...what a frigging glutton for punishment I am!

So it makes me a little sad. Then they show the bride saying something in mandarin to honor her new family...and it makes me think "why didn't I think of that for kevin" then it makes me think about how I'm not having any spanish in the ceremony (since we don't speak it very well...if at all...altho I understand it immensely) and that makes me sad that I'm not honoring that part of who I am. But it's not really who I am cuz I'm not fluent.

Then the 2nd episode comes on and the bride is a control freak...but not a good one! She is having her guest stay @ the monsion she's getting married at and she's providing them all with baskets of all the stuff they'll need for the weekend experience (toiletries, flip flops, breath mints...stuff like that)....but she waited until 2 days before the wedding to get them all together....and she yells at the people helping her do this stuff! Then they're discussing the ceremony with the priese the DAY BEFORE THE WEDDING and he says they can't say their own vows...they have to say the vows the church wants them to. So she has a fit and walks out crying and right now (i had to pause it) her family is pleading withthe priest to basically break the rules. Here's my thought...why the hell didn't you find out the traditions and rules BEFORE you wrote your own vows. And here's another thought. Instead of freaking out about it, calm the F%#* down and regroup. Say them to each other @ the reception. Personally I like saying traditional vows. Kevin wants to write them. This means compromise for me. And I prolly won't write them until the night before sitting with fruit and chicken while I can't get to sleep.

Which leads me to how I"m kinda sad that our officiant is Jayson and he's 3000 miles away until the morning of Thursday , May 4th. I'm talking to him prolly Monday (he said tomorrow but it's Easter Sunday so I doubt he'll be available) to start working on tweaking things so it will be fairly cohesive when we at least have the rehersal. I'm sure I'll be fanatically tweaking it up until the hour of the wedding lol. But thankfully Jayson loves me and he's able to deal with me. I love my friends.

So I'm trying not to stress. I mean we have all the small stuff pretty much out of the way. We have the ceremony site, the reception site, the dress (which I got yesterday...oh let me tellyou about yesterday! it's a doozy), his suit, the decorations and favors, the cake (which I have to send Hazel a check for,,,I still haven't gotten any help from the friend that originally was supposed to pay for it...so not happy about that...I almost didn't invite him to the wedding but I decided I needed to be a big person about the whole thing and pray I'm able to be civil about this...other than this one detail I have no issues with this friend, so you can see where it's kinda hard...but I digress...), the DJ equipment, the DJ (whom I need to call Monday to finalize some things with), the ceremony flowers on order, the final bridesmaids dresses and groomsmen shirts on order (whole other stress there), transportation ironed out and the photographer lined up. The only things left now are the booze and the food. And those are Kevin's responsibilities (with me in the background nagging him to death lol)

As for yesterday, I had a great day with my mom getting some things for the wedding. Plus we made a detour to have a visit @ my Uncle Joe's grave (it was his bday yesterday...he would have been 53...May 10th will be 25 years since he passed away). She picked up my dress! (YAY! It's in the basement as I type) We worked on the centerpieces (which look fabulous! I'll be taking pics sometime this week) and chatted. We tried to work on a schedule for the wedding....That' will be finalized sometime in the next week or 2...and I got to chat with my Aunt Arcie who is going to loan me her crystal bouquet holder for the wedding. They're planning on coming up Monday before the wedding so they can visit and maybe even help with some final things (altho I can't imagine what they would be)

After my mom left, my dad called. And here's where things got interesting. He starts telling me that people haven't gotten their invitations. I'm like "well I don't know what to say I mailed them all out. They were some of the first we addressed and sent. They were mailed out the end of March"
"well people haven't getten them yet. I just got off the phone with Mike and he hasn't received his yet"
"Well dad I don't know what to tell you."
"Well didn't you wonder when you weren't receiving response cards back?""
Frankly, I assumed people were waiting until the last minute to send them back to us. You got your invitation right?"
"Yea but no one else on the list has gotten theirs"
"Well I sent them out. I don't know what to say. I have no more to send them out again, plus what good would that do the deadline has passed. I need a final count by next Friday. Can't you just call them and ask if they're coming?"
"I guess. And what the hell am i supposed to wear?"
"I told Denise when i talked to her Monday Dad, a black suit, shirt and wine coloured tie"
"I don't have a black suit."
"Well then I don't know. You could wear what the groomsmen are wearing but it takes about 2 weeks to get it"
"Well Joe said the XL was too small on him."
"Well Joe has wide shoulders or something cuz when Kevin tried it on it fit perfectly."
"So I'd probably need a 2X if i got that."
"Why don't we have you wear a black shirt, dark slacks and a redish tie? will that work?"
"Yea I can do that I guess."
"That way you'll stand out but still be sharp loking and classy."
"Okay. Now what about these invitations people haven't got?"
"I can't send more out...tell you what...get me their phone numbers and I'll call them Monday and tuesday to see if they're coming and how many"
"Yea, that would be better than me calling"
(the last few lines are paraphrased...after that we talked about my brother's exciting news that his wife is pregnant)

Looking at it, it doesn't sound like much, but his tone in the beginning was so accusatory. Like I conspired to not invite anyone on his list. Shoot! Half the people on the list I ASKED FOR THEIR ADDRESS. So why would I not send them out? I don't understand why they didn't get delivered. We addressed them properly. None fo them have been returned to us (and i know they would be cuz Kevn's Uncle Bill's was returned to us...we had the wrong house number so we had to resend it) I was so mad! SO I snapped back. My tone was just as accusing as his. Eventually I did apologize to him saying I was stressed out and we were cool bythe end of the conversation.

MOral of this story...don't assume it's the bride's fault. The postal system sucks sometimes. It took my gf in Canada who lives 20 minutes from us almost 2 weeks to get her invitation, while my friend Joel's paramour in CHINA got hers in almost a week. Go Figure.

So I'll be on the frigging phone for all of Tuesday I'm sure.Monday we're busy. If I'm lucky we're going out to the chinese buffet for sushi. My new comfort food

Some wedding update stuff

Today I put on my wedding shoes. I am wearing them all around the house to try and break them in. Imagine cleaning in heels....3" heels...it's pretty darn amusing. I need them to be broken in by the wedding. Wish me luck.

We got 3 responses today...all negatives...including Kevin's Aunt Mickey (you remember...the one who caused all the drama in the first place) She wrote a lovely note "Yet another reason I wish we lived closer. All my love Aunt Mickey" yea...okay...whatever...I'm trying not to be bothered by the whole thing. Bonus is Aunt Sue doesn't have to worry and I'll prolly go another 6 years without seeing Aunt Mickey.

One of my dearest friends, Joel, yesterday came down to the house last night and we went to Kevin's restaurant for dinner. He gave us our first wedding card and his most amazing wedding gift. He wanted to give it to us early because it's towards our honeymoon. He read how we were having problems with Kevin's tax return which was going to be our honeymoon $$ and how we were going to have to put off the honeymoon until much much later...and he gave us, as a wedding gift, the (almost) amount that Kevin's return would have been. Made me cry. It was the most generous thing anyone has done for me in a long time. I can't thank him enough for what he did. I tried to tell him it was a loan...that we would pay him back after the wedding...but he refused. He said it's a straight gift and just to give him a gift when he gets married. Uh...yea...that's an understatement. Kevin already offered to do his wedding food for him, plus anything else we can think of.

Let's see...well...Chicken came up last weekend w/ her bf and we got our hair did @ a retro style salon (thanks to Julia for the tip) It was pretty expensive...$50 for an updo...but it was so incredibly worth it! I have pics of both hers and mine I'll have to post here when I get the chance (maybe tomorrow) It was so much fun! We woke up way earlier than we wanted to (lol) and headed over there...we were late but it was okay...we sat in the chairs for an hour each...there were so many pins in our hair (more in hers) we would have set off metal detectors @ the airport...but we looked GOOD! When Kevin saw us later he said I looked like Rita Hayworth and Chicken looked like an Andrews Sister lol. I loved it. At first I wasn't crazy about the bumps and curls, but by the end of everything I was loving it and didn't want to take it out. Chicken offered to pay for my hair the day of. And a friend of mine who works in a salon offered to pay for my hair colour and trim. YAY! Thanks!!!!

I still have to do a makeup trial before the wedding. I'm no good with makeup so I'm hoping my bridesmaids can help me out there. I want pretty Julia eyes ... she has the best makeup!

We finally got a photographer today. Well we think we did. I found him on craigslist and he's $75/ hour!!! He'll take pics and put them online for us to print ourselves. He's gonna take our favorites and make a DVD slideshow set to whatever music we choose. And if we want we can choose some for him to do special things with...like spot colour etc...I'm so excited! I thought we weren't going to be able to afford a photographer. No we're not gonna have the great custom wedding album etc...but that's okay cuz Kevn's Aunt Sue is making us a wedding album for a wedidng gift (she told me the other day) And I can make something pretty for our parents and whomever. I love it! Plus that way we can even get pictures in time to send with our thank you cards (so narcisitic I know lol) He's going to just take pics at the ceremony and we're gonna have Kevn's brother Keith take pics at the reception...at least that's the current plan. It may change.

We're meeting the photographer next week @ Elizabeth Park to take some "Engagement photos" CRAP! Which means I need to get my nails done before next week!

Anyway...our guest list count is now currently around 65 (including the bridal party and their families) I'm giving people another 5 days to get the responses in...anything we don't have is a no unless I've spoken to them online or on the phone...food won't be an issue cuz whatever our final count is Kevin's adding 30 to just in case...it's the favors I'm worried about. I might try and talk Kevin into letting me spend another $30 on more favors just in case. As long as I order tham by the end of next week I'll be good.

I'm contemplating not having margaritas anymore @ the reception and just providing the beer and champagne toast and mixers. We'll have to see. Because we're getting a deal on the photographer now and my brother said he wanted to help us with something, we may be able to do it.

It's getting so close now!!! 22days!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

My wedding shoes. Aren't these HAWT!!!! 

My reception/New Orleans shoes. Aren't these absolutely perfect?!? 

The all important wedding bag where everything important has gone...including and especially the 7 responses we have gotten so far 

Kevin's hat. I"m not sure if he's keeping the feather...I kinda like it myself...he also has some sunglasses...gangsta locs we got from elpachuco.com lol 

Close up of the detail on Kevin's suit. I love it! 

Kevin's suit. It looks so much better on him. I can't wait to get pics of him in it....he's hot! 

More beads for the day after party 

Some of the beads we bought for the day after party. 

The masks I bought for decoration for the day after party. 

The vase for the centerpieces. I'm still waiting on the flowers...they should be here tomorrow. Got a great deal on ebay lol 

Here's the jordan almonds. I have to thank my sweat shop of Angie, Chicken and my mom for these gorgeous things. I'll take a pic of them individual the day of hopefully! They're white jordan almonds wrapped in ivory tulle circles with burgundy ribbon 

I bought these, but I"m not sure I'lll be able to use them. We'll have to see when we get there the night before.  

Here's the banner we got (thru orientaltrading.com) I love it! It's going to be hung above our heads @ the reception and then on the fence for the day after party 

These are the buttermints that go into the shot glasses. I got them (as with almost everything else) @ orientaltrading.com I love that place! 120 individually wrapped buttermints were $5!!! 

Each place setting is going to have the maraca and one of these cactus shot glasses with 2 buttermints in them just like this. 

Here's the flip side 

Here are the maracas. It took me about 2 hours to get the tags perfect when they printed out, but I did it. I printed them on cardstock on both sides (this is the front side) cut them with the paper cutter, punch the starburst hole with a scrapbook paper punch and tied them on with the silver cord (it's kinda elastic...was pretty hard to work with...i'm so glad these are done lol) 

Our response cards. I need to take a pic of the first response we got lol. 

With flash you can see the colurs better but not the writing. 

Here's the "day after party" invitations. I hand made these by printing them out and using a paper cutter to cut the paper and the cardstock. You can't really tell in this picture but the cardstock is purkle and the ribbon is a really pretty green/gold (mardi gras type colour) cuz the day after is kinda a mardi gras theme. 

Here's a copy of our response card envelopes. We printed out the return addresses on clear labels with a calligraphy font. When we ran out of labels (or i thought we ran out of labels...i just found a few yesterday when i was cleaning) I hand calligraphed them myself. 

Here is a picture of the reception invitation. The wedding invitation looked the same except it was worded a little different. I'll try and take a pic of that one tonight. I made these myself. We got a DIY invitation kit from Michael's (Kevin picked it out) and printed the words on the vellum which were then attached to the handmade paper with ribbon. They were a bit labor intensive, but they were worth it. 

More responses!

Well today brought THREE MORE RESPONSE CARDS! YAY!!! So now, not counting the bridal party and family, we have 7 whole people attending lol. That would bring the grand total to about 30 including kids. Not a bad turnout so far. I'm actually hoping for far less than what we sent out lol. My magic number the whole time has been 100.... i hope we can stay that way.

I found my camera, so tomorrow I"m gonna take pics of everything I have so far...including the invitations and stuff....I'm so excited!

Today is 31 days until the wedding. I am starting to stress out. We still need to get so much stuff before then. We have the important stuff...my dress & all the trimmings, his suit, the ceremony location, the officiant (*hugs jayson*), the reception area, the bartender, the DJ (we're finalizing that friday I think) but we still need some of the clothes for the bridal party & booze & jayson's scarf thingy.

I need to breathe. I'm taking a break from the puter I'll be back with more updates later *hugs*