She doesn't live with us at this time. She is determined to age in place. It would actually be a financial relief if she would move in here. I will discuss is with another tax person.

I would apply. You won't really know all the particulars unless you get to interview for it, so there isn't anything wrong with turning it down if offered, and some of the details simply will not work. You don't have anything to lose, and you aren't wasting the company's time because you very well might be able to make it work and will want the job. You just don't know.

We don't pay more than half, about 1/3 of what she needs.

I feel very strongly now that dh and I are being drowned financially by being sandwiched between assisting our young adult children with college/getting launched and the financial fall out of supporting my mother that the gift that keeps on giving to our children is to become financially sound ourselves, and if possible save, save, save for retirement. So I know it is emotionally difficult, but I side on taking the job. The piece of mind of not struggling is very good for you and your dh's health; it will go easier on your ds and dss to know that you guys are more secure. I have to go back to work this fall, and it is going to cause some really difficult scheduling issues, but it is what it is. MIL has other children who are going to pay for drivers for her, and my mom is going to have to offer some free dog sitting (thankfully she can walk the critters now that her ankle replacement surgery is complete and her physical therapy is almost done) and such to the neighbors in exchange for some driving. My brother is bankrupt on medical bills, and my sister living in France has her father in law who is very bad shape to think about. Thankfully she doesn't have to support him financially, but she is a grad school student so doesn't really have any extra money. One thing we have instituted this summer that the elder grandmothers love is Sunday meal together. They take turns doing the cooking, dh and I buy the groceries. They love having us over, and being able to cook for me - cooking is something I truly do not enjoy - makes then feel needed. When I go back to work, they are also going to take over one evening meal each. Three times per week of eating with them gives them the needed time with us, keeps us touching base with them, and gives us the opportunity to keep an eye on their situations. Maybe you could do something like that with your folks.

SW Michigan is better than most other parts of the lower peninsula. Grand Rapids has a pretty good economy. You should know that services have been cut to the bone here, the infrastructure is falling apart and only now receiving some rather pathetic attention, winter heat is expensive, the state is ranked in the bottom five in the nation for education which is making it hard to attract companies to invest here because employees of these companies really don't want to move to Michigan, there are numerous municipalities with major water quality issues, lead only being one of them (in my area it is arsenic), and our state college tuition rates keep climbing unnecessarily. But hey, the legislature found 34 million dollars to give to the owner of the Pistons to build a new stadium! You have to be VERY careful where you move. You might find that living across the border in Indiana is a better option. Just get within striking distance - decent drive - might be better. My state is gorgeous. If you love the outdoors, you can't beat it! Our lakes our actually the size of seas and as such have wildly diverse ecosystems and their own weather patterns. We have all kinds of winter and summer sports, our state parks are amazing. We have Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Isle Royale National Park, and of course U of Mi is on some lists as the number one "public ivy". There is so much beauty here, so much to enjoy. I wish that our economy, schools, infrastructure, and political machine were good enough that I feel comfortable recommending this state, but I don't. Also, we have a ridiculous amount of violent crime. Between, Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw - often times for cities of their size in the top three nationally - it's a bit of a crime pit. On top of that, we have some of the highest automobile and homeowner's insurance rates in the nation, and you will fight the insurance companies tooth and nail until you are nuts because the lobby has a strangle hold on our state legislature. So you pay in and ungodly sum of money for years and years and years on end, then have a car accident and a permanently disabled child and they begrudge you a wheelchair ramp until you lawyer up! That's my state. From just a quality of living situation, despite Indiana and Ohio not having all that Michigan has, we were much happier during the times we lived in those two states than here. If you take the leap, do a lot of research, be extremely careful where you move to in the state, and have a plan B exit strategy if you end up not being able to handle the negatives. Otherwise, come to Michigan and I'll take you to Sleeping Bear Dunes, and we'll hang out in some of the best landscape ever!

Patty Joanna, I hear you! I am not a caretaker either. I seriously do not do well with the medical stuff, and am now on anxiety and panic attack meds to get me through it. And there is no deduction for all of that care-taking, and no way to claim the expenses of the elders that you end up paying for to keep them alive. FAFSA is insane. I get depressed thinking about it. I am going back to work. The rubber has met the road, and I am committed to our kids not being in debt up to their eyeballs for college, nor being at a huge disadvantage by only going part time and not graduating until they are 26. A lot of young persons in the area have done that, work full time, go to school part time, try to stay out of debt. Sounds like a good plan until you go on job interviews and everyone else has the same qualifications you do but are four years younger, or you fill out grad school applications and everyone else if four years younger, or.....the assumption is you couldn't hack being a full time student, failed classes, etc. That is what employers think. So the student who does this ends up on the bottom of the resume pile. I will work and put the money to college. How she will get to her medical appointments, I do not know. But there isn't any choice in the matter and no public transportation out here. One of the three positions I am looking at is a little bit flexible. Not a lot flexible, but some. That one might allow me to work it out to still do a little bit of her driving. The state/county does provides pretty much zero help in this regard. Can't make your appointments? Stay home and die or go live in a nursing home where they will be forced to provide transportation. (A truly stupid policy, but they figure that as long as it is in place, it will discourage people from going to nursing homes and save the state money.) At least for mother in law, dh's brother and sister have agreed - not happily, but not angrily either - that they need to pitch in X dollars per year to hire drivers for her since that is the only thing that would keep her from living independently. This was unexpected, normally his sibs don't agree on anything and can't stand each other enough to make decisions, and I am thankful it isn't all falling on dh's shoulders.

We had all three boys sort out several gallon size baggies with instructions to keep for themselves or maybe for future kids. All of the rest were bagged up and given to my great nieces, or saved for our grandson. One option is to definitely look at donating to summer camps. In our area, they are often utilized when weather doesn't cooperate for the planned outdoor activities. Usually the staff can drum up some fun prizes, and they have build competitions in order to get everyone excited about staying indoors while it is awful outside.

Stopping in briefly to say that I am going through this transition as well. Our last one graduated this year, and with three in college at once, the burden can longer be placed exclusively on Dh's shoulders without consequences in terms of stress and worrying. I had a job lined up with and educational consulting company. I was very happy with the pay and the type of job. But the schedule they insisted on for this fall had me traveling between school districts that were upwards of 3/3.5 hrs apart. They were willing to pay for the travel, but that is not a sustainable situation in Michigan in winter. I would expect to be stranded away from home numerous times with the best outcome being stranded in areas where I could at least get a hotel room. But some of the district's were so rural, that I would be in danger, potentially trying to sleep in my stranded car in a snowstorm. They were not willing to pay for the hotels nor food when unable to get home because choosing not to drive in such conditions is "a judgment call". The other issue is that it would put so much wear and tear on my vehicle, that I would have to buy another before we got the second boy graduated from college. So when I factor in hotels, food, car payment, higher car insurance on a newer car, it suddenly wasn't such great money, and it is NOT what was agreed to when I took the job. They really didn't see a problem with the crazy schedule they set up so we cordially parted ways, and I am left looking for work. My word of caution to all of you is that you really factor in the costs of the job and make sure it is worthwhile. Sometimes working for minimum wage at a local place doing fast food or retail is better than the higher paying job in terms of take home pay. I am now interviewing for some piano accompanying jobs as well as part time music director positions. These are lower pay so I am going to have to cobble two or more jobs together since many times each one is only ten hours per week. But, I think it will work. I do think some things at home are going to suffer and especially until Dh adjusts. My mom has had her ankle reconstruction surgery and that went well. She is really mobile now, and seems to be quite energetic. We have so had to help her a lot financially, and she recently announced she was going to do our laundry, walk our dog - very good for her so a win win - and cook evening meals twice per week to help out. I am glad to be able to count on that. I do have an instant and hope to become proficient at healthy, one pot meals that I can make quickly after arriving home, or before leaving for evening performances. Dh is a great cook, but he doesn't plan ahead so I do not expect him to have a handle on that aspect of live without a stay at home spouse. We are also resigning from 4H. The office doesn't know it yet, but the letter is already drafted and ready to submit. The worst thing for us is that we chose to live here many years ago without really thinking it through. Had we lived on the east coast or just in states with more robust economies so funding for arts and sciences is robust, I would have no problem going back to work. But sadly jobs in my area of expertise are very few and far between on this side of the state. Additionally, it isn't as though any of our kids will find work here in their degree areas. So all of them are going to end up working a significant distance away from us while we languish here with two elderly grandmothers who cannot afford to move, and insist on aging in place at all cost. I have a very hard time with this at the moment, the not resenting the elders who are stubborn in ways that have significant consequences to us. The options I have not embraced but is still an option is substitute teaching, tutoring through the district, and paraprofessional. Substitute teaching pays $85 a day 7:30 am to 4 pm. Ridiculously low pay - lower than minimum wage - for skilled labor with a lot of responsibility! Tutoring pays better but can be rather hit and miss so not reliable for regular income. Parapro pays a little better than substituting, but if I can cobble together some music work, I know I will be a lot happier. I wish all of you the very best as you make the transition, and hope that your job hunting is not too stressful.

I cannot recommend Michigan. We have a mess economically, Detroit and Flint water is a life threatening disaster, Battle Creek has now been identified as another potential water crisis, we have 67 superfund sites most of which are NOT being cleaned up at all, Lansing doesn't know what the heck it is doing - says the state can't afford to do anything about the water, but gave the owner of the Detroit Pistons 34 million towards a new stadium - infrastructure is crumbling, winter heat is getting really expensive, schools are in the bottom five now in the nation, college costs keep going up and up, community college is unregulated so some of them are good but many of them are bad and the credits earned are not transferable, and.... This is a gorgeous, gorgeous state to visit and anyone who can, should. From Sleeping Bear Dunes, to Mackinaw Island, to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and the Keeweenaw Peninsula, and the miles and miles of beaches that look like ocean water front but are more pleasant, we have that part down. It's everything else that is in the crapper. And frankly, the only places with jobs are Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, and the burbs of Detroit which is NOT low COL. Those are the places with good healthcare as well. If you live in Traverse City or Marquette you have barely okay healthcare. Everywhere else has exactly total crap. And while Midland "looks" like a great place, the reality is that DOW is killing everyone with environmental contaminants. Children can't go barefoot in their own yards for the chemicals they absorb through their feet. Lansing.does.not.care. Literally, not a single politician on that "hill" truly gives even a smidgeon of care about human life. Debby Stabenow, our senior federal senator, is absolutely awesome, and she tries so very, very hard for the people here. But she's a lone fish trying to swim up Niagara Falls. Ohio would be a much better bet. The schools, economy, and infrastructure are better. Cleveland Clinic and Cincinnati U provide top notch healthcare, the COL isn't too bad even Columbus is affordable for many middle income folks, the northeast on Lake Erie is gorgeous, Cayahoga Falls National Park is wonderful, and the southeast portion of the state is in the Appalachian Valley which means all four seasons of change, but he winter is much more manageable and the growing season is nice and long. You are then striking distance to some fantastic visiting in the Mid-Atlantic States, of course Michigan, and some of the gorgeous southern areas like the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.

I am one of those who is generally not interested in genealogy at all, and considers family to have a deeper meaning than "related to". A lot of that has to do with the fact that we have some pretty bad people on my side and a couple on dh's side, that really, no one should have to know. It is that bad. I have an aunt, someone who should have been locked up a long time ago with no opportunity to emerge, who gave up a baby. God forbid that poor girl ever find her bio mother. Seriously. Even her half sibs refuse to do DNA testing because they are so afraid she is out there hunting, and they don't want her to find this woman. Literally, it would be immoral for any of us from that gene pool to get into this 23 and Me or Ancestry thing, and put profiles out there because it is really that bad. I don't know this cousin, but I can tell you I feel a very strong moral obligation to her to not do anything that would allow her to figure out where her biological family is. As soon as there is a good profit making scheme afoot to use all of these stored DNA profiles, you can darn well bet that 23 and Me and all the others will screw any previous privacy policies, and shaft their customers for the almighty dollar; they'll have a crack team of business lawyers that will find the loophole or the bean counters will tell them that what they lose in lawsuits will be less than the profits so "go for it". Car companies did that for years until some juries started awarding freaking huge settlements that made them think twice about killing people because it was more profitable than re-calling that model. I predict the first act will be accepting payment to disclose your information to your insurance company and employer. Employers in particular will use it against you in hiring practices. Have the gene for Alzheimer's? Nope. Not hiring you. Have the gene for a chronic illness that might make you miss work if you come down with it? Nope, not hiring you. And well, we all know what the insurance industry will do with it. And they won't care about the nuts and bolts of genetics, and gene expression. So for me, there is no secret, no curiosity about previous generations that makes me want to get involved with that. I truly hope it works out okay for everyone who has already tested through for-profit, non medical programs like 23 and Me.

Well, none of us really know what is going on. However, we do know that there was camera footage of the altercation on the plane which caused all of this to come to a head. While he did not physically accost Maddox, the 15 year old, he'd been quite verbally abusive to one of the younger children and to Angelina - he had gotten drunk on the plane - and when Maddox tried to tell his dad off, Brad went verbally nasty on Maddox. This is why the FBI and CPS were involved and Brad was disembarked from the plane separate of his family - and that wouldn't have happened unless the crew was concerned for the kids - and allowed no visitation while the investigation took place. It was then announced that he only had limited, supervised visitation, and some nearly two years latter, the judge is JUST lifting the order for a therapist to be present to supervise. That right there says a lot. In May 2017, Brad openly admitted in a GQ interview that he was a substance abuser, cigarettes, alcohol (a lot of alcohol), and marijuana, and that he was now sober. He used the word "sober". He didn't say he made health changes, or scaled back or whatever, but that he was now sober. That's the kind of statement that people who are in Al-Anon or other types of treatment make. That says to me that it was severe, and especially since generally what we are willing to admit to in public is the sanitized version of what went on in private, I personally think it means it had gotten pretty bad. Trying to protect her kids from him, and not being too keen on them spending time with a verbally abusive, alcoholic should not be held against her as alienation. AND Maddox was 15 when the straw that broke the camel's back occurred, and directed at him personally. I know how boys that age think. He's hurting, and angry, and fearful, and the broken trust is real. I can easily imagine him smack talking his dad to his younger siblings. So, yes...maybe she has kind of poisoned the kids against him. Maybe she has crossed some lines. But then again, maybe not. We won't ever know unless Maddox turns 18 and decides to give his perspective or Pax or one of the other children. We just know that at this point, the judge is comfortable with the kids moving forward with unsupervised visitation and wants her to not interfere with that. I would imagine that given a licensed therapist was in the room for their visits, this person issued a report that said he/she felt this was healthy for the children at this time. Angelina lives with them, so her take on that might be very different and voiced that thus the admonishment from the judge, and it seems like whenever a judge has to decide, pretty much the kids lose no matter what. There isn't any way for something like this to be done "healthy". Healthy left the building along with Elvis a long, long time ago. Part and parcel of this is that she is shooting Malificent 2 in London this summer, and the arrangements had already been made for the tutors and staff to accompany so the children would be with her since it is for quite a few weeks. He is not being awarded any kind of custody, and this ruling comes within days of needing to leave. So now she has to figure out how to manage the back and forth with Brad and kids from London, or re-nig on her contract and get sued, or.....we all know that these kinds of situations are tough on normal working people to figure out, so it has to be 10 times worse when traveling out of the country or work. She is probably really unhappy with trying to juggle this instead of having the children with her for the summer as planned. Though my opinion on what he should do is not here or there obviously, I do think that if he wants to demonstrate being a fit dad, he ought to go to London, get an apartment, have a friend whom she trusts stay with him, and exercise his visitation there. Make some memories. There are so many things he could do with his kids to forge some positive memories, and yet make her feel like he can be trusted with the children. If it upends a movie shoot for him or costs him a contract, so be it. There are consequences to being the aggressor, and if he were to gracefully accept those consequences and turn his own life upside down for the benefit of his kids and earning their trust, I would think it would show he is sincere.

An outdoor wedding in Michigan is a special cure for drought. Just don't do it. I don't think I've ever been to one that I wasn't rained on even if the forecast said "sunny, no chance of preciptation". Michigan's mother nature simply can't resist the siren call of an outdoor wedding.

Well, if I were planning it, I'd want to offer something, but keep it super light and especially if dinner is going to be pretty big. So fruit is great, or veggies and dip, or little tea sandwiches. But I wouldn't go to a big expense, and make sure that there isn't a feast of stuff out there so that the real deal is dinner. If there is a nice lawn around the barn, go all English Country, and borrow a croquet set and offer to start a match. Do what you can though to get that photography session down from an hr. twenty to half an hour. You will lose a lot of guests. These days many people will not just hang out, especially the ones that aren't well connected to the family so have far fewer people to chat with, that long in between. It is a lot of lag time. Get as much as possible done before, have a list of exactly what poses you want and tell the photographer to only take two shots of each pose. The reality is that they will often keep a bride and groom busy for an hour or two, but if you can't afford to buy all of those photos as enlargements, then it is kind of a waste.

I think it is great. I left for college at 16, graduated at 20, married dh right away, had dd at 23, and well at that point was fairly tied down though we did do some traveling with the kids, and lots of camping, fishing, hiking. I will have an empty nest in the fall, and though I am going back to work to pay for college, will have a lot of my summers off due to limited performance schedule and schools on break. Dh and I are making plans. But, he is slowing down some, and honestly I can look back and say that it would have been a lot easier when we were younger. We are encouraging the boys to save their summer earnings as much as possible since we can pay tuition, books, etc. so they can use that for some travel between their bachelor's and grad school. This is especially important for our boy who will be largely unable to travel by the time he is thirty due to how much arthritis is already settling into his leg injury. He's 21 and walking with a cane about half the time, especially in winter. So he definitely needs to travel a bunch in his early to mid twenties because he'll be unable to a decade from now.

To be honest, most of the true elopements I see are with brides and grooms who have family members who cannot get along, will make everything difficult. While you can control you, you cannot control others, and you really cannot control the other in laws and their relatives. So a lot of times it isn't that they do not want you there, it is that they can't have a wedding and have you without inviting the other "you" who will ruin everything and make people miserable. My niece just went through this a year ago. She did not want a wedding because her mother is a horrible person, her father never stands up to her mother. Her in laws went through the whole "going to be hurt forever if you do not having a wedding we can attend" thing. So she acquiesced. Her mother, my brother, and an aunt committed such shenanigans and arguments, that the in laws actually ended up wishing there had been no wedding, and that they had sent their son and daughter in law to Jamaica to marry on some beach without the family. It was so scarring of an event that it took six months for the bride and groom to finally even look at photos of the event. They have already started a "run away to get married fund" for their future children. You would be surprised just how many couples deal with this kind of insanity from relatives. So you can try to be the kind of parents that your kids really want to come to a wedding, but in the end, you have no control over the other side and their behavior. You also do not know just exactly how far the other may push you which could cause you to regret ever pressuring your kids to have a wedding. Believe your son or daughter when he or she says, "My fiance's parents will make our lives miserable if we have a wedding, and worse if we have one and don't invite them." Get behind them and support them. That said, no parent should ever feel obligated to pay for weddings, elopements, honeymoons, or receptions. Ever. My advice is make sure you are well funded for retirement first and foremost because this generation has faced inflation, wage stagnation, wage loss, job insecurity, loss of benefits, etc. It is a major, huge burden on them if you cannot take care of yourself financially in your elder years, and speaking as someone whose parents threw money at elaborate weddings - that none of us wanted and got suckered into at their insistence - ridiculously expensive family funerals, vacations they couldn't afford, and a sinking business that should have been closed a decade before but they refused to listen to ALL financial advice no matter where it came from - I now have on my hands a bankrupt, destitute mother who insists on aging in place, needs to replace her vehicle and can't afford it, needs $20,000 of work done on her house, and can't afford her winter heat, all with three boys in college at once. I would give anything to have all that money back and invested for her future in order to relieve our immense stress. So think long and hard about taking money out of savings to pay for weddings. It is pretty much money down a hole in the grand scheme of things which is a pretty astute and brutally honest thing to say as someone who used to do event planning for pay.

Congratulations! Last night we had a little party for our youngest and gave him his diploma. He starts at Northern Michigan U the third week of August. I am adjusting to life outside of homeschooling. This our fourth home educated to college, and last.

I bought instead of renting, in terms of linens. At the time, five years ago, I was able to buy cheaper than renting. However, the online place that I purchased from has increased their prices dramatically, so I don't know if you would be able to do that now. It was worth the savings at the time, but that said, rental tablecloths and napkins go back to the rental place unlaundered. You just shake them out. I took home eight banquet table cloths (food, desserts, gift, and bridal party) plus eight rounds, and 75 napkins all of which had to be washed. It wasn't feasible to do all of that in my washing machine as it would be so many loads, and some of the cloths needed to be laundered within 24 hrs to keep stains from setting. So I ended up at the laundromat which was NOT an expense originally built into the budget. If you have friends that are willing to each take a trash bag of linens home, then it would be a lot easier. Many hands make light work....as the saying goes. I had no one. The groom's family was from out of state as were all his friends, my father figure was recovering from heart surgery so my mom had her hands full, my mother in law has an apartment size washing machine that couldn't even launder one of the 108" rounds, and I don't really have friends. I have a LOT of acquaintances, some of whom I have given a boatload of volunteer hours to work their family events, weddings, graduation parties, helping with funerals, etc. but they do not reciprocate. So, yay for all of you who have a work team of friends and family that have your back, but there are a lot of hostesses and brides who don't thus making "do it yourself" an exhausting nightmare. That said, before my dear son in law's family left to head back to Pennsylvania, those dear people washed china and glassware for me including his sister, and getting all of that done so I could get it returned on time was a huge job, and much appreciated! As a result, I tend to advise that do it yourself should only involve a reasonable work load so that the hostess can enjoy the day too. If the bride and groom want more than what can be afforded for hire, then they need to pay, the groom's family needs to pay, or they need to adjust their expectations. Whatever you do, don't.go.into.debt. That's the NOT gift that keeps on giving.

Well,l having once worked as an event planner, and the hostess of my own daughter's wedding, all I can say is that weddings are a PAIN. Too many people with too many expectations. The first thing that I say is don't ask friends for professional services as a gift. Think of it this way. If you friend normally charges $800.00 for wedding photos, then you are asking for an $800.00 gift. Would you actually ask someone to spend that much? I have been asked to "play for free". I am a professional pianist, and my going rate is $300.00 for up to 1.5 hours at rehearsal, one meeting with vocalists or other instrumentalists who are singing/playing, 20 minutes of preludes, and 20 minutes of postludes plus service music. That comes to about $100.00 an hour which is the going rate for a professional, classical pianist. For a dear friend, I might volunteer to play or may say, "Hey for X's wedding, I'd like to play and as a gift will cut my fees in half", and then leave it up to the family to decide. No harm no foul. But to ask me for a $300.00 gift is pretty presumptuous. Linens to rent are expensive. If you are using banquet tables instead of rounds, you can get a roll of paper table cloth on ebay that has a really nice border pattern to it. It looks nicer than plastic. Also check efavormart online because they used to sell cloth napkins in bulk for 50 cents each. They are polyester and frankly, don't soak up all that much so definitely keep some towels and paper towels on hand in case of an accident, but they look decent and give a more elegant look. If you want centerpieces or at least something to put on the food and dessert tables that has a really nice presence but doesn't cost much, go to the Dollar Tree if you have one, and buy the three different sizes of candle vases, plus either gold charger plates (yes they have those for $1.00 - plastic, but again, unused so they still look shiny), or their fake silver trays. Nestle the jars on the plates/trays, and tie each one with 6" wide tulle (they sell glitter tulle at Hobby Lobby and with a 40% off coupon this will cost less than $5.00 for all the yardage you would need and then some). Get some of their bags of clear glass beads and drop into the bottoms. Fill with water, and either use floating candles or (and this is extra pretty), immerse a sprig of baby's breath - one large bundle which would do 30 jars is about $17.00 from a florist, but if you are only doing a few jars, you can just buy a small amount, take scissors for cutting them apart - and voila, a very elegant arrangement that cost at most about $7.50 if you have a dollar store that carries the candle vases and trays. This is much, much cheaper than you can make anything out of silks, and definitely a fraction of the cost of hiring a florist to make something. Whatever you choose for napkins, can be rolled with tableware and then tied with ribbon or a piece of lace. Ribbon often goes on sale for 50 - 75 cents a spool and you get quite a lot of tying of that. As for disposables, a lot depends on what you buy, and what renting costs in your area. Obviously paper plates and cups are cheap. But they do not look nice, and paper plates are a real problem when serving hot or soggy foods. The plastic look alike "glass" plates can be up to $2.00 each. If the venue has silverware you can use, you may be able to rent plain white china plates and glass water goblets for $2.00 per setting. When I rented china for our daughter's reception, I payed around $2.25 per place setting for a dinner plate that was white with a thin, gold edge, coffee cup and saucer, and water goblet. I didn't get dessert plates. My sister had purchased vintage glass snack sets - plate and punch cup - for her wedding many years ago, and we still had them. So we used that for desserts. I would imagine that for dessert and salad plates, it would push $3.00 - 3.50 per setting. The rental places around here do not keep high priced china around so that it why we paid so little. But, I'd compare the lowest prices for glassware and china rental before I'd buy the knock of plastics because you might not save much, and if the savings isn't worth the hassle and you are willing to wash afterward, it is environmentally better. Keep the bridesmaids bouquets exceptionally simple, maybe hit up Michaels for their spring flowers which have just gone on clearance, and see if you can get enough to just put together a few and tie with ribbon for them to carry. Only splurge for real flowers for the bride. You can get a bush of silk rose buds for about $8.00 with a coupon at Hobby Lobby. 13 buds per bush. Cut apart and tie with ribbon, insert corsage pin, and you have bouttonieres for the men. Keeping the bridal party small saves money as well, and fewer people "plus ones" to feed for the rehearsal dinner. And frankly, big expensive sit down meals for rehearsal dinners is highly overrated. You could just have take out pizza and salad, and let them all sit around and visit the night before. As for the fraternity brothers? They can pay for booze. Seriously. You should not feel that you have to provide for that. And word of warning, my niece's sorority sisters, their plus one's, and her groom's fraternity brothers and dates all showed up for their wedding and drank $7500.00 worth of booze because her parents did open bar and didn't think to establish a limit. Guess who was maxing out credit cards and paying that off FOREVER! You really are under no obligation to provide alcohol for them, and my advice is don't do it. If you feel you absolutely must, just have Mike's Hard Lemonade in glass bottles, and wine coolers. It is cheaper, buy as much as you are willing to finance - and one a piece would not be awful if you really want to keep the budget down - and let that be that. Wedding cakes are expensive. We paid $200.00 for dd's, and the decorations were the fabric flowers that I made. It was for 75 people. My suggestion is that if they want to do the "cut the cake" thing, you only have a topper made which would not be costly, and then have sheet cakes. You can use live flowers, like pansy's, and put one per slice on top for a pretty look. Just right before serving, have someone snip the pansies, cover the cake, and then take photos before slicing. For added "bling" you can actually edge the cakes in beautiful ribbon which is then pulled off for serving. Pre-slicing and laying out on glass trays - hit up your goodwill for vintage trays - is also very pretty. If you have some candles on the table, the glass will glisten. Disregard the next if she already has her dress. You will see lots of suggestions for getting Thrift store gowns. That's fine. But you need to budget for alterations and cleaning. Dry cleaning will run between $100.00 and $150.00 and if you do not know someone who can do alterations, David's Bridal and other similar stores have been known to double their rates for doing alterations for gowns not purchased in their stores which can push that cost up to $300.00. If you check the clearance rack, you may find a $99.00 dress that she likes, and then pay the regular rate for alterations. So be aware that sometimes used works, and sometimes it comes back to bite you square in the pocketbook! Above all, if possible, don't cook and serve yourself. I have had so many mob/mog hostesses do that in the past and the bummer is that they end up exhausted, spend most of their time in the kitchen or at the food tables, and never get to enjoy the reception, visit with friends and family, etc. Even though I had dd's catered, it didn't include any clean up work so guess who missed the last half hour of the reception, the bouquet toss, and them leaving as well as the departure of numerous out of town relatives and friends! Yours truly. If I had it to do all over again, we would not have rented a hall, but actually splurged for the golf course restaurant so that I didn't have the clean up to do.

Congratulations! Great achievement for both of you!! (I used to be on the boards as faithmanor without the dash, but was never able to log in after the change over so quick re-registered just for today in case anyone wonders who I am.) My youngest turned 18 this morning, and we just graduated him. He is headed to college in the fall and majoring in Electrical Engineering. We have begun his dorm shopping list, and after orientation in June, and family vacation in July, there will only be a short time left before he moves, and we are empty nesting. Nineteen years of homeschooling, four children successfully graduated, one college grad, one college senior, one college junior, and now a freshman! These last year's zoomed past. OP, I wish you the very best as you move forward, much success in your future endeavors. I begin a paying job as Director of Music Education for non-profit education organization in September. Dh and I are retiring from 4H, but continuing our rocket team through a different sponsor. I am feeling rather wistful about all the years in the Hive, but I also know it is time to move on. I hope all of you find peace and joy, Faithmanor