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triplexpac posted:My fiancee and I are having our engagement photos done on Saturday, at a farm/summer camp location her mom works at. Try to avoid wearing overly loud prints. Solid, bright colors are usually the best bet (make sure you are wearing colors that mesh well without totally matching). Pulling off wearing a ton of white or black is tricky and depends on the lighting situations and background, so best to just avoid it unless you have something really special in mind. Bring props! If you are using anything in your wedding (I had paper umbrellas) you can bring that or if you just have something fun and special you like, you can use it in a few shots.
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Sep 13, 2012 22:45
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So does the service charge in your catering contract count as gratuity? I know it includes overhead and administrative costs, but from what I am seeing online is that is the mandatory tip. Any help would be appreciated. Bill as follows: $4,141.50 for food $414.15 for Set up $1,760.00 for service charge $150.00 delivery charge $193.97 healthy SF $566.07 tax Does it make sense to tip on top of that?
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Sep 13, 2012 22:57
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Scrapez posted:True enough. I should probably have also posted, they are wanting $7500 for each. It is difficult to find a diamond with exact specs on pricescope to directly compare. That seems a bit high, but F is pretty high on the color scale so it will be a gorgeous rock. I was looking at a .9 that was like a D or something equally as high, was certified, and round cut and was around 3600 I believe. You could probably cut back some on size or even on the color. An F will always look amazing when compared to something lower, but if surrounding diamonds match, you'll never really notice unless it's like an N or lower.
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Sep 13, 2012 23:01
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triplexpac posted:This is a good point. Thanks! I find it a little hard to not be self-conscious when being photographed, but I should be able to relax They should be able to keep you relaxed and not just pose you like mannequins. Out photographers were a calm married couple who let us do our thing and gave suggestions. I'm not a big fan of having my pictures taken, but not doing it in a stuffy studio helped a lot. Plus, we got to know them from the engagement photos which made me more comfortable at our wedding. Try to enjoy the experience!
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Sep 14, 2012 00:14
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Scrapez posted:True enough. I should probably have also posted, they are wanting $7500 for each. It is difficult to find a diamond with exact specs on pricescope to directly compare. It's... priceyish. I put the specs into my own supplier's catalog and I came away with two diamonds about the same quality but both quite a bit less than that. Of course, that's cost and not sale price but I'm not sure what the average markup on diamonds is; the prices are almost commodified like gold. There are other attributes though; for example I can't filter by symmetry/polish (VG for both). My tables and depths are different too. This is what I see on a comparable diamond in my system: Product Details Shape:Round Cty:SI1 Cts:1.00 (0.2 grams) Clr:F MM:6.14 Fluor:NONE Girdle:THK Min Diam:6.11 Max Diam:6.17 Table:57% Depth:66.60 Culet:None Sym:VG Polish:VG Make:Good Ideal Cut:No Russian Cut:No AGTA Code:N Report:GIA (View Report as PDF) Canada Mark:No Notes:Twinning wisp in table and crown Note there's some differences in table/depth, and even mm size which means this isn't an apples to apples comparison but thought I'd throw it out there as an example. For the stuff that might not make sense: Ideal Cut and Russian Cut: Look here under Tolkowsky: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_cut And here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100125085452AAVK5mU Culet: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culet AGTA Code N: Natural (no enhancements) EDIT-Sorry, I work in jewelry if anyone's wondering where I'm coming from with this, though I mostly concentrate on precious metals.
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Sep 14, 2012 02:59
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Scrapez posted:Diamond 1 I don't want to be hard, but these are both very weak diamonds. And overly expensive for such poor cut. It looks like the jeweler went out searching for the cheapest 1ct F SI1 he could find. Probably secondhand or old stock. No one cuts a diamond like this today for good reason. Your budget is high enough that you should be getting absolute top quality. My advice would be to go with a .90 precision cut hearts and arrows diamond in a higher clarity. A .90 top make F VS2 will look exceptionally better than either of these diamonds (and would cost ~$6,600). If you wanted to stay 1.00+ then you could buy a DEF color, top SI1 that is a minimum of VG cut for the same $7,500 that your local jeweler is asking.
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Sep 14, 2012 05:06
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Is it lovely to get married at a courthouse for legal & insurance reasons and then have a small 100% religious wedding ceremony for family + friends months later? My boyfriend is active duty military and wants to do this so that legal things will be straightened out ASAP and avoid me having to find a new private insurance plan because the state we'll be living in doesn't offer the public insurance I qualify for here. It'd be cheaper to forgo worrying about finding me insurance. (Medical insurance is important because I need to treat depression/anxiety/ADHD and have medications for them.) I'm just worried people will find it tacky or like I want a secret courthouse deal and a special princess/give me gifts day. None of this would be happening until early 2013. samizdat fucked around with this message at 08:06 on Sep 14, 2012 |
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Sep 14, 2012 08:00
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samizdat posted:Is it lovely to get married at a courthouse for legal & insurance reasons and then have a small 100% religious wedding ceremony for family + friends months later? My boyfriend is active duty military and wants to do this so that legal things will be straightened out ASAP and avoid me having to find a new private insurance plan because the state we'll be living in doesn't offer the public insurance I qualify for here. It'd be cheaper to forgo worrying about finding me insurance. (Medical insurance is important because I need to treat depression/anxiety/ADHD and have medications for them.) Don't tell anyone? My girlfriend's sister is doing this and only a few people know... people that won't find it tacky or rude.
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Sep 14, 2012 08:28
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samizdat posted:Is it lovely to get married at a courthouse for legal & insurance reasons and then have a small 100% religious wedding ceremony for family + friends months later? My boyfriend is active duty military and wants to do this so that legal things will be straightened out ASAP and avoid me having to find a new private insurance plan because the state we'll be living in doesn't offer the public insurance I qualify for here. It'd be cheaper to forgo worrying about finding me insurance. (Medical insurance is important because I need to treat depression/anxiety/ADHD and have medications for them.) I think more and more people are taking this route nowadays -- going to the courthouse is being "legally married," while having a big day/ceremony is being "weddinged." Given how messed up medical insurance is in this country, I don't ANYONE would blame you for doing this.
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Sep 14, 2012 14:43
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My fiance and I are pretty much doing that - we're getting married at the courthouse (and will probably just let anyone show up who wants to come) and then we're going to have a "reception" probably the next weekend. It's basically going to be a bonfire and campout at his ranch. No gifts, no dressing up, just a bunch of people hanging out and drinking and fishing and whatever they want to do. People pretty much have to camp since the nearest place to get a room is ~45 minutes away. My mom said she's give us $2,000 so we're going to try and keep it under that. Since we're really just going to provide food and alcohol it shouldn't be a problem, it's not going to be a huge thing. Also my engagement ring cost 20 dollars. I'm a cheap date!
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Sep 14, 2012 16:40
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triplexpac posted:My fiancee and I are having our engagement photos done on Saturday, at a farm/summer camp location her mom works at. If your fiance wears makeup (or intends to wear makeup for this), you might want to have her try to use products without SPF. If the shoot is outside, I don't think it'll be a huge issue, but my understanding is that SPF in products can really wash out your face in photos. I think that's mostly an interaction with flash, but if she's the sort of gal who puts on moisturizer with SPF, makeup primer with SPF, foundation with SPF, and / or powder with SPF, it could be a problem.
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Sep 14, 2012 23:27
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Scrapez posted:Hoping one of the resident diamond experts can weigh in on a couple diamonds I'm considering. Following are the GIA specs: I'm not an expert but I did about 3-4 months of searching for one when I got engaged and pricescope's holloway cut advisor is pretty awesome at sifting good and bad stones. Essentially it tells you how much light the stone reflects as well as how "fiery" it'll be. Ideally you want something below 2.0 and once you find stones that fall there, you see which one looks best to you. Typically, "hearts and arrows" cut diamonds will fall somewhere in the below 2.0 range, but you can find phenomenal stones that aren't H&A branded but look freaking awesome. I had a little moment when we were at dinner with some married friends of ours; the wife commented on how much shinier my ex's ring was than hers. The second diamond isn't too bad at 2.2 but at $7500, I think it's overpriced. The first diamond get's over a 7.0 so it's not cut that well.
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Sep 15, 2012 02:51
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I've told her friends, talked to her father, and bought the ring. I still have no idea how to propose. Suggestions?
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Sep 16, 2012 19:53
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davey4283 posted:I've told her friends, talked to her father, and bought the ring. We don't know her. You do. Would she prefer a private, low key sorta thing, or is she big on attention and would enjoy a public thing or something you arrange with lots of friends? Would she prefer more traditional romantic, or something sillier? We can't really help you unless you give us more to work with.
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Sep 16, 2012 20:17
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If she's not the type to want it, don't feel like you have to make a big romantic gesture. My fiancée said she was glad I asked her before we left the house on a fancy night out so she was able to fix her mascara. 
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Sep 16, 2012 20:42
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davey4283 posted:I've told her friends, talked to her father, and bought the ring. Awesome, dude! I don't really know what she's into, but I think a big thing is to make sure that you don't get yourself too stressed out about the proposal being "perfect". Maybe work in that cute dog of yours.
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Sep 17, 2012 08:52
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Party Boat posted:If she's not the type to want it, don't feel like you have to make a big romantic gesture. My fiancée said she was glad I asked her before we left the house on a fancy night out so she was able to fix her mascara. At the same time, you don't want to be TOO casual about it. Literally everyone you tell about this is going to ask HOW DID YOU PROPOSE?! So yeah, you don't need to hire a band and rent out a restaurant, but try to be a little clever or romantic about it at least.
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Sep 17, 2012 17:17
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triplexpac posted:At the same time, you don't want to be TOO casual about it. Literally everyone you tell about this is going to ask HOW DID YOU PROPOSE?! On the other hand, "I surprised her at home!" is enough to get them off your backs, however it happened.
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Sep 17, 2012 17:58
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Just want to share that I proposed to my girlfriend tonight and she said yes! I got her a custom designed cushioned 1.57 sapphire stone, with a .75 loose stone diamonds. Reminder to goons ring shopping, diamonds are not the end all engagement stones!
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Sep 18, 2012 08:25
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Proposal update! He said yes  I am engaged!So, I finally sprung the ring on my man last weekend. It didn't quite go according to plan, but it worked out wonderfully anyway. The saga: Drove 3.5 hours to Gordon Dam, down in the south west lakes region of the state. It's 140m tall or about 30 storeys high. As it turned out, the public is not actually allowed access to the dam base unless they abseil down--the only other ways to get down there are 22 flights of ladders, not stairs; or a scary looking open air lift which only the hydro engineers have the keys to. Descending the ladder was entirely out of the question due to insurance reasons. This meant that while I took the plunge, my self-confessed height-phobic, would-be fiancee remained at the top. So, so much for the propose at the foot of the dam idea. No amount of yelling would have communicated what I wanted to say from that distance! Not that he could stand to look over the edge anyway, though I was impressed that by the time we left that afternoon he had worked up the nerve to actually touch the handrail  Still, the ring got out and had a look around with me, and the next morning I woke him up and asked him in bed instead. It was perfect, in the end. The imgur album with descriptions if anyone's curious: http://imgur.com/a/gMhlw He's arranging me a ring to wear too, and our eventual wedding bands will most likely be matching signet rings. I'm thinking courthouse wedding in Hobart, and then some kind of reception/party for friends + family to attend back in Melbourne where we had originally been living. Not sure where we're going to find time to do all that and go on honeymoon and all those other adult type things in the next year or so, but we can certainly try.
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Sep 18, 2012 15:23
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bridgeburner5 posted:I'm not an expert but I did about 3-4 months of searching for one when I got engaged and pricescope's holloway cut advisor is pretty awesome at sifting good and bad stones. Essentially it tells you how much light the stone reflects as well as how "fiery" it'll be. Ideally you want something below 2.0 and once you find stones that fall there, you see which one looks best to you. Typically, "hearts and arrows" cut diamonds will fall somewhere in the below 2.0 range, but you can find phenomenal stones that aren't H&A branded but look freaking awesome. I had a little moment when we were at dinner with some married friends of ours; the wife commented on how much shinier my ex's ring was than hers. Thanks for the HCA recommendation. Before we went and looked at the diamonds yesterday, I plugged both in and memorized which GIA # was which. Therefore, I was already biased but I didn't tell my girlfriend. We looked at the two diamonds and it was glaringly obvious which was which. She picked out the one that scored 2.2 instantly as did I. We then looked at a couple other diamonds they had and determined which order we would rate them in. I had them copy the GIA certs of those and plugged them into HCA when we got home. HCA matched up with how we had rated them. I realize this is a small sample size of like 6 diamonds and only two opinions but the tool seems to actually work very well for determining which diamonds look better. I went through on pricescope.com and found several diamonds in the 2.2 range as that other 1 carat is so I will use that to negotiate if we end up going with that diamond. However, I asked her to find some others as well. Appreciate the recommendation. We've made a few changes already but here are the initial renders of her ring: 
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Sep 18, 2012 18:20
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Scrapez posted:Thanks for the HCA recommendation. Before we went and looked at the diamonds yesterday, I plugged both in and memorized which GIA # was which. Therefore, I was already biased but I didn't tell my girlfriend. Awesome, glad I could help! Don't be afraid to buy online, either. Pricescope can save you about 2%-3% on some vendors and many vendors have a cash discount of 1%-3% on top of that, plus whatever savings they pass along for being online rather than a storefront. Also don't be afraid to check out G's and SI1's. Put a well cut G, SI1 next to a similar F, VS1 and I challenge you to see a difference.
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Sep 18, 2012 18:38
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bridgeburner5 posted:Awesome, glad I could help! Don't be afraid to buy online, either. Pricescope can save you about 2%-3% on some vendors and many vendors have a cash discount of 1%-3% on top of that, plus whatever savings they pass along for being online rather than a storefront. Absolutely. I had requested G/SI1 but for some reason she got these F/SI1s and a laser drilled which I specifically said I didn't want. I asked for slightly larger G/SI1 stones to look at now so we'll see what she comes back with. I'm certainly not opposed to buying the stone online and have them only do the setting. I'd like to give the business to a local place but if it's going to cost me thousands more for the same thing, I can't justify that.
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Sep 18, 2012 18:46
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nyerf posted:Proposal update! Congrats!
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Sep 18, 2012 22:38
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Woman posted:This might be long but I hope it's helpful. My husband is a US Citizen and I am the non-US citizen. We got married just over 2 years ago, I was here on a F-1 student visa and had been living in the USA for 5 years. When we decided we wanted to get married we went straight to the courthouse and decided to postpone the ceremony with our families. I'll start by saying that it is not overkill to get a lawyer and that for us the process would have been more daunting without one. Basically, your attorney will be filing for an adjustment of status for your fiancee based on her marriage to a US Citizen. The USCIS website has a lot of information about the forms you need to fill out. Oh god this is sounding like a lot of work, and I'll have to go through it! I proposed to my Korean fiancee back in late August and she (for some reason) said yes! Now it's off to the races to really figure out what's going on in terms of how to get her back here to the United States... We're going to have two ceremonies, so would it make the immigration / green card stuff easier to be married initially in Korea, then come over to the United States? Or should we stick to the fiancee stuff? Or will it save me a bunch of time / effort / headache to find a lawyer that can help me with this? If so, does anybody in the thread have any recommendations for the Los Angeles area?
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Sep 19, 2012 05:06
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Looking for a some goon opinions on this one. Today, my boyfriend and I received an invitation to his brother's wedding. Instead of his name and mine on the invitation as has been the case with every wedding invitation we've received over the years, it was his name and guest. Mind you, we've been together nine years now. Is it just me, or is referring to someone's partner of nine years as +1 kind of lovely?
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Sep 23, 2012 02:22
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Yeah that is pretty thoughtless. Borderline malicious even.
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Sep 23, 2012 02:58
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That is probably as rude as it seems, but it's possible there might be more to it. For example, if you were young and had only been casually dating your boyfriend on and off, and you didn't know the bride, and her uber-traditional parents were the ones hosting the wedding, then I could see how it might be addressed that way. But it's most likely just that they're really rude and thoughtless.
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Sep 23, 2012 03:05
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That's pretty much what I was thinking. I'm trying to give him the benefit of a doubt, like maybe the bride's parents put the invitations together or something. But this kid has a long history of acting like a supreme jackass towards us both, but especially towards me for absolutely asinine reasons. ("You're taking my brother away from me a bloo bloo bloo"  )
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Sep 23, 2012 05:06
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While I wouldn't discount the possibility, I wouldn't outright consider it a slight. Highly possible they were making the list, your brother gave a disinterested "Yeah he's probably bringing someone" response to the query in passing, bride scribbled down "Brother +1" on her big list of people to invite & never bothered to follow up on whether that +1 was serious enough to warrant name on the envelope/invitation status. If it concerns you so, see if you can find out what other invitees got? If everybody else is called out by name then yeah you've been slighted.
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Sep 23, 2012 05:30
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Everybody in the world should probably just chill the gently caress out about how wedding invites are addressed. I addressed the invites to my mom's family to just the names of my uncles (all her siblings are men) without including their wives, because those were the names my mom sent me and I had no idea how to spell them, and when addressing 75 invites, didn't really care enough to figure it out. Cue frantic phone calls from my aunts to my mother worried that they're not invited. Seriously people, just chill out.
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Sep 23, 2012 06:11
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Even though we're not yet "officially" engaged my boyfriend and I have begun discussing wedding logistics, which are ten billion times more complicated than they should be because he's in the military moving to his next duty station in June 2013 I can't leave here to go join him until December 2013 without having to pay back my $5000 moving bonus to my job. Are there any good resources for military wives (and wives to be) that aren't full of catty army wives who are 110% obsessed with ARE TREWPS and *~*~*MY SOLDIER(/MARINE/AIRMAN/SAILOR)*~*~*? Or am I looking for something that doesn't exist? Basically I'm looking to see what sort of resources would be available to me since I'll be joining him mid-duty tour (namely, will they pay for my move when I go to join him? The DoD is being pretty vague on this, as is to be expected) and getting some first-hand accounts of how it actually works. My boyfriend is going to ask about it on base tomorrow, but we're expecting several wrong answers and miles of red tape to come from that. Right now our tentative plan is to get courthouse married then have a ceremony for friends and family later when it's more convenient.
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Sep 23, 2012 19:25
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Robo Boogie Bot posted:That's pretty much what I was thinking. I'm trying to give him the benefit of a doubt, like maybe the bride's parents put the invitations together or something. But this kid has a long history of acting like a supreme jackass towards us both, but especially towards me for absolutely asinine reasons. ("You're taking my brother away from me a bloo bloo bloo" I don't know if this is the case, but I've seen on a lot of the more automated systems that you can print invitations online with that you just put in a list of names, add '+1' and then bam you're off to the races. Never ascribe to malice to what possibly could be laziness is my opinion. Aquatic Giraffe Have you checked out the Goons in Platoons subforum? I never read it but I think they have a quick questions or FAQ thread you might get help with.
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Sep 24, 2012 00:45
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Scaramouche posted:Aquatic Giraffe I looked but there weren't really any appropriate threads to ask in and I didn't feel like making my own. I did ask a couple of my military buddies about logistics and got the same answer independently from all of them so I think I'm set there. Looks like he's going to have to live in a sparsely furnished bachelor pad till I can come join him with our furniture since he gets one (1) paid for move per duty station.
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Sep 24, 2012 01:07
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I'm looking at a few diamonds and they're all scoring 1.4-1.5 on the HCA Tool (save one) and AGS 0. As various people have advised, I'm chasing cut first-and-foremost. 0.75 F SI1 (HCA 0.9!) 0.77 F VVS2 0.775 F SI 0.841 G SI1 0.833 G SI1 Sanity checks? phongn fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Sep 24, 2012 |
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Sep 24, 2012 02:15
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The .75 and .833 have inclusions I would steer away from. The 0.841 ct G SI1 is very curious. It looks like the inclusions are black and reflect multiple times within the stone. The .77 and .773 look to be great stones. Don't be too hung up on the HCA advisor. It isn't a measure of true aesthetic but a measure of how well a diamond's proportions match a theoretical equation. There are many other formulas for identifying a well cut round diamond and not everyone agrees that this is the right one.
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Sep 24, 2012 03:39
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JohnnyRnR posted:The .75 and .833 have inclusions I would steer away from.
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Sep 24, 2012 05:53
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phongn posted:Thank you very much for the advice! Just a quick point too and I made this mistake myself; anything below 2.0 is a good looking/good cut stone in theory. A .5 stone isn't necessarily better than a 1.5. It's simply a tool to weed out bad stones and then going from there IE seeing it in person, looking at pictures, asking goons etc.
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Sep 24, 2012 22:59
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:Are there any good resources for military wives (and wives to be) that aren't full of catty army wives who are 110% obsessed with ARE TREWPS and *~*~*MY SOLDIER(/MARINE/AIRMAN/SAILOR)*~*~*? My friend is marrying a first lieutenant in the AF. She tells me these hilarious, insane stories about the military spouse forums. I would guess that no, there aren't any normal forums, based on what I've heard. They will basically pull each other apart for something as stupid as centerpieces but somehow ignore all the crucial information like making a mature decision, planning for kids, making do on an enlisted salary, etc.) (Also, they think she's an old bitch for getting married at 28, pretty much ten years older than anyone else who uses the forums. But hey, if you don't have your own identity, I guess you better co-op your spouse's.)
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Sep 25, 2012 08:05
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so I'm buying a ring, but I think I already have found a centerstone, around 1.5 carat. for my setting I'm looking for a 3 stone white gold or platinum ring, with pear sidestones. so far, my favorite setting has been this - http://www.solomonbrothers.com/jewelry_59503-1 - but I also like this. http://www.bluenile.com/diamond-ring-platinum_5922 - though I think I'm set on a pear shaped sidestone, and the latter appears to only do round.  my question is mostly : how should I get a good deal on a setting? I don't really know much about jewelry, and while the OP is really helpful with regards to diamonds, it doesn't say too much about settings. are the above two overpriced? underpriced? reasonable? any good reputable online retailers I should look at?
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Sep 25, 2012 09:14
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