wildfig Sun 01-Jan-12 13:10:18
I'd also like to know how Vivipru's murder mystery party went, please.
Possibly the least juicy of all the updates requested on here, but anyway. Rather than update & resurrect the thread, I'll update here.
As the majority who had read my subsequent posts were aware, I conceded I didn't ought to feel put out having reached the 5pm compromise (didn't stop a few people reading the OP and declaring me to be precious, moaning and a complete control freak 
)
As it transpired, the couple arrived at 5.30pm. By that time, DP and I had packed my overseas friends off after breakfast, cleaned the house, set up two guest rooms, taken all of the furniture out of the dining room and replaced with a 6ft table that wouldn't have fitted otherwise, laid the table for 3 courses (including a mad dash to DMs for extra cutlery ) polished all the glass, decorated the dining room in 50's hollywood style, made a salmon en croute & prepped all the veg (ok that was more DP than I) prepped the canapes, reconfigured the packed-out post-xmas fridge to create space for baby provisions & the food guests were bringing, found and ironed 'costumes', set up the props and DVD for the murder mystery, removed all potential crawling baby-perils (trailing cables etc) and packed the dog off to my Mums .
They walked through the door literally as I'd just lit the last tealight. DP had been on an errand and pulled up the drive behind them blocking them in, and I offered to move our car in case they might change their minds about staying over (as a poster on my original thread had suggested they may) but they were incredulous that I would even suggest such a preposterous idea and was it ok if they helped themselves to the wine?
DD was fed and played with till about 6.30 when she was put down. She was really grizzly for ages, but the couple took it in their stride and DP and I took that time to get ready. My 10 year old graduation ball dress needed some convincing to zip up and I was bulging out all over the place but that was to be expected given the cheesemonster I am. The man of the couple had arrived in costume and the woman got ready at the same time as us. By the time the other couple arrived at 7.45, DD was pretty settled, and we didn't have a peep out of her all night. The couple checked on her a couple of times but she was out for the count.
It was an absolute blast, everyone got really into it (my usually reserved, introverted DP was a revelation as filmstar-turned politician) and it was more than worth the effort.
DD wailing in the room next door at 6am grated a bit on 4 hours' sleep and 1/6th share of the the 10 bottles of bubbly, but I didn't mind since she'd been brilliant all night and I reasoned she was entitled to get a bit vociferous.
So all in all a success and thanks to AIBU for getting me over myself and putting things in perspective. Their 5.30pm arrival was ideal as it turned out as it meant DD was sorted by the time we wanted to get into the party, while forcing DP and I to zip through the tasks of the day giving us a more stress-free last couple of hours.
Now please can some of the OPs of the more interesting threads come back and update?!