Y&E

Most of the storage companies around where I am sell shipping / packaging supplies. If you investigate storage firms in your area you might find the same thing.

I'm intending to Fed-Ex everything through my fiance's work a /c because that will cost us peanuts.

I'm sorry that you're waiting so long. CSC seems to have dumped the late December / Jan filers on top of the early Dec filers and just moved on with the new ones. That's what if feels like anyway.

Have hope, maybe this will be your week to receive good news

Those are GREAT statistics!

At this rate we will all be ringing the wedding bells sooner rather than later!

GO CSC!

Congrats to all the filers who've been approved. Does anybody who filed early in the month feel like the newer ones got dumped on top of ours and we're now at the bottom of a pile?

Hi Y&E

Maggiani's was lovely and the staff were great. We didnt't hire a room as it was 3:30 pm and not that busy and we almost had the restaurant to ourselves. Management gave us free champagne which was lovely. We opted for the family style meal with the light meal option. We chose 2 starters, 2 salads and 2 pastas and it came with lemon cookies for dessert. At first we didn't think there would be enough but the great thing is that they just keep bringing out food until you say you're full so we were glad we didn't go for the full dinner option...definitely worth every penny spent!

I actually went down to the restaurant before hand and chose where I wanted to sit. The staff were great and really helped to make our day more special.

Thanks for that info. We go there when we're in Chicago and we went there at New Year in Indy so I know about the portion sizes! That sounds like a similar set up as their NY Eve deal.

That's how it is in OT. Threads turn into conversations about unrelated things, just like in real life conversations. For me, that's something I find appealing.

Riiight, okay... Maybe it's simply that the way the thread turned is not for me since I don't give two hoots about that discussion. Therefore, my topic was hijacked

He ruined your thread, you should be mean to him!! He was being annoying to you. He's a well known punk.

Thank you, chri'stina. He did ruin my thread... it definitely wasn't supposed to turn into a religious argument Anywho, I read the phrase 'Be nice twice, then be creative' when it comes to dealing with mean people. That was my first be nice, he's got 1 left.

Reported for being too polite and apologetic

Okay then, not sorry at all, nah, nah, nah

Congrats and well done kitty!

I apologise for being the first one to reply to that thread... paranoid poster or what? Anyway, I'm very sorry and I won't do it again

Just have to say - that compared to Indianapolis (where my future spouse currently resides) Chicago is da bomb. But, I still wouldn't want to live there, or anywhere in the Mid-West if I have any say in the matter.

yes, thank god... because i am sure god was getting all worked up about you having to spend an entire friday at work.

I stand corrected then: Thank f*** it's friday.

I'm sorry that you had such an issue with a common turn of phrase. I would have thought that taking the Lord's name in vain would have offended more people. Is the above more acceptable to you?

House

Wellington, New Zealand / Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England

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Musers

My USC has Russian as his first language! Eekk it's hard but luckily the gym that I work at has 1 Russian coach and another on their way and one of the other English coaches speaks Russian so I can try to practise.

Heya, mine's complicated as a kiwi living in Britain but it's nice to see some friendly voices from home :-) Good luck to everyone wherever they are on their journey.

It sounds lovely. And wonderful that your sister could come. Do you have pictures? Maggiano's is great. A friend of work had their reception there as well.

Sounds like Maggiano's is the place to go. I was considering there too. They have private function rooms which is great. And Indianapolis just seems to be the back of beyond for good restaurants. Unless anyone knows anywhere?

I need that special someone to agree to a wedding date. Difficult to do! He says we will plan when he gets here in Feb. As of right now I have two spreadsheets on Google Docs that I wish he would help with. One is the wedding budget with a column for priorities and the other a guestlist with different sheets for us to add people to based on if we will invite them to our UK bash next year or our US reception this year.

I am liking the idea of a civil ceremony and a party a couple of months later because I was raised religious and don't want to live together before marriage.

Since I do not have a date I have been printing off ads and websites and putting them in a binder. There are 2 wedding venues I like. One is an indoor pavillion in a park that has a fireplace, kitchen area, tables and chairs for about $400 for the afternoon. The other is a community arts center in the next city. That goes for $110 an hour since I am not a resident of that city. Both would be perfect as I want to have more control over my wedding and keep the entire budget under $2k.

My dress has been in the closet since about 6 weeks after he proposed. It is a Maggie Sottero I bought off of alocal online classified site like craigslist. I got it for an insane price. I love that I bought it used and don't feel bad because I know I won't use more than once.

The dress has beading that is slightly lavender and is a unique one strap cut. I was originally going to go very modest, but when I saw this online I decided to go meet the seller and try it on. First one I looked at and I bought it on the spot. My sister said that if I dont get my weight back down and need to buy another dress she would GLADLY take this one.

What is everyone thinking about for invitations?? I haven't found anything I really love yet. Also, are you planning to serve any foods that are traditionally UK? I have been joking around with Dave that we should serve Irn Bru.

Sounds like you're doing what I'm doing in the way of costs and spreadsheets that haven't seen the light of day at the US end!

I got my beautiful dress made for me when I was visiting my parents who live in HK. I bought the silk and had the dress made for about £300 all up. I used a pattern that I found in vintage vogue patterns years ago and just kept in case I ever got married. I'm so pleased with it. It's just what I wanted and totally unique. I also had a silk jacket made to go with it just in case we end up having to wait until Autumn or Winter to do the wedding.

We were talking about doing a registry office legal thing and then having a wedding, but now I've got the dress I'm keen just to do the wedding. It will be small and intimate anyway to save costs and since most of my friends/family are in NZ or the UK I don't have many guests and Yuri's family is still mostly in Russia so he's in the same boat. Would be helpful if I could really start to plan but don't want to get ahead of myself in case the visa process is delayed.

But thank god it's friday and I only have 1 hour left at work!

Just had to get that off my chest

Congratulations

It really does seem random how they approve certain files.

Really makes me curious if they pick and choose or just grab from a pile.

If I could I would like to sneak in and find out! LOL!

Well for now it's like waiting to see who will be the next winners in the "lottory of love"!

Lottery of Love, I like that

To start off, congratulations to those who have got their NO2s. But also, I'm sorry but anyone who filed before January absolutely hates you guys since we are still waiting and looking towards the 5 months being realistic :-) Once again, sorry for being mean but it's not fair

2 january approvals...what's the deal with that??? What about the 50 of us in December

Yeah, I don't understand that. It seems really unfair! But I feel even more sorry for people in the October / November group who've been waiting even longer than us. I took a look and it seems as if most of the people left in those two gropus are from 'tricky' countries so maybe it takes longer for their info to be dealt with? Anyway, here's hoping the process is speeding up if they're doing January petitions. And with that in mind I really need to investigate getting my Police Cert (it doesn't exist in NZ and my 2, yes 2, UK ones don't count as I got them in 2008 (I work as a gymnastics coach, it's required)).

As a side note, if your fiance wants to work as a lawyer in the States he may want to consider doing the 3 month NZ profs course (can also do it part-time over 6 months). I expect that he'll still have to do bar exams in the US but it might make it easier to get into them if he's already admitted to the NZ bar. Good luck.

Went and got my one and only required injection today. Ouchie But it was free so that makes it all better... I have a sore arm to remind me though :-(