Tuesday, August 30, 2011

january nineteen

our philippines church wedding would be on January 19  and the U.S. civil wedding is tentatively on May 19.....

i've mentioned this before  but it might be worth reiterating, we're pretty much done with booking our philippines suppliers.... we have booked the venue, church, photographer, videographer, caterer, string quartet, flowers, HMUA starting january 2011.... we had to move quick because January is one of the peak months for wedding in the philippines and because our wedding venue is in demand....... and ofcourse to LOCK the rates! you know how the suppliers are, they increase their price every year! anyway, what's left is the OTD (on-the-day coordinator).... but we might need more than an OTD.... we need a partial wedding planner because i would really need someone to run errands for me since we are an overseas couple....

May 19 is the tentative date for our civil wedding.... i said tentative because we haven't booked our venue yet and unless that is booked we can't claim May 19.... we're still busy with other stuff but hopefully we'll be able to start booking the major suppliers on September til October....i'm actually anxious to book the civil wedding venue because all my project is on halt mode unless we booked the venue....but we try not to get too overwhelmed....i try not to look at the "bigger picture" so i won't panic or get stressed..... one step at a time.... one "To Do" item at a time....

right now i'm just busy doing our mock-up WYB DIYs..... and last week i have just decided which design to use..... so excited to give them to our entourage....hopefully they'll all say yes...

the next thing on my plate is to start doing the barefoot sandals mock-ups.....
*WYB - will you be my ...  bridesmaid/maid of honor  groomsman/best man
*DIY - do-it-youself



Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Funny Cake Toppers

i was browsing through cake toppers a few weeks ago and chanced upon a funny cake topper..... i showed that to the h2b and after laughing too hard he announced he wants that for our cake..... i thought he was kidding but then last night while we were having dinner with his dad he brought that up again and he tried to look it up online to show his dad..... incidentally we saw a few more funny ones.....just click the image for bigger view...


enjoy!



need-to-loose-weight cake toppers







the runaway bride/broom












now, the best for last.....
can you guess which one of these my h2b wants to get for our cake and which one i'd prefer?


             trapped


     bride still shopping



     bride pinching groom's butt

        stop playing!

   cake shoved on groom's face


                fishing


          blotto couple


    mr & mrs smith & wesson



answer: mr & mrs smith & wesson, blotto couple
which ones do you like?

image sources: weirdomatic.com & failwedding.com

Monday, August 22, 2011

marrying for U.S. citizenship



a-ha! got you there did i?

im sorry to disappoint you but my story isn't as juicy as you hope it to be (lol),  because i can actually get my U.S. citizenship without the help of my h2b...

i came here in the U.S. as an H1B visa holder..... for those who doesn't know what that means, it's a type of working visa the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issue for specialty skills worker, like scientists, physicists and in my case software engineers (here's a link from USCIS explaining it and who are eligible to get that visa)........ then on 2009 my employer applied for my greencard via EB2 category (here's a link on what EB2 means) and on May of 2010 i was granted permanent residency and got my greencard....

now, if you have a greencard  its as good as being a US Citizen....example, you are not tied to any employer anymore and you can switch employers anytime (as H1b you can only work for the employer who sponsored your H1B), you can work at some government offices, you are free to go in an out of the U.S, you share the same line with the U.S. citizens at the airport immigration and immigration people would actually say "welcome home" to you when you left the U.S and came back........ the only thing you don't have as greencard holder is a U.S. passport (which is good if you love travelling-no more VISA applications to most countries) and the right to vote (which really doesn't concern me that much)......

now, if i really want to be a U.S. citizen which i wont deny i do because travelling is just so much convenient (i dont want to go thru that horrible experience i had with the Italian embassy again like when i was applying for my schengen visa ), here are the immigration rules.....

you can apply for citizenship if you:

(1) have been a greencard holder for 5 years.... or
(2) if you have been married to an american citizen for 3 years....


now let's put some numbers here to make it easier to understand and i'll use my situation as an example.... i got my greencard thru my employer year 2010....if we apply the first rule on my situation i can only apply for citizenship year 2015....

2010 + 5 years = 2015


clear?
good!


now, let's apply the second rule.... we already know my h2b is an american citizen.... we'll get married year 2012....

2012 + 3 years = 2015


so did you notice anything? yep, marrying my US citizen h2b won't buy me anything....either way i still need to wait til 2015 before i can apply for US citizenship....


how did i learn about this? the immigration lawyer who handled my greencard processing explained this to me....

and because i pride myself as an independent, self-sufficient woman (lol), i'm applying my citizenship thru my employer and not thru my marriage....




for a more detailed rules to acquire citizenship click the links below:

- Path to U.S. Citizenship

- Naturalization for Spouses of U.S. Citizens

Saturday, August 13, 2011

when God made you He must've been thinking about me

this never fails to get me teary-eyed...
this is how i feel about my h2b


When God Made You lyrics

Its always been a mystery to me,
How two hearts can come together,
And love can last forever.
But now that I have found you I believe,
That a miracle has come when God sends the perfect one.
So gone are all my questions about why,
And i've never been so sure of anything in my life

Oh I wonder what God was thinking,when he created you.
I wonder if He knew everything I would need,
Because he made all my dreams come true.
When God made you, He must have been thinking about me.

Ooo ooo,I promise that wherever you may go, wherever life may lead you,
With all my heart I'll be there too.
And from this moment on I want you to know,
I'll let nothing come between us, and I will love the ones you love.
So gone are all my questions about why

Oh I wonder what God was thinking when he created you,
I wonder if He knew everythin I would need,
Because He made all my dreams come true.
When God made you He must've been thinking about me.

He made the sun He made the moon,
To harmonize a perfect tune,
One can't do without the other they just have to be together.
And that is how I know it's true,
Your for me and i'm for you and my world
Just can't be right without you in my life

Oh I wonder what God was thinking,when he created you.
I wonder if He knew everything I would need,
Because he made all my dreams come true.
When God made you, He must have been thinking about me.



He must have heard every prayer I've been praying. He must've knew everything I would need

When God made you, He must've been thinking about me.


Thursday, August 11, 2011

wedsite open for public



i decided to keep it public for a bit...
there's nothing much there to see, by the way, because i hid all the the Philippines stuff and just showed the U.S.-related links....

as you can see from our wedsite we really haven't done anything for our civil wedding here in the U.S yet because right now we're busy with other important stuff... but hopefully come september, we'll be able to put our full attention to looking for reception venues again and to actually book one.....

Thursday, August 4, 2011

sunset shots dilemma

our wedding in the philippines ends around 4:00pm...... sunset is between 5:45pm - 6:00pm





which means we have to wait almost 2 hours to get our sunset shots..........then ofcourse we might need an additional 15-30 minutes for the actual shooting and i don't think my guests would want to wait that long......

while it's true that we do have a lot of stuff planned to keep our guests busy and entertained and well fed, lol, we still don't want to test our guests patience.........  but at the same time we don't want to sacrifice our sunset shots too (our wedding venue is so sunset photogenic it would be a shame not to have some sunset wedding photos, lol) .......... so our solution?

i have contacted our photographer again to schedule for a pre-wedding photoshoot........ we'll just have our sunset photoshoot a few days before the wedding and we'll just wear our civil wedding clothes......... that way we don't have to make our guests wait very long for the actual reception and program (although, im really having second thoughts about those program thingie..kinda find it cheesy but who knows, i might change my mind)

so all that's left to do now is send our photographer the modified contract and then save extra Php10K for those 3-4 hours of photoshoot......  


photo credits: circle-mag.com

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

for DIY updates

you can follow our most current DIY pix here:

https://picasaweb.google.com/2sqrtof3


just a side note though, i did the napkin rings 5 months ago and i still have some mock-up napkin rings that needs to be photographed, i'll add them all soon......there are also some napkin rings design that i want to try and i'll post those too as soon as i get to it..... right now, i'm busy with the WYB cards....