w@w quotes for Primer 2012

i received an email from ms. benz that she's collecting replies to the questionnaire for the wedding primer 2012..... this was last july 24, 2012 but i haven't got to it until august 11, 2012....the deadline was august 15....

i thought i should share my answers here..... who knows someone might be able to pick up some lessons or at the least might entertain someone.... so here goes..

1. Your top 'Moment' during the preparation (for both married and unmarried
members)

>> i'm a budget-zilla and i can't count how many times i tried to convince my fiance that we should just skip the church wedding in the philippines (since we're getting/got  married civilly in the U.S. anyway) because we could use the money to renovate our house and my parent's house or to do our dream vacations but he would keep saying no and one time he said "you're 35, you've waited long enough you deserve your dream wedding" it was heartwarming for me...and he would also keep reminding me that the wedding in the philippines is a tribute to my parents since none of my family was able to attend my civil wedding in the U.S.....

2. Your top 'Moment' during the Wedding Day (for married ones lang)

>> while i was walking down the aisle (actually it was a beach ramp) with the violin and guitar playing "you" by carpenters live in the background and seeing my fiance at the other end waiting ang smiling at me.... i was like "this is it! i'm marrying the man of my dreams at hindi na ako bound for spinsterhood!", lol.



3. Nicest thing done to you (wedding preps/wedding related; by anybody either your supplier, entourage, friends, family, fiance or even W@Wsis/brod, basta an 'aaawwww' moment)

>> my friends, even though they aren't part of our civil wedding entourage all helped to decorate our beach ceremony venue, gift table and ran all sorts of errands....one of my friends even made sure i had breakfast and brought me breakfast while i'm getting ready for the (civil) wedding.



4. Married life is... (for married members, this will help the brides as they will know what to expect) not limited to one reply

>> respecting each other and knowing how to compromise


5. Things that went wrong in my wedding (for married members) doesn't have to be just one answer

>> during "Remembrance" , the part where our civil wedding officiant had to mention the names of our beloved departed, the officiant misread his own notes and mentioned my fiance's brother's name (my brother-in-law) instead of  my fiance's deceased mother's name...both my fiance and i froze and i immediately looked at my brother-in-law to see his reaction.....good thing, he looked like he didn't hear it...some of our other guests heard it too and just shrugged it off thinking they must have just misheard the officiant and it was the wind that's messing up with their hearing (our ceremony was by the beach and it was windy that day)....


6. Things I splurged and will splurge on. Max of 3 answers lang pls. (we will tally thing kasi and get the Top answers)

>> photo and video (because that's the only thing that would be left of us after the wedding)
>> food (i want our guests to remember our wedding because of the food)
>> venue (for us, it's all about visual presentations and how it would look good on camera so venue and aesthetics like moodlights, decorations is important)


7. I learned that a wedding....

>> is only for a day but you get to know more about each other during the preparation...


 8. Advice to a bride planning her wedding (my most important tip) -- madami sa kin e...

>> excel sheet is your friend! list all your To Do's, To Buy's, To Meet Up's, To Harrass (lol) and mark them accordingly whenever you accomplished an item...this keeps you organized and it's good psychologically when you get to see lots of  accomplished items, it makes you less stressed out....

>> first things first...focus on the most important part and work your way down...(ie: take care of booking the church first, then venue, then entourage-including ninongs and ninangs..favors, invitations, detailing should be down at the bottom of the list)

>> i have to plan 2 weddings, my civil and church and it gets really overwhelming specially if both weddings are destination weddings....it gets specially overwhelming when it's time to do the details,as in when you have booked all the suppliers and it's time for the nitty-gritty details.... my last tip is to "worry" one item at a time...like for this week i'll worry about the reception..... what centerpiece, what food, seating chart, favors, escort cards, table cards, all reception related....then next week i would worry about the ceremony, what decoration, do i need loose petals, do i want custom vows, etc...that way you can focus on each of the wedding elements better and you're more likely not to forget anything..
 

9. I wish... (on wedding, wedding preps etc etc whatever)
>> i wish taking vacation leaves isn't a problem...we're overseas couple and we're struggling for vacation leaves because we have to be in the Philippines a week or 2 before the wedding and at the same time we need to allot weeks to tour our foreign guests and for our honeymoon...i would love to tour my inlaws around the philippines to show off my beautiful country kasi and i need 6 weeks vacation leaves sana....


10. Have you read a past issue of The W@W Wedding Primer? What did you like best or lest? Any suggestion? If you can share kwento re Primer please do, need materials din for W@W Inbox/Letter to the Editors portion.

>> the first and last primer i saw  was 2002 pa ata basta ung first one...i like the planning portion there and the wedding requirements...i'd love to see some DIY tips/section there and wedding budgetting tips (kung wala pa)


11. What is your favorite local Wedding mags/books/booklets and why? Please include both bride & groom's name and wedding date also your address (or an address in Manila of a friend/family) so we can send you a copy if*we quoted you.
>>no favorite, i like them all e!
my philippines address:  Makati City, Philippines

second wedding invitation

we DIYed our civil wedding invitation because we had an intimate wedding and i would just need to make a few..... for our church wedding invitation i had to order them and i'm now in the process of designing it and looking for suitable wordings....

the photo above is our actual message-in-a-bottle civil wedding invitation wordings but i can’t take credit for that because i just googled it… we liked it because it’s very appropriate for a spring wedding. it says:

"As the flower blooms and petals unfold, we're soon to say "to have and to hold".
We've made the plans and can hardly wait. Our wedding is near and here is the date!"

On Detailing and the Whirlwind Pinas Visit

because of some minor change on my usual schedule the hubby and i decided that i should go home to the philippines for a week to take care of some wedding stuff......just me, so it would be cheaper both vacation-leaves-wise and airfare-wise..... that way instead of taking 3 weeks off for our church wedding we can now just take 2 weeks off.....


we have booked 75% of our wedding suppliers since early 2011 (excited e, bakit ba) and the reason i came home is to meet with the suppliers that require that i am physically there to decide and give them my go signal on some stuff like for example the detailing for reception..... when i say detailing that's what flowers to use, what colors, what kind of linen, do i want runners, what color, how do i want the VIP table to be set up, how about the guests table, etc.... so anyway, below are the list of stuff i accomplished during my short visit in the philippines by timeline..... it was raining the whole time i was there but i managed to accomplish what i came home for......



july 29, sunday - (1) visit wedding venue to settle balance and to attend our caterer's mini food tasting and bridal fair (2) meet with my entourage's dress' couturier... wasnt able to do this because my flight (i hate you united airline) got delayed and instead of arriving in manila on Saturday night i didn't arrive until Monday morning.....soooo pissed!

july 30, monday - met with our 1. cake supplier (Judy Uson) - my plane arrived in Manila at 8:45am and my ride arrived past 9...... my appointment with the cake supplier was 1:00pm...... i just dropped off my luggage at my friend's condo in mandaluyong and off i went (wala ng liguan!)...... now,  i have already sent our cake supplier an email on what we want for our cake but it's still nice to come sit and talk to the supplier personally and brainstorm about my cake design....i also finalized my additional orders, like the mini cakes for the primary sponsors and cupcakes for the entourage....

july 31, tuesday - met with our florist and on site studio..... i  met them both at shangri-la mall at shaw blvd.... i just found out during the meeting with our 2. florist (1558) that peach roses are hard to come by during winter......the season for peach roses are summer..... i am so bummed! but oh well, it is what it is....they'll just try to combine colors to make it look peach..... i decided to upgrade our package....  for 3,000 pesos we'll have better church aisle and some freebies and extra stuff for the flower girls too....  i even got a smoke machine for my bridal entrance at church (o di ba bongga, haha)...

              i have also met with our 3. onsite studio..... we really don't want to do the photobooth anymore because we want to be different.... we also have upgraded to 4d because we want the best execution for our paris theme.....actually, our wedding theme is travel with a touch of parisian element so our wedding theme wouldn't focus mainly on the paris aspect...... anyway, the onsite studio seemed excited.... i don't think they have done that theme for a customer yet but they did have that one time for a bridal fair but that's it....

aug 1, wednesday - since i wasn't able to visit my wedding venue and the couturier on july 29, sunday our wedding coordinator was nice to call these two suppliers to move the meeting to aug 1...... so i went to our 4. wedding venue (Fernbrook) to settle our balance.... i figured that's the perfect time to do it even though our deadline really isn't until october (2012) but  since it's a large amount (6-digit is no joke) i'd rather hand the payment to them personally rather than wire it or have someone hand them the payment..... i'm a happy camper because that's settled and i got to meet our AE personally too and got our free maps..... and the icing on the cake was i was able to tour the venue and got to see all the things i have read about them, the place is gorgeous! so glad we chose Fernbrook....

               also met with the church personnel for our church requirements..... submitted the hubby's freedom to marry and some other requirements and in return they gave me the wedding banns request that i need to submit to my parish (don bosco makati).....

               i also met with the 5. couturier (Boy Kastner)....... now, i'm getting my wedding gown from pronovias and i bought it here in the U.S. so the couturier isn't really for me but for my wedding entourage and for my groom, dad and brother's barong (my hubby will be wearing a coat barong)...... i went to meet with him since his shop is just a few minutes from our wedding venue..... we discussed about the design of the gowns and i gave him a swatch for my color motif and some other pegs..... i'm so excited for the bridesmaids/secondary sponsors/flower girl's dresses that now i'm thinking of asking him to make me those dresses too, hee hee....

aug 2, thursday - went to the 6. caterer (Josiah's) office at marikina for food tasting, and detailing..... also met my wedding coordinator (we booked them for partial coordination and not just on-the-day) during the process..... then a few hours later, met again with our coordinator at makati  but with our 7. emcee (Missy Ferrer-Litao) this time..... we had to talk about the flow of the program..... had to remind them we have a gondola ride and sky lanterns..... i feel that won't be our last meeting.....same with the reception detailing.....

aug 3, friday - took care of the 8. wedding banns (Don Bosco Makati).....went to don bosco makati (my parish) to submit the wedding banns request and paid the fee (Php600) in advance.... also went to an office in makati to take care of our 9. mini honeymoon booking (El Nido Resorts), mini kasi we have foreign guests coming with us...it's our treat to them for enduring the long flight, lol).....

aug 4, saturday - supposedly rest day but my brother wants me to take my niece to enchanted kingdom....

aug 5, sunday - flight back to philly....

it was a very toxic week and i can't really say i enjoyed that trip because aside from my flight being delayed twice and cancelled once i was just running all over the place everyday doing errands and enduring  mother nature's cranky weather...... but i'm still glad i did that trip though, overall it was still a productive week and over all i was able to meet with 9 suppliers! not bad ......