Maura

the last two wedding i was a BM in, i was the designated dress holder when the bride had to pee --- mostly because i had known them the longest of all the other BMs one of them is my matron of honor, so she already told me she would hold my dress for me when i pee, and abbie my dress is similar in poofy-ness to yours

on the link, the westin regina los cabos is #8, which is where im getting married

Hey gals, I was doing a search in the picasa community photo albums, and found this guy's amazing album of the Westin Los Cabos and other things around San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas, so I had to share! Picasa Web Albums - Philip - Traveler: Par... Also, I added most of the Westin photos and a few more (58 new, total of 166) to my huge collaborative Westin photo album of all the photos I've found. You can see that here: Picasa Web Albums - Maura - Westin Los Ca...

jamy, i put all my italy photos into picasa albums for you and im emailing them and will tell you more in the email, but theres a wonderful villa in capri (which i know your parents love) called villa eva. the owners speak english well and its a stunning property, and not too far from the famous blue grotto. feel free to forward the photo albums on to your parents, i'm including albums from capri/anacapri, florence, rome, pompeii, venice and urbino (where i actually lived).

i'd be careful on the pronunciation guides you use -- for example the "us-the-dh" that you posted above is the Spaniard pronunciation, not the Mexican pronunciation.

Quote: Originally Posted by DreamsDreamer Is anyone having a difficult time motivating when it's so cold outside? I am not really a gym rat, I love being outdoors, but living here is so hard for me because I can't get up and go when it's so cold. I haven't worked out in two weeks, I was doing some Tae Bo tapes before, but I want to feel some fresh air going into my body when I work out, not just stifled apartment air. Has anyone had any success with keeping workouts going? Would anyone be interested in doing a Monday walk/jog after work? Maybe even before work? I know that there is a track off of Chicago and Inner Lake Shore Drive. Or if anyone has any other ideas for a track that is in Chicago and might have better parking, let me know. I think it might be helpful to start a group and that will help to get something going that is more consistent. Thanks! ps. I used to use this trainer and we were doing sprint work for awhile (back at the UCLA track in California, I miss it!!) anyway, that got me in shape pretty quick so I wouldn't mind showing you girls some of the stuff we did. But maybe waiting for that until it gets warmer would be wise so that we don't pull any muscles when it's super cold like this. i feel the same way you do. and i would love to get together maybe a monday evening thing or what would actually work better for me is saturday or sunday mornings because my work schedule is really tight and i work late a lot during this time of year. when it gets a little warmer though. also i did some damage to my muscles/joints thanks to a stupid allergic reaction to a prescription, so i have to wait 4-5 weeks to do any real working out anyway also does anybody like to play tennis? i have one friend who i like to play tennis with to just hit the ball around and we are going to start playing toward the end of april if anyone else wants to play too! there are lots of free courts around the city and we can rotate courts to whatever is close by each person to be fair.

Quote: Originally Posted by marip123 I definitely recognize the second guy talking in the last video. He was the one who gave us our tour. Have you had any luck having some named as your WC? Hope so! nope, still no WC. hopefully it will be sorted out this week because my FMIL called my FI to tell him that we needed to really get on the ball about a few things, and that was one of them. somehow when she tells him, its more urgent than when i tell him it needs to be done. oh well, whatever, at least he's doing it now!

Felicidades! Corey, I hope everything goes just as perfectly as you have planned it! I know you'll be a beautiful bride Congratulations to you and Phil! Can't wait for you to return so I can hear all about it and see photos!!! Happy wedding day!

Quote: Originally Posted by Jtds2713 Hi Mauraw, Sorry when is this get together again? Jess tomorrow night! 7 pm. BIN36 on dearborn. wanna join?

mandy, try Paper Source - Do Something Creative Every Day if they dont have it, let me know. i have like 20 different envelope companies saved on my computer at home and i can email you a bunch to check!

Quote: Originally Posted by kiahjane Hey there, just FYI, HOB quoted me a higher price for my Marisa gown than Netbride did and would not honor their 5% less guarantee for it. I ended up ordering it from Netbride and the service & product was fantastic! I got the dress for $800 less than the dress shop, $100 less than HOB, AND it came a month earlier than expected!! WOW! you lucky girl! i got the same kind of deal on my dress by shopping around too.

Quote: Originally Posted by violethaze2b Just what I see from the parents and with the grandparents being that much more old fashioned in their etiquette I would say send them the invites. Correspondence can mean a lot even if they can't make it. my grandmother is having a hip replacement just before the wedding and is too ill to travel otherwise. whether or not she would actually come otherwise is a whole separate question, but i am sending her an invite anyway to keep the peace. i think it would be rude not to send it to her even though i know she cant go. Quote: Originally Posted by melglnh2o I would still send them the invite. We invited almost 200 people but some of them had told us they couldn't make it but we sent the invites anyway because we wanted them to know we were thinking about them. i think that is very nice. we are doing the same. Quote: Originally Posted by BarefootBride I can see my Great Aunt opening hers and thinking, "how nice that she sent me one." I come from a HUGE very traditional Catholic family that pretty much wants me to have a typical wedding but I dont want them to think that I am totally eloping and running away from it! I just think that I would stay semi traditional and send them an actual invite in the form of paper! I think that the older crowd would appreciate it. As far as gifts.... we got two of everything and I doubt it that they would send a gift. im in the same boat - our big catholic families all have to get invitations regardless of whether they will decline, which on my side, most will decline. they wanted me to have a typical wedding and are pissy im not, but guess what, its my wedding and not theirs. theyre not paying for it so they have no right to tell me what to do or to complain about my choice. Quote: Originally Posted by LALA It sounds like there are a couple different situations being talked about here. One is - do you invite everyone to a DW that you would invite to an at home wedding? To that I say no. For us that was the major reason we had a DW - we didn't want a big wedding and the only way to do that without pissing people off was to do a DW. The other is - if you sent STD's to people, do you then have to send an invite? To that...well, we did. I just felt like it was polite. Just be clear on your STD's what your plans are. amen to the part about you dont invite everybody you would if you were doing it at home. that was the whole point of doing a DW for us too. we didnt want a big wedding. we personally are sending out a lot of courtesy invites (which is against my wishes, but we have to since we are not paying for the wedding, and i am ok with that), especially in mexico. we did not send the STDs to anybody in mexico because that isnt a cultural norm there. the first and only news you hear is usually the invite itself. even for a DW. my FI said also that there are people we know wont come, and they will reply no with the STD, but sending them a formal invite will remind them about the wedding, and if their plans have changed they will let us know.....and he said if they still arent coming it will remind them to send a gift hahaha but really, in his culture it is totally impolite to send someone a "preliminary invite" and then not send them a real invite too, he wouldnt do that back home and so he doesnt want to do that here either.

i nearly bought a dress at HOB based on a recommendation from a close friend who bought her gown there in 2006. but then i found my dream dress somewhere else and HOB didnt carry the one i really wanted. great service in store, but i cant vouch for the website. one word of advice my friend gave me which worked when i was negotiating price on a gown --- they will go high, so if you offer low, they will counter in the middle.

Quote: Originally Posted by Yari Is there anyway you can talk to her in person? her mom lives in seattle, becca lives in NYC

rebecca, whenever your mom is annoying you and being lukewarm, just remember the stories i told you about my mom. your mom will seem like an angel when compared haha. but i know what you are saying. and people are right, weddings (and other life changing events like funerals, having kids, etc) can bring out the weirdness in people, especially family. i suggest you follow the advice you gave me over dinner: you cant please everyone all the time, especially not your parents, so you instead need to focus on pleasing yourself and your FI because ultimately it is your wedding and they are your memories that you have to live with.

also you can do st pattys related things instead of random munchies... like cut up irish soda bread into small pieces with a cream cheese type dip... make a corned beef (so easy) and shred it, then buy cocktail rye and mustard for little corned beef sandwiches.... green river soda, dont know if they have that where you live, but its a must here in chicago for st pats.

that is ridiculous, i would say you are 100% allowed to have a bridezilla moment about this. if i were you, i would call her every ten minutes today until the problem is fixed.

Quote: Originally Posted by Megan I've been looking at Cabo and I really like it! we had similar criteria to yours, and we ended up picking the westin in cabo partially because they have a golf course on the grounds that is situated right up next to the beach and my FI wants to play golf with his dad the day before the wedding

first i should tell you that im feeling really bitchy today... but DAMN you have some picky BMs! i was in a wedding where the bride was such a bitch, she dictated everything down to approving the color of the freaking champagne colored shoes (which, may i add, were out of season for an october wedding, and VERY difficult to find!). those girls are lucky you even gave them a choice. why is it so freaking hard for people to not complain its not their wedding so !!! they can do what they want at their own weddings. i think it was incredibly gracious of you to offer them a second option. thank god my BMs have not said two words about the dresses i asked them to wear. i said this is the color, this is where you can buy it, i dont care which cut/style you get, or what shoes you wear. they were all like "ok! cool!" thank goodness.

i can def. tell in #1 love #2 though, it looks natural

Quote: Originally Posted by Sarah I had to just set things down and walk away several times during my planning... and you know what? Usually when I did that, once I picked it back up again the right thing would just come to me. Take a break, do some non-wedding stuff for a few days and maybe you'll find the right thing. i did this also and i found when i took a few days or even a few weeks of stopping looking at stuff incessantly, the next time i looked, my head was much clearer. Quote: Originally Posted by Sarah Also, my DH was soooo picky during the planning process and kept knocking down ideas I'd had. I got so sick of it that I told him if he wasn't 100% participatory on something then he was not allowed to offer his opinion. He had to sit down and look at invitation ideas with me until we came to a decision or he wasn't allowed to give his opinion. I also stopped asking for his opinion after a while and he was totally happy with what I picked out in the end... men!! lol Ditto to everything sarah said here, my FI did the SAME thing. I told him if he was going to shoot down all my ideas, then he had to provide alternatives, otherwise he couldnt bitch about it, because i was the one doing all the work. we especially could not agree on invitations. you might want to try something like mygatsby.com and do the mix n match invites, theyre reasonably priced and that way you can each pick out elements of the invite. we found this was the only situation that worked for us. good luck!

you all realize now, that since there are so many of us we have to share photos

Quote: Originally Posted by Adinu I don't agree with all of the teachings of the Church either. I went to Catholic elementary and highschool where we not only had to attend mass and so on on a weekly basis, but also had to take courses on religion. I don't think that if you attend mass, or live seperately before marriage, or wait to have kids until you are married, it means that you are any less spiritual or that you are less of a good person than someone who does abide by those rules. I kind of made some of those points clear at the meeting, but I don't think it went over too well. LOL! I don't even want to know what he will say when we tell him that we are doing just the 30min Marriage Rights instead of the whole mass for our wedding ceremony I'm so glad that I'm able to share this with you guys and get some feedback to your experiences etc... i completely agree with you -- it doesnt matter how you choose to believe in god, it should just matter that you do. i dont like being told that the way i live my life is sinning. it's what works for me. it's totally, IMHO, stupid for the church to tell me i am a sinner for cohabitating in 2008.... im an adult, my FI is an adult, we can made adult decisions. i am not going from my parents home to my husbands like originally intended by the church. we have a much different reality. we live in a city where the cost of rent is also prohibitive to live in 2 decent sized apartments instead of one together. actually, you know my relationship has improved 10fold since we started living together. i only love him more every day, and i dont think its right for the church to tell me that the way im doing it is all wrong. sorry, a bit of a rant there. you should really just leave out the fact that you're doing the 30 min thing to your local priest. he doesnt have to know. he's not the one marrying you, so his job is to make sure you are prepared for it and sign off on it when youre done with the requirements. its not his job to judge. Quote: Originally Posted by starchild Ask your diocese if they offer courses for convalidated couples. This is for people who either got married outside of the church and are now having a Catholic ceremony, or people who have never been married but already live together (like us). They are run differently because you are in a different place than people who have no idea what it's like to live together, it's a more mature/modern approach imo. IMO if that priest gave you shit I would find another parish. God is love and if you are made to feel like sinners it doesn't help anything. The pastor who prepared us was awesome and very progressive. DH is not Catholic, I have sooooo many issues with the structure of the church. I think all religion pretty much sucks and your belief in God and the good you do is what matters. The pastor not only allowed us to express our grievances, but he pretty much agreed with us and said spirituality is individual for everyone. He made us feel 100% okay with how we feel and told us to take what we believed and leave the rest. I cannot stress how cool he was, and he completely changed DH's perspective on the Catholic church....and mine. Amy, I'm glad you are enjoying your classes. We are so glad we did them, truly jamy i agree with you the special class is more adult and modern, even though they do still really press stuff like the natural family planning. im glad you had such a great priest. my biggest regret is that the priest who is marrying us (FI's dear uncle jack) is not able to do all of our preparations with us because he's in New Orleans. He is very progressive and understanding like the priest you had and I think in the end we will be more comfortable knowing he doesnt think he's marrying a bunch of sinners! and i bet my FI wouldnt admit it to anyone else but me, but we are glad we did this too. even if parts of it were not fun, we are glad our marriage will be blessed and accepted so when we have kids we can have them baptized, it makes our families happy etc etc etc

if you are going to ask for an antibiotics scrip in advance, i would not recommend cipro -- its really strong and can cause major yeast infections if you are sensitive to that like me.

Quote: Originally Posted by starchild We did the exact same thing, funny! The FOCCUS was so much more meaningful than we ever thought. And the one day class was really fun because the couple that led it was hilarious. There is something to be learned from this stuff so have fun with it. BTW don't know how Canada is different, but here different parishes have different classes. They all count the same, and if you really want you could probably find a one day class. The first parish we contacted wanted us to attend 6 months of classes...we called the diocese who hooked us up with the one day course sadly, the couple who was supposed to lead ours, the wife had to bail last minute because of some problem with their daughter, so our guy all alone was kinda boring. i think if his wife was there, it woulda been better. the other couples were nice, actually a bunch of them met online, or were like 45 and reconnected at their 20 yr HS reunions!