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Jalumibnkrayal posted:If anyone is in the market for a diamond at the moment, be prepared for some sticker shock. The newest price sheet for diamonds came out, and many sizes of diamond from the tiny melee stones up through 3 carats have shot up about 35% in price in the last month. My family jewelry store has been around over 70 years and we're loving stunned right now. Do you guys have any idea why? Not in the market for anything, but would be interested to hear the kinds of things that can affect that.
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Mar 16, 2011 18:47
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Got to go visit the Wai-Ching studio and order my dress while visiting Seattle this week! I wound up going with a completely different dress design than I thought I would. So many of the dresses were amazing and I had a great time (and this is the type of thing I normally HATE). Chrissy was very nice and the whole experience was extremely low pressure. I am getting my sister's dress (she is my MOH) from her as well, and wound up getting a tie that will match my dress for my fiance to wear as well. The dress I'm getting combines the upper half of this dress:   with the bottom portion of this one:   The color for the bottom will be the gray-blue from the first dress (dip dyed so that the color goes to about mid-thigh) with the top part of the dress being ivory. The dress should be pretty light and I think will be great for the beach wedding we are having.
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Mar 16, 2011 21:01
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CalamityKate posted:Do you guys have any idea why? Not in the market for anything, but would be interested to hear the kinds of things that can affect that. Demand in Asia is the only response I get when I inquire. Supposedly February saw huge demand for diamond rough, too. Or maybe DeBeers just wants more money?
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Mar 16, 2011 23:20
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CalamityKate posted:Do you guys have any idea why? Not in the market for anything, but would be interested to hear the kinds of things that can affect that. I can shed a little light on this. Three reasons: Lack of supply, auction selling, and an emerging middle class. During the financial crisis the big mining companies mothballed a few of their mines. People weren't buying diamonds and the markets were flooded so they shut down a few mines hoping to give prices a boost. Demand has since come back to pre-crisis levels, but it takes at least two years to re-open a mine. So supply is going to lag for a bit. Add to that most mining companies are switching to an auction style system for selling their rough, and the auctions drive prices up. DeBeers actually leaves enough money in the rough diamond prices so that a couple rounds of brokers can make a few percentage points of profit and build an efficient distribution network. When you have diamond dealers bidding directly for the rough you're going to see a 5-15% price increase because they know that they can still make money. Thanks to the emerging middle class in China we're starting to see significant demand there. Many of the best jewelry pieces are going straight to China as soon as they are made, and jewelry stores in China actually have waiting lists for certain qualities of diamonds.
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Mar 16, 2011 23:54
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Heyyyy, megathread. Long-time lurker, first-time poster. I have a question about save-the-dates. My FH and I got engaged about a year ago, but our wedding isn't until June 16 of next year, so we're only just beginning our planning. Just booked the venue. My family is huge, and we have a lot of close friends, so we're looking at a 200pp guest list already. My dad is paying as much as he can, but we're simple folks with simple tastes and want to keep the cost down. One of my best friends is in her last semester of an M.F.A. graphic design program at Pratt. I asked her last weekend if she could design our STDs and advise us on what sorts of paper/printing methods/etc we should use. I threw out a figure of $200 for the whole shebang and let her know that if we liked her work on the STDs, we'd pay her more in the future to design our invitations and placecards in keeping with the same design. She happily agreed to take the project but insisted that $200 was too high. I'm about to contact her again on the matter to put everything down in writing, and I feel like $200 might indeed be too high. I trust her and know that she'll be great to work with, but we are on a budget and have a lot of cards to print. She'd probably help us out for free of the goodness of her heart, but I don't want to cheat her on a good rate for her work. On the other hand, she will be just starting her graphic design career, and she'll be able to add our wedding stuff to her portfolio. What do y'all think a good price would be?
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Mar 17, 2011 19:47
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You could agree on an hourly rate, perhaps? Or browse around on etsy and see what people there are charging (though it's sometimes ludicrous so take things with a grain of salt).
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Mar 17, 2011 20:31
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The King of England posted:I feel like $200 might indeed be too high. When your friend gets her first job she'll realize that only untalented designers work for $200. I say to pay the $200 and be thrilled that you can be her first patron. Make it a great experience for her and she'll be willing to work for you in the future.
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Mar 17, 2011 21:50
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JohnnyRnR posted:When your friend gets her first job she'll realize that only untalented designers work for $200. I say to pay the $200 and be thrilled that you can be her first patron. Make it a great experience for her and she'll be willing to work for you in the future. Word, yeah, I had no idea what constituted an acceptable professional rate. One more silly question, which I'm sure you can answer as someone who does custom designs: do I pay her before she starts to work, after I accept a final design, or somewhere in between? I'd like to set things up the right way without relying on her to bring up the $ question, because I don't want her to think later on that she got screwed.
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Mar 17, 2011 21:59
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Any opinions on this ring would be greatly appreciated http://www.moissaniteco.com/round-moissanite-antique-milgrain-engagement-ring-008ct-p-12029.html In yellow gold, .5-.75 carat in the round cut. I know some people here have purchased from this company before. Overall good experience? I am just concerned buying online without seeing it... Also, I know they offer a treatment that "enhances" it, is this worth it? Has anyone here got pictures of either enhanced or un-enhanced pictures of their ring?
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Mar 18, 2011 00:39
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Is there a particular name for this type of wedding ring? Searching for "wedding ring bracket" doesn't really give me any good results.
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Mar 19, 2011 02:27
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elbow posted:Is there a particular name for this type of wedding ring? Searching for "wedding ring bracket" doesn't really give me any good results. A wrap, perhaps?
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Mar 19, 2011 02:45
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Just found that two minutes ago and came to edit my post, but you beat me  Thanks for the help!
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Mar 19, 2011 02:50
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Does anyone happen to know a good place in the Portland, OR area to start looking for a wedding dress? I have not 'dressed up' for a dozen years and even though I'm clueless its time to get on it! Also any recommendations for where to get a Titanium ring? The fiance is waffling a little worrying if they will ever have to cut his finger off but I know its what he really wants so I should at least find a good place before he has to decide. TIA! ^^
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Mar 19, 2011 21:57
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Ceridwen posted:Got to go visit the Wai-Ching studio and order my dress while visiting Seattle this week! So jealous! BTW, I forgot to bookmark a particular website (and I don't have search) -- can anyone chime in with the website for the UK jeweler that someone from Florida got a custom ring from earlier in this thread? (very slight possibility I'm confusing this with the jewelry thread)
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Mar 20, 2011 04:43
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What's a reasonable price to pay for an officiant for a simple backyard ceremony? I'm trying to do this on the ultra-cheap, and so far the cheapest I've found is about $150. Is this the norm or should I keep looking?
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Mar 21, 2011 21:43
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That sounds about right to me.
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Mar 21, 2011 22:32
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My dad passed away last week after battling ALS for 8 years. This might seem silly but I don't know how to do the wedding invitation wording now. I was doing Dr. {Dad's first name last name} and Mrs. {Dad's first name last name}. Should I just use my mom's name and drop my dad's name now?
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Mar 21, 2011 23:17
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Ms. Happiness posted:My dad passed away last week after battling ALS for 8 years. This might seem silly but I don't know how to do the wedding invitation wording now. I was doing Dr. {Dad's first name last name} and Mrs. {Dad's first name last name}. Should I just use my mom's name and drop my dad's name now? Do whatever feels right to you. If you want to leave it as you had it, do it. You can also do something like quote:Ms. Happiness, daughter of Father and Mother or omit your Father's name on the invitations and honor his memory in a different way. You can also use modifiers like "the late" or "deceased," but that might draw too much attention that you might not be ready for.
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Mar 21, 2011 23:50
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My engagement ring is platinum, and I'm currently looking at a vintage/antique wedding band that's made of 14k white gold. I know platinum is harder than gold, but does that make this an inherently bad choice? Edit: Would coating it in platinum be a good solution? elbow fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Mar 22, 2011 |
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Mar 22, 2011 02:56
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It is increasingly looking like I'm going to be getting married in late September/early October of this year rather than May of next year. This is both exciting and scary. To add more fun, it's likely that I'll be moving cross-country and switching graduate programs at the same time as a lot of the wedding planning is going on. It's better than having to push the wedding back to September or so of next year though, which neither of us wanted to do. And my mother has taken the news surprisingly well.
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Mar 22, 2011 03:02
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elbow posted:My engagement ring is platinum, and I'm currently looking at a vintage/antique wedding band that's made of 14k white gold. You're worried the wrong direction. Strangely enough, the 14k ring will eat into the platinum piece over time. I've seen it happen, but I've never heard a good explanation as to exactly why it occurs. I'd assume it's a scientist answer revolving around shear strengths. If possible I would stick to like metals in the wedding band.
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Mar 22, 2011 03:33
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The King of England posted:Word, yeah, I had no idea what constituted an acceptable professional rate. 200 bucks is definitely on the low end for a project like this, but I do design work for friends on a cheaper level than I would for an actual client so this is probably a similar deal. Whatever works. You can offer to pay her in increments; perhaps pay her a certain amount after you see sketches, then after you see a more revised version, then after the product is completed. Talk it over with her, look at her work, figure out how to want to pay her based on how her stuff impresses you. It isn't prudent to just pay her at the beginning or the end, because you should be aware as to how the product is looking in-progress and if it's living up to your standards.
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Mar 22, 2011 14:40
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JohnnyRnR posted:You're worried the wrong direction. Strangely enough, the 14k ring will eat into the platinum piece over time. I've seen it happen, but I've never heard a good explanation as to exactly why it occurs. I'd assume it's a scientist answer revolving around shear strengths.
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Mar 22, 2011 15:23
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I would definitely stick to palladium in that case. Some people don't mind the eventual damage, but it's always a best practice to put like metals with like.
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Mar 23, 2011 03:04
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What is the general consensus on inviting person "and guest"? Do you always have to invite someone with a guest if you're reasonably certain they're not dating anyone? I'm thinking that provided they aren't the only person of a social group there, the guest part isn't necessary. I could be wrong. My main concern is outsizing the venue we have booked.  How many people can we reasonably expect to come from the invite list? 50% of the non-family?Ceridwen posted:Got to go visit the Wai-Ching studio and order my dress while visiting Seattle this week! I've driving down there next week to get a wedding dress from her as well! I love her stuff (though not so much her men's outfits.) In email exchanges, she's also down with doing a coordinating outfit for my son, who'll be about 10 months old at the time. The plan is to do something for my MOH as well, possibly flower girls. Speaking of which, I *think* the way it generally goes is that flower girls parents' pay for their own dresses. If I specify a specific dress though, then I'm on the hook, correct?
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Mar 24, 2011 01:12
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ChloroformSeduction posted:What is the general consensus on inviting person "and guest"? Do you always have to invite someone with a guest if you're reasonably certain they're not dating anyone? I'm thinking that provided they aren't the only person of a social group there, the guest part isn't necessary. I could be wrong. Don't invite "and guest" if you don't want to. However, if you don't, people might do what they want anyway, as happened in my case. We only invited friends, family, and known significant others. We did not want people we didn't know coming to see a very personal moment of our lives. There were enough people coming from each of our invite pools (his family, his college friends, my family, my college friends) that no one would be lonely by coming by themselves. We wrote out our invitations accordingly. Most people understood that when we wrote "Jane Doe," only Jane Doe was invited. Two people didn't: - One of my cousins was engaged and broke off the engagement between when she was invited and the wedding. She still RSVPed for 2 people and said that she would find someone new to bring. - One of my college friends RSVPed for 2 people even though the invitation was only written out in her name. Luckily it worked out okay because of how many people COULDN'T come to our wedding, but if everyone we invited singly had taken the liberty to invite a "plus one," we would have had to either suck it up and find the extra money to fund those plates or call people and be the rude people who told people how to come to their wedding.
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Mar 24, 2011 01:29
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ChloroformSeduction posted:What is the general consensus on inviting person "and guest"? Do you always have to invite someone with a guest if you're reasonably certain they're not dating anyone? I'm thinking that provided they aren't the only person of a social group there, the guest part isn't necessary. I could be wrong. On the "and guest" thing, this is an issue I am currently dealing with as well. Our venue is not going to be large enough if we allow every adult to bring a guest. Still trying to figure out how to handle it. Obviously we'll invite the significant others for those that are engaged or married, but I don't know what to do with some of the others, especially the many adult (18-27 year old) cousins that I know are not in serious relationships. On the flower girl thing, my understanding is that the parents are supposed to pay for the dresses, regardless of whether you specify a particular one or not.
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Mar 24, 2011 03:07
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My opinion is the classy thing to do is to allow for a plus one on all the RSVP cards. That may mean paring down the invite list but better to have fewer people than too many, and people are gonna want to bring their significant other.
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Mar 24, 2011 05:27
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All of our invites for one adult alone also allowed a guest. A lot of people we invited (school/work friends, etc.) didn't know anyone else there and would have been very alone without a guest. My friends not in relationships brought a friend of their own for company and friends in relationships brought their SOs. All married/engaged/long-term couples were invited as such (with both names) on the invitation, and no guest option. If you're worried over venue size, you may have to pare down your invite list as mentioned above. VVV Yeah, we actually didn't have many instances where the plus one was necessary. Maybe 5 invites total went out like that, and a couple people still opted to come solo. brambling lass fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Mar 24, 2011 |
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Mar 24, 2011 20:12
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It definitely depends on your outlook and what's common in your area. If our friends were in a relationship, we put down their partner's name on the invite. Otherwise, we invited them alone, since weddings are a great place to meet people. We did make sure that everyone knew someone else there, though. Most people were sitting with their families (big Greek wedding!) and our American friends that came all were seated with mutual friends. If that hadn't been possible, we may have allowed for one or two plus ones. We didn't get any complaints about that, for what it's worth... and we did get complaints about other things ("too much Greek in your Greek service!" "Why wasn't there more American music?!") so I'm not chalking it up to politeness.
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Mar 24, 2011 20:31
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ChloroformSeduction posted:What is the general consensus on inviting person "and guest"? Do you always have to invite someone with a guest if you're reasonably certain they're not dating anyone? I'm thinking that provided they aren't the only person of a social group there, the guest part isn't necessary. I could be wrong. It seems to me that for close family members & close friends, you could just call them and ask if they mind not bringing a guest. If a friend of mine were planning a wedding and said "Hey, would you be okay with not bringing a guest? We're kind of short on space so we need to have a rough headcount before we send out invites" I wouldn't be offended in the slightest. Obviously it's not the classiest thing to do, but you don't need to be classy with your good friends.
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Mar 24, 2011 20:37
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marylou posted:It seems to me that for close family members & close friends, you could just call them and ask if they mind not bringing a guest. If a friend of mine were planning a wedding and said "Hey, would you be okay with not bringing a guest? We're kind of short on space so we need to have a rough headcount before we send out invites" I wouldn't be offended in the slightest. I like this idea, especially since family and friends like this would likely know a lot of the other guests attending and not feel left out if going solo And anyone who has ever planned or been involved in the planning of a wedding will more than understand; guessing the final guest number is tricky!
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Mar 24, 2011 20:46
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Once you start getting RSVP cards back with no +1, you can do another round of invitations for the people you cut. You can even be coy about it: "hey coworker I've only known for a year, have you received an invitation yet? No? Sorry about that, wedding planning has been crazy! Here you go, I have an extra in my bag here. Let me know if you can make it when you get a chance." Or send out an email to everyone you want to invite and everyone you haven't received an RSVP from and ask if they've received invitations, that covers your bases in case some invitations actually did get lost in the mail and acts as a helpful reminder to those that haven't RSVPed yet.
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Mar 24, 2011 21:00
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I have a related question. My brother is getting married to a close friend of mine in November. The Bride and I have been friends for 7 years. A third friend has been part of our group for that entire stretch. Here's the problem: This third person is dating someone neither the bride, or the groom like (or me, for that matter). This guy is awkward as hell, gross looking, irresponsible, and has been a terrible boyfriend to our friend. She even dumped him for a while, but he literally used the "I don't even know who that was, I promise I'll change" line, which after a while got her back with him. (After also showering her with expensive gifts, when he often needs his dad's help paying rent.) My question is this: Should the bride talk to our friend before not inviting him? This friend already knows pretty much all of her friends don't like this guy. Should she just send an invitation without a "plus one" on it? If the friend asks about it, should the bride straight up tell her that she doesn't want that guy at her wedding? And a question for me (I feel so bad for this friend). I'm having a small courthouse wedding in June. My fiance and I have decided to only invite immediate family members and closest friends (we were originally going to bring one friend each, but my family hated that idea, and I didn't want to piss them off.) Anyway, my family is bigger than his, and I didn't want my side to make his look tiny, so I figured that my immediate family and my best friend would be ten people. I told my fiance that he should invite other people for his side to balance it out. We now have ten each. Buuut... This now leaves the same friend who is dating that douchebag out. I swear I'm not trying to keep her out of it. My best friend is someone I've known since I was ten, who was never part of that group of friends I mentioned earlier, and my brother's fiance is about to be my sister-in-law, so I consider her family. Everyone else on my side is blood related. This friend is actually very forgiving, so I'm not toooo worried, but should I just bite the bullet and invite her, since it would only be one extra person on my side, or is there a nice way to approach the subject? Problems: -Last I checked, she doesn't think me marrying my fiance is a good idea. Telling her I was engaged garnered a really half-hearted response, followed by silence from her for like a week and a half. She even told me later that she didn't approve, and had a "what is she thinking" reaction to my getting engaged. I told her we had changed a lot as a couple since the last time I'd talked to her about it (I don't tell her about the details of my relationship very much at all). She sort of said "okay", but I don't know if that means she's changed her opinion at all. -I don't feel too terribly close to her anymore. We don't really hang out, and when we do, I spend half the time thinking about how she hasn't changed much at all in the seven years I've known her. (She kinda acts like a 16-year-old, which was fine when I was 14 and she was 17, but not so much anymore). -She still considers me one of her most important friends, although we're kind of distant. Like, if she was in my situation, I'm pretty sure I would be invited. I'm really torn on what to do about this. I'll be having a bigger wedding in a few years, which she will definitely be invited to, and may end up a bridesmaid, but I don't know what to do in the meantime. uberwekkness fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Mar 24, 2011 |
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Mar 24, 2011 21:34
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uberwekkness posted:My question is this: Should the bride talk to our friend before not inviting him?
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Mar 24, 2011 22:13
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gvibes posted:Unless the dude is like a violent drug abusing alcoholic, I think you invite him. Agreed. It's not like the bride or groom will even have to interact with this guy on the big day, they'll be too busy to even see or talk to all the people they actually like. We don't always like our friends or sibling's significant others, but we tolerate them because we love our friends/sisters.
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Mar 24, 2011 22:30
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PopRocks posted:Agreed. It's not like the bride or groom will even have to interact with this guy on the big day, they'll be too busy to even see or talk to all the people they actually like. We don't always like our friends or sibling's significant others, but we tolerate them because we love our friends/sisters. A siblings significant other is different, as they sort of are family. But there's no way I'd let someone I actively dislike (rather than just don't really like) anywhere near my wedding. If the friend doesn't like that, then they are free not to attend either. That said, I'm pretty lucky. I get on well with all of my friends current partners.
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Mar 24, 2011 23:14
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Seyelence posted:Any opinions on this ring would be greatly appreciated Hey, if you want to see examples of the company's work, check out this link. You can browse/search that forum for reviews of MoissaniteCo as well as moissanite enhanced versus unenhanced. Try this link at MoissaniteCo's website, too. (I browse that forum almost everyday. Haven't bought anything yet, just an obsessive researcher. )
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Mar 24, 2011 23:17
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uberwekkness posted:I'll be having a bigger wedding in a few years, which she will definitely be invited to, and may end up a bridesmaid, but I don't know what to do in the meantime. I would actually like to address this statement. If you are getting married in a court wedding, you will be having a vow renewal in a few years not a wedding. You would already be married. Second, if you aren't close to here why would you want her to be a "bridesmaid"?
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Mar 25, 2011 22:09
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I just went from having a budget of $3,000 to a budget of $7,000 in the span of ten minutes. Thanks, mom! But now I don't even know what to do with the extra money! I've already planned out a cheaper wedding, and I'm not sure where I can expand, save for increasing the guest list. Guess it's back to the drawing board.
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Mar 25, 2011 23:08
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