found the solution here: http://www.learningjquery.com/2008/10/1-way-to-avoid-the-flash-of-unstyled-content

basically, you can hide whatever element you need to. in this example, i’m hiding the class “.alert_news” which is an alert box asking the user if they want to delete something.
<!–hide stuff –>
<style type=”text/css”>
.js .alert_news {display: none;}
</style>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
$(‘html’).addClass(‘js’);
$(document).ready(function() {
// Stuff to do as soon as the DOM is ready
});
</script>