Hey ladies, I survived!!! At some point I lost count of how many times I said, "wow we actually pulled it off" to DH during the last three weeks. ha ha I can honestly say that the wedding planning nearly killed me. For those of you who pull it off with ease and aplomb, I am beyond impressed. For those of you who are quite sure you're losing it, that was me and all I can say is it really was worth it. And I thought there was NO WAY I was going to say that.For your entertainment, here's a list of what went wrong:1 - 30 days before wedding clothes for us & all family members/wedding party members arrive from India. Every single item other than my mom's sari and clothes for 2 of the 3 children either egregiously doesn't fit or are tacky/ugly. Resolution - we buy everything in NJ & DC during the last few weeks before the wedding ... there goes the budget.2 - A few hours before we are to depart for our wedding (in AZ) we learn that our flight has been canceled. Resolution - booked on new flight but lose entire day in AZ taking care of last minute details. This delay also results in then-FI being able to get his wedding ring which he didn't think he would be able to get because he had left until Monday to pick it up and we've now learned no Indian stores anywhere are ever open on Mondays.3 - Our coordinators drop the ball on virtually everything and we end up having to organize all vendors, etc during the week before the wedding. For example, we learn they did not tell our DJ we were having a cocktail hour and he tells us a few days before the wedding that will tack on hundreds more dollars. Resolution - we shop for and book a new DJ on our own but he is not Indian so FI spends hours making CDs of Indian music.4 - UPS loses the menu cards and place cards, which we don't learn until the evening before the wedding since they've repeatedly assured us of delivery. Resolution - awesome friends come through and spend all day Saturday making gorgeous place cards and menu cards that even include hand-glued peacock feathers. One problem ... they don't include the table numbers on the peoples' place cards (HA!) so on the way into the reception people must be told their table numbers. Wedding Paper Divas refunded full cost as well even though totally not their fault.5 - Day before wedding the Museum tells us they've re-seeded the grass in the sculpture garden and we can't have the ceremony there (we already know we can't have it inside because no fire in the Museum). Resolution - I demand thousands of dollars refunded and a few hours before go time on Saturday we learn they've caved.6 - The day before the wedding SIL/BM/mother of ring-bearer and flower girl tells us the entire family has H1N1 and can't come or they will infect all of our guests and ourselves before we leave for our long honeymoon in Asia. This does it for me. All the rest of it I am like la de da I can handle this oh well whatever but I LOVE my niece and nephew. So I finally break down after FI has told them its fine for them not to come. So he talks to them again and they agree to come ... turns out SIL was over-reacting and they're all essentially fine and are recovering from standard flu or cold.During the ceremony the priest forgot to do the rings so we had to interrupt him as he was wrapping things up. Then we made it on our 7:30am flight the day after the wedding and we even made our 40 minute layover in Seoul.So there you go, I really can't believe we pulled it off. And it was amazing (impartially
). It actually worked out exactly the way I wanted, all the whiteys getting Totally into the Indian stuff and thinking it was a cool experience they'd never had before. Everyone was getting mehendi on Friday night, even all the guys! Sooo cute!!I will post pictures as soon as I figure out how ... does anybody know how to take picasa albums that others created and only gave select people access to and make them public? (I'll download all the pics if necessary, but thinking there must be an easier way)Thank you all sooooo much for your support and encouragement and laughs and advice, I swear I would never have survived without this board!!