NABUMBAH

The girls on my local knot board have been pretty creative with first anniversary gifts. many of them have bought stock certificates from oneshare.com, boudoir pics are always popular, tickets to sporting events or concerts, and one found a company that makes a print of the night sky from the night you were married.

I spent months searching for the perfect shoe. I actually found them - these Hollywould shoes (there is a shot of them in my album here) but when it all came down to it, I started the day in a pair of gold leather jcrew flip-flops and ended up wearing NO shoes for the rest of the day. Much like Christa, I just couldn't be bothered to put on actual shoes. Too much hassle and having WAY too much fun. So I don't know. Given that you're getting married on the beach/at the beach you may just want to consider something really simple and splurge on a fabulous pair of heels that you can wear on special occasions, like your anniversary. At least that's what I wish I had done. You can justify the expense as "for the wedding" even if you don't wear them for the wedding. And they can still be your "wedding" shoes even if they're fabulous and silver and worn afterward on your anniversary, weddings and valentine's day. am I making sense here?

That's excellent that your dad wants to be there, and I have to say it's incredibly considerate of you to purchase him a second ticket. I was stuck next to a very large woman on a redeye back from Maui a while back and it was pretty unlpleasant.

Good luck Kelly Lovefreddy - they were real limes. My florist put them together. I would advise making sure that you use purified water if you do something similar. My guests were grabbing the lime to use as a chaser for tequila shots I don't *think* anyone got sick, but you never know.

you know, I think they held up OK, but I didn't even notice. Too busy socializing and dancing with my guests to be bothered by that kind of thing

here is what we did. I seriously had reached the point of not caring at all once I got to the point of doing this, so I handed everything over to my mom and let her do whatever she wanted. thankfully, it looked nice and was festive they took the large arrangements from our aisle and stuck one on our sweetheart table (you can kinda see it in this photo) and the other on our dessert table and yes, to pay homage to my H's love for the Angels, we named tables after Angel players and stuck photos of them on each table. (this is a sore subject after yesterday's loss, of course) oh, and as for cost, my mom ordered the blue tablecloths from some place in LA for around $6 each. We sold them to the hotel afterward. We brought down the tealights purchased at Big Lots - 3/$1. My mom ordered the ribbon from papermart.com and then my mom and sister painstakingly weaved those bad boys once we got to Cabo. Thank goodness for my mom! I did the centerpieces through Rosy's florist. I think they were $35 each.

so sorry

I paid around $7 each for custom designed professionally printed invitations. With calligraphy and postage they ended up around $10

we had a very unplanned reception line on the lawn in front of our mariachi. It was actually pretty cool to say hello to everyone. We did the majority of our photos pre-ceremony. After we were done with the R-line, we did some more family shots, and photos of the two of us, and still had time to enjoy a little of the cocktail hour with our guests.

Guidelines would be a GREAT start. Nice suggestion.

the CSH allowed me to bring in my own wine (bought cheap at a deep discount direct from the winery) - we also only did Domestic bar and 3.5 hours at that! (although it was open all night for some reason...) I used Jennifer Hatton for my desserts. Contact her. I think I spent around $500 for cupcakes, and the other desserts that we offered, but I am sure that she can whip something up for you.

Yeah hehe. That's why I am glad I am not a mod Thanks for the recommendation to turn of sigs. To be honest, I work for myself, but I hate to have the people in my office see my slacking off. It's not like I am going to get fired for screwing around or anything. Just trying to set a good example (even though I am clearly not ) overall though, it just would be nice to not have to scroll so much again, everyone may disagree. just voicing my opinion. Bigger isn't ALWAYS better

No, I fully agree with you. I enjoy seeing it too. As I mentioned, it adds a lot of value to the forum and helps with member recognition for me personally. I just think it would be great if maybe members were limited to a ticker, a link, and one pic that is 000x000 pixels. KWIM? and FWIW, I don't think your sig is out of control at all ETA - not to mention, it's gotta be hard on Tammy's server to have all of that stuff on there, right? I am kind of lame with computers but I reckon it must slow things down some.

I definitely agree. Not calling anyone out specifically, but there are some people with a photo, monogram, ticker, links - you name it in their sigs. It would just be nice if there wasn't so much "stuff" to scroll through when looking at a thread.

Okay, I mentioned this in the contest thread, and I may be alone here, but here's my deal: I really love seeing all of the sigs. I think that they add a lot of value to the forum and they help everyone to identify one-another. That said, some of the sigs on here take up like half of my screen and cause a lot of extra scrolling. I think it would be nice to have some sort of limit to sig size on the forum. I'm not sure how to define it. I use photobucket to host my photos on here, and I try not to use anything larger than their website/email sized setting (320x240) in a sig, but I wouldn't be opposed to doing even a thumbnail sized (160x120) which is what I currently have mine sized down to because it's portrait, not landscape. I don't know. Ya'll may totally shoot me down here, I am just throwing it out there.

touche! ((((((

the contests are fun and thank you for making this a single photo contest. I really love all of the beautiful collages, but some of them are HUGE! It makes surfing this site incognito a little difficult at work. Maybe I should start a new thread for this, but I would not be opposed to limiting sig size somewhat.

I am just doing this from memory, but I use: 1 package cubed beef (for stew) 2 cans 98% ff cream of mushroom soup 1 onion, chopped 1 package onion soup mix. I set that on low for 6-8 hours. When I get home, I add - 1 package mushrooms, sliced and 1 tub of L/F sour cream and possibly cream cheese if I have some as well. I let that cook for another 30 min to 1 hour or until the mushroom are soft. Served over egg noodles. It's pretty simple. I often buy the beef and freeze it, and then just throw it in the crockpot still frozen. It's not exactly sophisticated, but it's very inexpensive, and easy. Chris also recently made this: Jerked Pulled Pork with Rum BBQ Sauce Makes 2 servings Ingredients * 1/2 tsp chili powder or smoked paprika * Pinch of garlic powder * Pinch of ground allspice * Pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper * 1 1/4 pounds pork tenderloin * Juice of 1/2 lemon or lime * 1 medium-size yellow onion, sliced * 1 cup barbecue sauce of your choice * 2 Tbsp dark rum Instructions 1. Combine the chili powder, garlic powder, allspice, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Drizzle the tenderloin with the lemon juice, then rub the spices into it. Place the roast in a zipper-top plastic bag and marinate in the refrigerator for 1 to 3 hours, or overnight. 2. Place the onion in the bottom of the slow cooker. Remove the roast from the bag and cut into 1-inch cubes; place on top of the onions. Combine the barbecue sauce and rum in a small bowl; mix well and pour over the roast. Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 7 hours, until the meat is fork-tender. Pull into shreds with two forks and serve hot. Notes * Instead of pork shoulder, this recipe calls for low-fat tenderloin, which is amazing in the slow cooker despite how lean it is. When cooked, shred the meat and pile it onto fresh rolls with more barbecue sauce on top, or spoon it over rice. * Cooker Size, Setting and Cook Time * Cooker: 1 1/2 to 3 quart * Setting and Cook Time: LOW for 6 to 7 hours there are hundreds of crockpot recipes on the following message board. It's always nice to try stuff that has been successful for someone else. good luck! Crockpot Recipes, part 2 - ConstantChatter

we do ribs in our crockpot - just put ribs & bbq sauce in and cook on low for 4-6 hours. you can do BBQ chicken the same way. In fact, we do chicken breasts all the time in there. Just throw in chicken with sauce, spices, and whatever else (the other night my H made crockpot mango chicken that he made up) totally good and easy. I also have a pretty decent light crockpot stroganoff if you like that.

It had just opened when I got married. I heard very good things about their treatments, but did not use them for Hair/Makeup. I suppose it's worth trying them out, but I don't see how they can make you use them. I used HIVE - they came to me.

I have a bunch that I found on another forum. What do you want to make? We use ours all the time, especially this time of year.

I have vacationed in Barbados. It is beautiful and the people were very nice. I don't have a ton of info, because it was 6 years ago, but as I recall it would be a very nice place for a DW. maybe a little hard to get to, though.

Quote: Originally Posted by Wisco4 That's not terrible. And do you think 2.5 minutes was a good amount of time? If we can do it for under a grand then it may be worth it. I hope Sunset da Mona Lisa will do this, that's where we are leaning towards. Do you mind if I pm you for more info about One and Only? yes, it was enough. I mean, it would have been nice to have more, but 2.5 min was enough to impress everyone and send our night off "with a bang" feel free to PM me, but we didn't stay at the O&O.

I think we paid $950 for 2.5 min.

yes they were 100% worth it.