Invisapeeps 2.0

More background before my vent....

The resort where I'm throwing the party is 'only' an hour away from where we live. Perhaps half of the people invited will be joining us on Saturday and then driving home. Some will be staying the weekend as my guests, some will be staying the weekend but paying for their own accomodations. It's one of those member only type places so if they want a condo they have to give me the money and I'll book it for them. I can get them a condo for the entire weekend for about the same it costs to stay at the nearest resort for ONE NIGHT! It's a really good deal and a few people are taking advantage.

Again, I'm very excited. It's gonna be a blast!

Now for my problem: I've had three seperate (single and younger) friends contact me and ask me if they can 'work' my party in exchange for me putting them up for the weekend. In theory, this sounds like a good idea but I don't want to be bossing my friends around at a party. If they come I want them enjoying themselves. Plus I have no idea what kind of work I would give them.

I want them to come to the party but I don't want to hire them. I need a nice way to say 'The party isn't until October and it's not very much to stay the weekend. Save up.' Another thing I considered is that I can have them each give me 1/3 the cost of a 2 bedroom condo and put them all in one unit. They're all single but :/ I don't know how much I'd like that if it were me.

But then again, I've never been single so maybe it's a good idea.

Btw, it's pretty much understood that the original 20+ guests all have roles in putting onthe party. If Ineed anything done, I already have more than enough help.

If I was single I'd budget about $250 for the entire weekend. That would include the condo, gas, a gift and one meal out. They won't need to eat out. There's a full kitchen. That's just what I would do.

I doubt that any of these three has a discretionary $60 bucks a month to save :(

One is a (sorta') cousin (f) of my kids. One is my cousin (trans). One is a friend (f)

They're all in their early 20's and brokeish.

If I put them all in a 2 bdrm condo the entire weekend might run them about $140 each depending on how much they spend on their gift and going out with the other kids.

I dunno. Should I broach it? My cousin is pretty flamboyant but he's a frickin riot! I love him to pieces and I want him to come but I can't float everybody.

txt'd today. Told my niece that I can't really afford to book any more condos or the money would have to come out of the rest of the party budget. Asked her if she'd rather just come up on Saturday than stay the entire weekend if the cost is an issue. She txt'd back - easier 2 come up 4 the weekend then (sp) jst Sat.

I see how that could be the case. Easier and more fun too since a bunch of her cousins and friends will be there. I'm on the verge of asking her if she wants to make payments. I know that even if there was a polite way for me to tell her to save her money that she wouldn't do it. She doesn't even have a savings account.

However if she's presented with a bill she'll pay it. So I'm vacillating over the decision to accept installment payments and if I want the hassle.

What are the potential pitfalls or drawbacks if I decide to go that route. I'd most likely be doing this with THREE young adults. I reminded niece and will remind the others as well. If you can't swing it for the weekend it's not like you can't still come to the party. They're all still invited.

No, I'd get the money before. I don't really have the option of getting it after. This party is my entire entertaining budget for the YEAR!

The thing I'm afarid of is; I go through the hassle of getting these three to agree to share, pay 1/3rd each and make installments. Then one of them backs out or only partially pays or something else that I can't foresee.

In that case, I leave the other two screwed or I eat it. Not saying that this will happen but I'm old enough to be these kids' mother. I know better not to think this through before I just say 'sure'.

Found out on Friday that my 20yo daughter TOLD people to ask me if they could work for staying the weekend free.

One of the cousins asked her how much it was going to cost to stay the weekend (info that I had already told them) and daughter said 'nothing cuz I'm doing a bunch of stuff for my Mom so she's letting me stay the weekend free you should ask her if you can do stuff and save your money for going going out.'

I'm too astonished to be pissed. I told her that I'd pick one person and give them all the stuff I was gonna have her help me with. But the catch was that SHE'd have to pay. All I got in reply was a -don't be silly ma'!

Yeah who said I was joking kid.

Anyway, after I said that, daughter #2, the 20 year old who started all this mess went on a campaign and she completely, I mean COMPLETELY chanaged the flavor of my party.

Daughter #1 who is 22 and pregnant, did not have a wedding. And we as her parents feel deprived of that specific honor. No wedding and all the attending hoopla means there was no opportunity for our families and friends to officially meet each other and socialize. I mean we've met the other set of grand parents for lunch once but that's it?! That's not enough. We're going to be co-grandparents with these people. There should be some sort of rite of passage. If not a wedding *something.

So we're going to have a "two families and their friends officially meeting celebration." I'm not allowed to call it anything remotely sounding like a union or a joining so I'm doing a baby shower. You can't get much more JOINED than that! LOL!

-yes the grandma 2 b is throwing the baby shower. I'm tacky sue me. I never did get the stupid rule that says you can't host a gift giving celebration in your child's honor if it's a baby shower but you can host a gift giving celebration in your child's honor if it's their birthday or wedding. I tend to ignore crap that makes no sense. Plus typically it's the bride's maids who'd have done this but since there wasn't a wedding no would know who the honor was supposed to go to anyway. We as the parents of the bride would have been the one's paying for the wedding so the money we had saved up for that is going to this instead. Unneccesary justification over.

Anyway, back to daughter #2. Last Friday she started, txt'ing and fb'ing around and got a bunch of the kids (young adults) to lobby their parents to let them seperate from their family units and have a couple of all young people units. All the parents have agreed (myself included) and all the kids who are 18 and older are chipping in for the costs of their own condos.

So now the units that I already paid for are half empty and non-related people who I did NOT agree to pay for are asking to share those units at no cost and send their young adults to the young people condos at a cost.

The amount that my daughter charged all the kids to get away from the grown ups is more than it costs me to rent them. So the three who weren't sure they could make it can now afford it because the price is split 8 ways instead of three. After figuring that out #2 had the audacity to tell me that she was keeping the difference and I still needed to find someone to do her party chores for the weekend because I told her that if she paid she didn't have to do any work.

I wish I would have thought of it at the time but I'm txt'n her back and saying 'nuh uh beyotch! I'm keeping that money as a tax for putting up with your @ss and as compensation for all the extra work you've made for me.' -Unless I can think of a better reply which I probably will in the middle of the night and then forget it by the time I wake up.

I now have so So SOOOOO much more work to do. The most difficult is going to be assigning units to the kids and making sure they know I will chop them into little pieces if they trash anything. And really, who wants to be the heavy? I was envisioning family units to be together and but I get how that was naive. Plus it's not like I'm letting 14 year olds stay on their own. I'm going to relax about that as much as I can. The second and probably not much easier task I now have is going to be figuring out how to explain to the guests who want to share the half empty adult condos that they can't stay for free. They too will have to pay.

I don't really know how to go about explaining that the people I agreed to pay for were very carefully chosen. Just because their kids (and my own) turned down my offer doesn't mean that the offer transfers to other people. It doesn't work that way because while there is a definite number of siblings, sibling's so's, parents, grand parents and great grandparents (the original 20+ guests) - there's no limit to the number of aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephew's, friends and neighbors plus their kids and SO's.

The funny thing is that when other adult guests pay to stay in the half empty units I'm going to end up with even more of a surplus in my party budget. What the heck man! LOL!

I'm over my rant. This was theraputic. I think it's funny how quickly the adults were willing to get rid of their kids though LMAO! I'm making mine pay her own way (I'm still gonna pay for #1 since she's the GOH) but I think the other parents are paying to NOT have to stay with their adult kids for the weekend.

No, I don't think any of the kids realize that she's pulling game on them. But since her game is getting them what they want they're all going for it.

The three who originally couldn't afford to come were going to pay $70 each to share a two bedroom unit for three nights. I think that's a reasonable price and easily saved up for. It's already 1/3 the normal price. I'm booking ALL the rooms and offering them to my guests at 1/3 price. I have points that I can redeem that make this possible. So it's not costing me a fortune.

Instead of splitting the cost of a room that sleeps six - 3 ways #2 decided to split the cost of a room that sleeps eight - 8 ways. I'm only charging $275 for the three bedroom units. So each person (herself included) needs to pay $35 TOTAL for three nights.

She told them... OMG you guys I can get us our own condos for $15 a night each! And they all jumped at it. I'm leaving her to it because if someone flakes on her she has to eat it not me.

She's charging them all $45 which means that if everyone pays she still gets her free trip and she pockets 50 bucks on top. And that's just for the one she's staying in. So far she's booked two 3 bedroom units so on the second one she would make 85 bucks except I'm not going to let her charge her sister!

As far as other people paying they only have to pay for whatever size unit they book. They're not paying anything for the kids.

For example the other Grandma, I will call her Sally has a bff who is coming for the weekend. Bff's name will be Kally.

Kally was originally going to rent a two bedroom unit for her family of 5 plus her son's gf (6 people total). But her son and gf decided they don't want to stay with parents so they moved to the young adult unit. That leaves only 4 people in Kally's party. At the same time Sally's two son's plus their girlfriends (one of which is my daughter#1) decided to do the same thing.

That leaves room for four more people in Sally's unit. Kally decided not to rent a unit at all and just stay the weekend with her bff Sally.

Even though I already *paid for Sally's eight person unit I think I still need to charge Kally for staying in it because it's not fair to my relatives for her to come for free.

None of the money that I charge Kally is going to daughter#2. It'll just go back into the party budget.


*Sally's unit is one of the original four that I booked and gave away for free. Everyone else is paying 1/3 retail.

I think I would have told daughter #2 too bad and kept to the original plan. This all sounds like WAY too much trouble.

 

-- Edited by dqm either on Thursday 23rd of May 2013 11:57:45 PM

I haven't explained myself to anyone. Yet.

I haven't figured out how the best way to go about it.

But I do need to tell them something because they can't make their own arrangements. Only owners can make reservations. Only two families that are invited have memberships. Everyone else has to go through me.

I don't think it needs to be your problem though. I would probably ignore the request and keep things as is. I really hate when people try and change the nature of my hospitality offered and try and complicate it. That's all I'm saying. I think its a bit of an overthink, with all due respect. :)

You don't have to totally ignore but You can tell her she's making it way to complicated.....
They can stay with their parents for a weekend. Comne on now, you're very kindly inviting them to your shindig.


My eyes would have started crossing at this point, lol


Now I give up , it's all good :)

-- Edited by Mary Zombie on Tuesday 24th of July 2012 03:19:41 PM

My solution to her making things more difficult for me was to drop the whole things in her lap. Hopefully this will be a good lesson to her. She has yet to collect a dime from anyone.  But it is still only July.

I sent the other Grandma (I forgot what I named her and I'm too lazy to go back and read all of this crap) a note that said:

#1 and #2 (I blamed it all on my kids ) have orchestrated some room shuffling so your unit's gonna be half empty. I can change your reservation to a 1 or 2 bedroom unit or you can have friends stay with you. I'd have to charge them a small fee.

There's plenty of time to decide so let me know.

That was the best way I could think to handle it.  Fortunately, the swapping only affected a few people, myself included.  Everyone else who wants to stay the weekend is making their arrangements fresh.  It's not the way I envisioned it but I don't want that much control over who stays with whom. 

Control = Work  LOL!  No thank you.

Not that I can't handle it.  I would just rather not.

thanks tx,

It's not until October so hopefully all the confusion will be untangled by then.

~dq

LOL P8nt!

You are one of the main peeps I was looking for when I came back to the boards cuz I remember we talked about doing a peep meet there last year. It was bad timing though. Last time I was there the week of Thanksgiving. Not really a good time for a meet.

I'm considering announcing a meet once I get all the macro's out of the way. But I think you're the only person close enough to make it worth it.

If you do want to go though I'd love to have you. I'm going to be there (you remember the name of the place?) 10-26 through 10-29.

I have to warn you though my kids are a corrupting influence!

The othergrandma, I remember I named her Sally, opted for a smaller unit. So my side of the problem is taken care of *dusts off hands*

Was there any advice on how many registries?

Do tell!

Evil Stepmother wrote:

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It showed up, but who's hand and engagement ring is it? You, your daughter or one of the other guests?

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ROTFLMAO! No not ME! *Laughing so hard you have no idea

When I said that I was tacky I didn't mean tacky enough to get married at my daughter's baby shower LOL. The party is 1 month before my 23rd wedding anniversary.

Thank you for the kind words everyone.

Three months is plenty of time to pull this together but I need to redo the invitations and now send out more because I didn't invite some people from church who I thought would be conflicted about attending. They'll be very happy to hear this news. I still have no clue as to how to handle this registry question. I see #1 tomorrow. Lots to discuss.

edited for formatting.

-- Edited by dqm either on Friday 3rd of August 2012 07:39:59 PM

I can see the pic. Now, what gives? Who is the lucky duck?

HamsterFan wrote:

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I can see the pic. Now, what gives? Who is the lucky duck?

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X2

Proverbs 22:6 you guys I'm praising God.

Train a child up in the way (s)he should go and when (s)he is old(er) she will not depart from it.

That's #1's hand. I did raise my girls that children are protcted by the insttution of marriage and that they will have blessings. Of course when my unmarried daughter got pregnant I still loved and supported her and there was no pressure to get married. Anyone that she marries has to be because they are both ready and willing to make that commitment.

Appearantly they are. They came to this conclusion on their own and I like to think they would have baby or no. They've been together for two years. And 22 is old enough to come to this conclusion so Overall I'm happy.

What wonderful news. How exciting for you.

Sorry things aren't working out like you wanted or hoped.

Hey it could be worse....She could name the baby Dweezle!

*just noticed that we have a poster named Bessie