What % of money do you put into savings?

Have you ever met with a financial advisor/planner? If so, do you recommend?

Thanks!

This is my first ( of hopefully many) post. I frequent the website often, but not the boards. Am hoping to get some good feedback on post wedding projects and nesting. I am now alost 3 months married to a wonderful man... and hope to get to know some of y'all for ideas and perspectives.

Right now we are puppy training and house hunting. Once I figure out exactly how the boards work I can post more.

My mom's main hobby is collecting Buttons - like these:

She has like 2,000 or something crazy. She literally stops people on the street and asks her for the button off of their backpack, shirt, whatever. It's embarrassing as all get out to me, but it makes her happy, so whatever. 

Anyway, this weekend, she took about 400 of her buttons to her high school reunion - and about half were stolen. She's crushed and called me crying and now I'm on a mission to help her recoup the ones she lost, plus some. 

If you happen to have any spare buttons laying around and are willing to send them to me, I would be eternally grateful. I know it's a long shot, I mean, who makes these buttons anymore?! But I figure it's worth a shot. 

If you can help, I'll PM you my address (Remember, I moved so if you have my MS address, you'll need my new one). 

Thanks y'all...I hope there are some random buttons out there in TK world!

It mostly started with how SIL was a total crazy person with the shingles and got the whole family fighting.  MIL and I pushed that aside and were doing fine.  She decided to throw me a shower on Thursday night with family.  SIL and her partner were both there and made several comments to me that were rude and uncalled for (My favorite being her response to one of the ladies whose Grandson has chicken pox.  She looked at me and said "Oh, I must have given it to him, huh?").  Let it go because I didn't want any drama on the wedding day.

SIL could not get off of work early so she didn't come to the rehearsal dinner.  I am really glad that she didn't.  We had a fantastic time (rented out the banquet room at the hotel and brought in a bunch of pizza and BBQ).  We gave out our wedding party and parents presents and it was awesome. FIL gave a speech and part of it was about how he prayed since H and SIL were young that they would find the one they were meant to be with and that he knew that his prayers had been answered (oh yes, there were tears!).  It was a great night.

Wedding morning was awesome.  I woke up before my alarm in a great mood.  I wrote out a note for H to have when he got there (I stayed in a hotel room away from him the night before and he used it to get ready).  We were on time and doing great.  The salon was fantastic for the most part.  MIL and SIL showed up even though they were asked not to because my own mother wasn't invited.  I texted H and he took care of it and they left.  They also no longer needed to get the flowers because the florist had another delivery close and offered to do it for us at no charge. I think they took that as me being a jerk for some reason, too.  On the way to the venue I was worried because it was raining a bit but I tried not to let it get me down.

We got to the venue and started setting up.  The staff and owner were absolutely amazing and did most of it for us.  The venue was gorgeous and I was just in love with how it looked.  We had nothing go wrong at this point and we were on schedule.  I thought I just might pull off the "perfect day".  The weather ended up being amazing and we had no rain but it was overcast and the temp was much lower than anticipated.  It was gorgeous out (80's in July in AR isn't even close to ordinary). We got a few pictures before the ceremony but not as many as we hoped because guests got there a full hour early.  It was no big deal.  I started getting nervous around the 10 minute mark because I didn't want to trip or anything like that.  We went and lined up and it was ready to go!

Our wedding party went flawlessly and I am so happy with the songs we chose for that. It was great.  Our ring bearer is only 1 so his 8 year old sister walked with him and the flower girl.  He cried the whole way down but I just laughed it off.  He was adorable in his litte outfit.  My song came on and I had to stop for about 30 seconds to take some deep breaths.  I was sure I was going to lose it but I managed to get it back together and we went.  H started to tear up when he saw me and he looked HANDSOME! I still can't believe how lucky I am.  I stepped on the front of my dress and I got a bit nervous but I made it down the aisle and started the ceremony.  I was worried the whole time that I would cry like a baby but I actually held it up about 98% of the time.  When my sister saw me and my Dad gave me away, the three of us all teared up together, but that quickly subsided.  Our officiant was amazing and I loved our service.  H and I wrote our own vows and he as well as all of my bridal party were choked up.  I was too worried about comforting him so he could get through them that I didn't (although I read them when we got home and cried!). He loved my vows also.  We did a sand ceremony and our vase turned out really pretty.  I managed to get it home without moving it around and it's displayed in our living room now.  

Now for the drama!  About 5 minutes after the ceremony ended SIL walked up to me and tried to have a heart to heart about how I was family now.  I stopped her and said "I don't want to do this right now, but thank you for the well wishes".  With that I walked over to get more pictures and she stormed off. A few minutes later the guys were up getting some pictures when her partner approached me.  She started off congratulating me and then told me that I better never speak to SIL like that again and that I was a fuuucking biiiitch.  People around stepped in and escorted her away.  H decided then that we were just going to skip the pictures with them and take a break and head inside. 

 We went in and were served dinner.  The food was amazing and we were really happy.  There were snide comments being made around us but I just tried to brush it off.  We finished eating and then H's Aunt "K" came and asked us if we were doing more pictures.  We explained that we were taking a short break to eat and she stormed off.  She was already wasted and tripped outside flashing all of her glory to my BOSS so I was already irritated with her.  We made rounds to the tables, did dancing, did the cake cut (K was heckling us so we had to have the owner go and stop her so we could even finish) and then went out front for some pictures with the two of us.

SIL and her partner were out front and started screaming at us with the photographer and saying "Aren't you going to take pictures with us now?"  I responded with "No, we're not" and then K came running after us too.  It was absolutely the most embarassing thing of the night.  MIL came out and told H to "control me" and then they fought.  We had guests leaving left and right at this point.  

H went in and took 2-3 pictures with them but I was so disrespected that I opted to stay inside.  K came in shouting at me about how she was always nice to me and all kinds of crazy things.  I was escorted to the bridal suite because this was the point where I finally broke down crying.  I asked that the staff took care of it and asked her to leave but she happened to do that before we made it back down there.  The only ones left at this point were his parents.  MIL came up demanding to know when we could pack up presents (they were originally our designated people) but I said "we will just get them, thank you".  She shouted "Well fine!" and stormed off with FIL.  FIL apologized and was devastated (He told H on Thursday night that he was so excited because this is the only wedding that they'll ever have).  H and I sat outside talking but decided to try and salvage the night.

We went in and the place was cleared out.  No one wanted their kids around all of the fighting so we had the wedding party, the few spouses, my parents, and then a few others(3, I think) that stayed.  We had this huge place and a whole keg to finish so I told the DJ to put on the dance music and we would have some fun.  H and I danced around like goof balls and got so many fun pictures. My parents were really supportive and told him how much he meant to them and how they were so sorry.  We went out front and played with sparklers and took a few more pictures but ended the reception early.  

Overall, had SIL not done that, our day would have been pure perfection.  I keep going back and forth with joy and disappointment.  We didn't get all the pictures we wanted and on the drive home today I started crying thinking about it.  We have deleted SIL, her partner, MIL, and K from our Facebooks and are cutting off all contact with them for what they did. H feels like our day was ruined, but at least we had some good memories and our ceremony was great. I know at the end of the day we ended up married, but we sure did have a rough start.  We were so drained that we decided to go right back to the hotel instead of out with our friends and I was sad about that, too.  I'm just lucky that H stood up for me and we stayed strong and did not disagree the whole time about the drama.  It made me feel much better about the drama.  

Here are some pictures my Mom put on FB:


 

 

 




ETA:


 



 
 

 



 



 
In love with these already!