I am just longing for the days when we can get dressed up and see everyone from both families and dance and all that again. But I just can’t see doing it NOW. A wedding of over 100 where a family household member of the bride just tested positive? With indoor dancing? Yikes!
Well, MOB definitely is going short so I will, too. I ordered a dress that I really like and hope works out.
Sorry if I missed the details @Youdon’tsay- when is the wedding and how many guests will there be? Hope the dress you ordered works out!
Mid-March, about 150? We shall see whether it works out – the dress and the ceremony.
I want to emphasize @BunsenBurner’s excellent Simon Perelle rec – I asked here about shapewear, bought Spanx and the Perelle to try. My dress was pretty fitted and I worried. I am a completely average mid 50’s – so size 10 with a tummy, very pear shaped, not loving the body, etc… The spanx was hard to get in to (I had, I think, the medium compression kind). I really wanted to use it because the Perelle was so expensive, but omg, it is to this day the most comfortable thing I have ever worn. It didn’t roll, up or down. I was soooo comfortable, and cool, and I felt like a nice sleek million bucks and I never feel like that. I still wear it with dresses even when I don’t need to because I love it.
2am, I’ve fallen asleep on the couch in my robe after setting up for the next morning wedding brunch – DH wakes me up and we realize I still have the shapewear on. It’s that comfortable.
OK, so I clicked on the SP link. Does it have “legs”? Going to the bathroom always is the issue for me and those kinds of undergarments.
Mine are high waisted bike shorts, basically. Covered from bra band to thigh, I didn’t want anything digging in my middle. The end of the leg is a very soft lacy fabric that stays put about mid thigh on me (although I confess I hiked up my dress at one point , enough to show my friends how awesome this thing was). There is not a gusset, because that’s just nonsense. Bathroom break, I took it off (I didn’t wear nylons, nobody does anymore, I think) but you could treat it like usual and roll it away.
Just got the dress I ordered, and I love it! I could wear it right now as is, but I would prefer to lose about 15 more pounds (down more than 30 since I started a couple of years ago). It’s snug across the top, and that was with me not wearing a bra, just a spanx-like thing with straps. I’ll wait until the new year and see how it’s fitting and what I’ll need to do about foundations. So glad the first dress I tried I love and am done. I hate shopping!
You don’t say, u r so fortunate. After months of shopping and ordering 15 on-line from Saks and N.M., I had mine made.
This is off the thread, but let me ask a question. My guy friend since we were 4 years old plans to invite me to his DD’s engagement party, in Philly. I repeated for the 3rd time that I would not be flying there. I met his DD once, and she barely spoke to me, was rude, etc. I told my guy friend why he was not invited to the engagement party I threw for my son, which was local, cuz he only met son once. I repeated how I narrowed the invitees to people my son knew well, and family. The pArents of my son’s best friends growing up we’re at the party, and their sons came to the wedding. My son has been to their weddings, no matter the distance.
I’m quite happy helping my friend plan the menu and centerpieces and invites cuz I love that stuff, but this invite just means a wedding check. In this age of few guests, I know his DD would not include me. HELP. I don’t want a invite and have to send a check/gift. ( or do I just suck it up?)
If he’s inviting you to an engagement party, he also will invite you to the wedding. Just continue to stay firm and say no .
@bookworm - is he inviting you b/c you are very close and he thinks you’d be hurt/offended if he didn’t? Perhaps you can diplomatically reassure him that it’s best that he limit his invite list to her wedding events to only immediate family and/or her friends, and you are happy to help with decoration suggestions, etc from afar.
Honestly for such a long standing friend I’d suck it up and send gifts for both the engagement and wedding even if you don’t go. The gifts don’t have to be extravagant. I would like to believe that your friend’s heart is in the right place and he invited you because your relationship is meaningful to him.
Ya, I expect I’m out a gift. But, my son’s engagement party was last year, at my house, and I told him then why he was not invited. I also told him that Only family was invited to the wedding, not my friends. This has come up several times, why a party should be for the special people in the child’s life. So tonight, I again said I’m not flying anywhere in the next few months for a luncheon. The only way I could be more assertive is to state that an invitation means a gift, and I never made him feel that obligation.
I would make sure he knows your happy to help but you have no expectation of any invites and you will NOT be traveling so certainly won’t plan to attend.
If he still sends the invites, I would suck it up and buy a SMALL gift (or write a small check) for each occasion.
This is assuming he didn’t get gifts for your son because he wasn’t invited to his events. If he did get gifts, the situation gets more complicated (as in do you feel the need to get a “similar” value gift, for example.
Good luck!
We’ve become phone buddies in past year. I made an engagement party for him in our 20’s (well, at my folks house, with mom helping), then I’d didn’t hear from him again until a few years ago. During this pandemic, it’s nice to have a phone buddy, especially with a bright MD (is that redundant?).
My next-door neighbor made her dress for her daughter’s wedding (as well as the wedding gown!), and I loved it. I wish she would’ve offered to let me borrow it as it’s even the wedding colors. lol
Definitely agree that it would be nice to still send a gift. I’ve done that even when I had no expectations of being invited to a wedding ( a son’s good college + friend that we really liked). Two new babies from his good friends we’ve known since childhood arriving this month and next. No showers because of what’s going on but I want to send a gift . Not every invitation is a gift grab. And it is tough/weird for engaged couples these days ( and their families). Lots of missing out right now on typical parties, showers, etc. that were a given for many families here just months ago.
@bookworm if you decline the invitation, you are under NO obligation to send a gift. This includes engagement parties and weddings.
So, just say NO. And if you want to send a gift, send one. You are not, however, obligated to do so just because you received an invite that you decline.
Yes, send a gift only if you want to. It is unfortunate that this issue “has come up several times.” What do you think that is about?
No, he never sent a gift to my son. He thought it was strange that I didn’t expect nor encourage gifts for the engagement party that I gave. If asked by parents of a HS friend, I’d say something along the line that I was just happy that their son and wife/SO was flying to the wedding, and their presence was special enough. Also, I never asked my son who gave gifts and how much. My male friend said he’d press to know.
May I add that only one of sons friends couldn’t make the wedding, as he is living in Puerto RICO and his wife was quite pregnant at the time. He wrote my son a beautiful letter, so I was told.
But you are all right. The invite is a request for a gift, and so, I’ll send a check.