Holly81: Thanks for the reassurance. Don't worry about the long post. I'm a rambler and the queen of having full discussions with my friends' voicemails.
Updates:
I received my BEO last Thursday. It's right around what I expected, but a little high. There is a $100 bartender fee for our BOC bar at Jiko which apparently isn't charged if we order $500 worth of drinks exluding tax and service charge. And she has our estimated consumption at 70 drinks for 19 adults for a total of $699.72. I already can tell you that's overshooting it quite a bit. Let's see, oh yeah: No floral prices yet! That's frustrating. So I emailed Kathleen back to confirm our phone appointment to go over everything and I included a question regarding when I'll receive the floral. I got an automated response since she was out of the office for the holidays. Which is totally fine, I understand, it's Christmas and all. But the really weird thing was that then I got an email from Gina Hubbard confirming my phone appt. with Kathleen. So, do you think Gina is Kathleen's assistant? And if so, she must have read my email to confirm my phone appointment, so why did she completely ignore my question about my floral quote? What do you guys think I should do? Call Rosie directly or wait for my phone appt with Kathleen on the 31st? Payment is due on the 5th of January. I wanted enough time to revise if it ended up being too high. I'd like the floral before the phone appointment on the 31st, b/c what if I do want to remove something?? Hmpf.
We celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve this year b/c FSIL had to leave on Christmas day with her boyfriend to get to new york in time to set up for the next trade show they're working. So, everything went really well and it was relatively drama free. On Christmas day DF and I stayed home, in our PJs, ALL DAY. We didn't do anything at all. Okay, we'll I did do some
and cut up and bag veggies for this short week. But that's about it. DF oscillated between the computer and his new DS. The big excitement came when he took it upon himself to order our wedding bands!!! We've looked in all the stores and had a good idea of what we wanted, so he just went ahead and ordered them online (for much cheaper.) I don't have any pictures since this was his endevor, but my band is just a simple 14k 3mm White Gold band. DF went with Tungsten with alternating brushed and polished stripes. It looks good and he likes it, so that's all that matters. We got both of these really cheap. I think both together were less than $125.
Of course my posts are never complete though, without some drama! Yesterday, my FSIL/MOH informs me that she would like to push back my bachlorette party a week b/c she wants to fly to DC the weekend my party is currently scheduled for b/c it's her bf's birthday! I totally understand her wanting to be with her BF on his birthday. Really. But let's recap. The whole reason I've gone through all the earlier shower drama was because she was out of town and the date we picked together was the only time that worked for her. The PLAN was that she would come home the weekend of the 4th and then be home for all of January before the wedding. So we set the Shower for the 5th and the bach. party for the 12th. My other bm is handling the bach. party and she's already called everyone for the 12th! (except my moh/fsil?!? which I think might be my fault?? I maybe listed the wrong number for fsil, but bm called me and I called her back with the right number. so I would think that she would call.) Now, when it's less than 3 weeks away, she wants to change the date?!? I know that my BM is having trouble with ppl not RSVPing (BIG SHOCKER!
) so I was thinking of scrapping the whole bach. party thing, especially if FSIL isn't going to be here. Me and my bm can hit a local dive bar and if someone wants to come, they can, but it won't be a fancy production. I tried calling FSIL back last night to talk to her about everything, but she didn't pick up. I don't want to talk behind her back, but I'm really disappointed that this couldn't have come up sooner! Like maybe a few months ago.
We'll see what happens. Hopefully I'll talk to my BM today and from there I can figure out what to tell FSIL. I kinda feel like if she wants to go to DC to see her BF, then she should go. But I don't think I should have to move my party for it. Idk. We'll see.
Finally (And to end on a positive note
), I've found jewelry! It's quite funny actually. For as much as I've heard everyone talk about the swarovski jewelry, I never really, really looked at it. Until yesterday! And man was I taken. I absolutely fell in love. I bought these earrings off of ebay:
They're $93 retail. I bought them for $69.99 plus $8 for s&h. Not a great discount, but good enough.
This is the matching necklace that I want. One was sold on ebay recently in the $170's, but there aren't any now
It retails for $232.
This necklace retails for $530, but it's on for less than $300 on ebay. But I just don't like it as much. If I'm going to pay that much, I may as well pay retail for the one I like! Basically, it's wider and seems to be almost too much to me...
And here's the really inexpensive pendant that is from the same line that I can get for less than $100, but I don't like it at all
(I dislike it so much, I left it out of the post the first time around, lol)
So, my questions to all of you are: 1.) Will this design even go with my dress? And what about the birdcage veil? Is it too much? To refresh your memory, my dress and veil:
And 2.) What should I do about the whole necklace thing? Go with my heart and pay retail for the one I want??? (the necklace in the first picture!) Really, more with this jewelry than even with my dress, I had the ah-ha! This is it! moment. And I'm thinking since it's 2007 Swarovski, they may end up discontinuing it and worse comes to worse, I can sell it on ebay after my wedding. Thoughts????
I'm sure it will work out though 
