Tuesday, December 18, 2012

wedding gown shopping for church wedding


a month or so before our civil wedding, i posted here all the gowns i have tried on while shopping for a beach civil wedding gown (it's here: (http://2sqrtof3.blogspot.com/2012/02/on-shopping-for-civil-wedding-gown.html).... my only 2 criterias are it has to look good on me and that it's cheap....

i'm posting another set, but this time for the church wedding gown hunting...

since our church wedding is in a month, i thought it would be fun (at least for me) to post all the gowns i have tried on while i was looking for my church wedding gown....

the reason these gowns didn't make it is because it's either it looked too simple/cheap-looking  for a church wedding, it's too expensive or because i look pregnant, lol.....

here goes... (click the images for better view)



davids bridal

davids bridal

maggie sottero (fave)

maggie sottero (fave)

vera wang

oleg cassini

oleg cassini


davids bridal
      scroll down

pronovias - tigris (hubby's fave)

pronovias

pronovias

pronovias

Saturday, September 22, 2012

How to Make Your Own Brooquet


I have been contemplating for months and months and months now whether or not I'll share my videos on how to make the brooch bouquet. Nope, it's not because I'm feeling selfish it's just that for the longest time I was planning to do another video because of my wrong pronunciations, lol.

But what the heck, here are the videos!

Part 1:









Part 2:






Now for part 3, i got lazy but basically you just wrap the stem with ribbon and then I followed this blog (just scroll down to the bottom):

http://www.fancypantsweddings.com/how-to-design-a-brooch-bouquet

I also found a bouquet stem's cover (the faux pearl you're seeing on the brooch bouquet's handle, don't know what's that called, actually, lol)  from michaels and I used that as additional accent. Here's my finished brooch bouquet. I used it for my civil wedding  last May 12, 2012 and will also be using it for our church wedding on January next year.







I used 50+ brooches on my brooch bouquet.

I got my brooches from ebay.com and flea markets and took me a year to collect them. Why a year? I was looking for certain colors and certain types. Also, I had to make sure I don't buy a brooche that's above my budget because believe me, those brooches can go as high as $30/pc on ebay, that's 1,200 pesos already!  So my advise is don't get carried away and be patient. Also, factor in the shipping cost. My favorite item to bid on are brooches being sold in bulk because it saves me on shipping.

I guess that's it! Enjoy.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

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

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

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!
"

Monday, August 13, 2012

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 ......


Saturday, June 16, 2012

a shoe that tells the story


initially, i wanted a red chucks as my wedding shoes with an embroidered date of our wedding but i changed my mind as soon as i saw a post from a forum, that i forgot which one now.... the post was about custom-painted shoes..... it's called figgieshoes by deborah thompson......

the shoe that made me decide i'm getting a figgie shoes
so i went to that artist's website and i was so impressed! i wasn't sure though if i really want a custom-painted shoes because when i emailed them to ask for quote i find it really expensive (base price is CAD$250) so i just put that idea at the back of my head..... but i kept coming back to that artist's website just to check her new creations....

a year later, while i was stalking figgieshoes'  facebook site i saw this one pair of shoes that i can very much relate to and it's like it speaks to me....i don't know, i sound crazy but there's just something about that pair of shoes...... so after that i just emailed them right away and told them I'd like to order one and that i would need it for a May 2012 wedding.... that was some time in january 2012 (note that i got engaged on january 2011 and started planning the church wedding right away).

so they sent me a form that i needed to fill up and i had to list down all the personal items i want added on my shoes....i filled that up..... sent my payment thru paypal.com..... bought a white flat shoes from amazon and then shipped the shoes to them..... they're located in canada, by the way, but they ship internationally.....


below is my actual instructions:

PERSONALIZED ITEMS for M.C.
  1. Image of the Eiffel Tower - my fiancĂ© proposed to me in Paris, in front of the Eiffel Tower on New Year’s eve of 2011. If you can do a Paris theme that would be great! In fact, I really like the Pink Paris Damask you did for your other client.
  2. May 12, 2012 – Please include that date on the right shoe (left side). We are going to have two weddings, civil and church. May 12, 2012 is our civil wedding and is going to be a beach wedding.
  3. January 19, 2013 – Please include that date on the right shoe (right side). That is our church wedding date which is going to be in the Philippines.
  4. Mcccccc and Rxzzzzxx – Please include our names on the left shoe
  5. I really like what you did with some of the other shoes I saw on your site where the date is printed on one of the shoes and the names of the couple on the other shoe and they are each enclosed in half hearts that when you put the shoes together it would form a heart with the names and the date inside. I can't find that photo anymore but here's something similar but uses circle.

    I would like to request to put “Marlin and Robert” on the left shoe. Then have the “May 12, 2012” and “January 19, 2013” on my right shoe but please have those two dates printed on two different sides (ie:, May 12 on the “left” part of the right shoe and January 19 on the “right” part of right shoe) so that we can easily take a photo of the shoes with “Marlin and Robert” “May 12, 2012” enclosed in a heart and then just flip the right right shoe to show the January 19 and we can read the “Marlin and Robert” “January 19, 2013” enclosed in a heart. The reason for this is because I am planning to wear my Figgie shoes on both weddings and would love for our photographers to take a picture of the shoes on both weddings bearing our names and current wedding date.
  6. My vows – please include a snippet of my vows. The vow is enclosed in System.out.println(“ <vows here> “); we're both programmers and this is something that identifies what we do for a living. Please print the vows on the left shoe. The same place where “Marlin and Robert” is printed.

System.out.println(“
Bob, with you i laugh, i smile, i dream. With you i'm full, i'm whole and i'm alive. Thank you for being the perfect partner. For trusting me w/ your heart and for believing in our future. Thank you for finding me. In return i promise to cherish you, encourage you. To laugh with u, comfort you. I'll always have your back like you have mine. I want to spend my lifetime loving you”);

  1. – 8. An image of some luggage and a DSLR camera – we’re both avid travelers and both a photography hobbyist
9. An image of a keyboard and/or mouse – we’re both software engineers and we met at work
  1. “I DO” – I like how you add these on the back of the shoes. “I” on the left shoe and “Do “ on the right. But instead of the heart that you used on the left photo, is it possible to have the damask heart from the photo on the right?
11. an image of a Philippine and American flag overlapping each other – that's our nationalities.
12. I also like how you design the edges on shoes like the photos below..i specially like the lace one (left photo)

Thank you so much!


P.S.
Our wedding motif for the church wedding is peach and yellow. Peach is the main color and yellow is the accent color. Turquoise/aqua blue for the civil beach wedding.

and here's the finished product, my bridal shoes



here you can see the flags, the name and date enclosed in a heart, the vows, the "i do"

the shoes i bought already has those floral accents in front but the artist made it more interesting

here you can see the eiffel tower, the dslr and luggages....the keyboard and mouse...
i like how the artist added another mouse and looped the wires into a heart, very very nice touch...
the artist also added a picture of an engagement ring and the "NYE 2011" next to the eiffel tower
to stress out the proposal date....another nice touch...


i'm so glad i made that decision.... i never thought i would get so emotional over a pair of shoes but i literally cried when i saw my pair of figgie shoes for the first time...... my bridal shoes has an effect on my friends and anyone who sees my bridal shoes too and they kept telling me they've never seen anything like it.....even the hubby loves it and he would show pix of it to his female friends/family members who weren't able to make it to our civil wedding.

the shoes is a splurge and i kept telling my friends (or whoever cared to listen, lol) that i have thought about it for a year before finally plunging into that decision and they were all telling me how you can easily spend a thousand bucks for a pair of shoes in new york and my bridal shoes is still cheap compared to those, so i feel better now, lol....


i have something similar for my church wedding shoes and you can find it here: http://2sqrtof3.blogspot.com/2013/03/not-your-ordinary-wedding-shoes.html


(photos all courtesy of figgieshoes.com...like them onfacebook/figgieshoes ):



Thursday, June 14, 2012

on backdrops and cakes and food tasting


and we're back to wedding planning...

a month ago, as some of you already know, i got married civilly in cape may, new jersey..... i had fun planning it because it's a beach wedding and i've always dreamed of having a beach wedding....anyway, i gave myself a month to, sort of, relax before i plunged into another wedding planning tasks....this time for our church wedding in the philippines...


the cake and backdrop we're hoping to get
today i just sent several emails to our caterer and wedding coordinator to talk about backdrops and cakes and bridal car and appetizer bars and pasta bars and food tasting and... and... and... whew!

and last night, before i went to bed, i posted on w@w (weddingsatwork) about this certain cake design i have in mind and asked them if they can recommend a cake supplier who specializes on that kind of design and this morning i found several replies! so far, among their recommendations, i'm liking judy uson's designs.... kaya mahal ko w@w e! i get so many ideas and tips and recommedations from them...

anyway, see that pic? that's the kind of cake design we like....i think it's called cascading cake flowers...im not sure if they're real flowers or sugar flowers or fabric.... but i like the cake style...

we actually don't need to find a cake supplier because the food package we chose has free 3-layer cake pero dahil maarte kami, lol, we want to get a cake design that we want and not get stuck with the free cake.... so we're thinking of offsetting the cake from our caterer and get something else in place of that, like the Appetizer Bar...so yun ang kwento for now sa buhay ng isang overseas bride....

yan muna...i need to get back to work so we'll be able to pay for our church wedding, lol

over and out!

update as of 10:29am EST:
just sent an inquiry email to
miss judy to request for a quote...


Wednesday, May 30, 2012

the beach wedding ceremony decoration inspirations

when i told the hubby i want a beach wedding for the civil wedding he didn't have to think twice, he said yes right away....he thought that would be cool and it would be an excuse to have our friends and family come down to the shore and relax...

that wasn't the first thing that came to my mind though.... i was already thinking of how i would decorate the aisle, lol....

i googled for some ideas and this image struck me:



i was so tempted to do that but have to let it go because most of our guests are older people and i don't think they would appreciate sitting that low on the ground....so i decided to just stick with the kind of chairs that wedding by the sea will provide.....then i was deciding whether to use pomanders or paper lanterns but i figured since i'm using parasols for my bridesmaids, paper lanterns would be more appropriate.... but then i have to decide what color to use.... is it going to be tiffany blue (my original motif) or just white but i saw a picture of a white paper lantern and i thought it looks so clean and romantic so i stuck with white....



.... i regretted that decision though....i should have used my motif color (turquoise, tiffany blue so hard to find!) because the paper lanterns sort of disappear in the picture because of the sand and chairs and sky.... or maybe because i should have bought a bigger size...oh well....


the four feather banners and the arbor from wedding by the sea


then, i wanted a second arbor.....wedding by the sea will provide the first arbor ($100 rent), the four white feather banners ($50 each), the sand ceremony table ($25), the chairs ($4/each, we have 40 pcs).... but i want a second arbor to work as an entrance door.....


the arbor and the table for the sand ceremony from wedding by the sea



so i bought one from michaels, they were on sale that time and the hubby and i were decorating it with my ikea mosquito netting curtain and some plastic garland until we're satisfied at how it looks.... below is the final design for the second arbor.... nothing fancy, we just want to make sure the arbor doesn't look "naked"....it was supposed to be just draping at the side (see the right side) but the left side started flying.....it was very windy that day.....but i didn't mind....it kinda add character to the arbor.....although the second arbor started going sideways because of the wind and the plastic garlands started peeling off, lol


the second arbor we brought and had friends help us assemble and disassemble it



for the rose petals i was actually planning to buy the freeze petals, but my friend jefferly suggested i just buy the fresh flowers from the produce junction so it would be cheaper and that's what i did.....i bought 5 dozen of roses at the junction shop for ($7/dozen) 2 days before the wedding (cause that was when we drove down to cape may) and asked my bridesmaids to bring a dozen of red roses each.... and then i asked the help of alve, tonette and chay to help me un-petal the roses and to put the petals in a bin.... so glad they were able to help me out because that day i was too stressed out already.....


i asked my MOH to take the ceremony decoration containers with her because my truck are just too full already!

the paper lanterns were easy to find..... i just went to lunabazaar.com to order the 8" cheap paper lanterns.... the tulle are easy too...i just went to michaels and a.c. moore to get them...it was finding the shepherds hooks that's hard....michaels don't have them, same with a.c. moore, home depot has them but they're too high and had to return them as soon as i picked them up (i ordered them online)... i saw a wreath stand at a.c. moore and bought 8 of them right away....they were on sale for $2 each and its just the right height but it has a round base so i wasn't sure how that would make out on the sand and if it would withstand the windy shore but i didn't care that time..... i just want hooks for my paper lanterns....then one day, i went to joann's fabric store to buy some shells and sand when i saw dozens and dozens of shepherd's hook by the entrance door! i was so ecstatic i immediately grabbed 10 without even checking the price! lol.... it was the right height and thickness.... i returned the wreaths hooks at a.c. moore..... it was priced $4 each.....

our shoes optional sign...


then i wanted to have the "shoes optional" concept.... where guests can just leave their shoes in the "shoe parking bins" during the ceremony, lol..... i bought the bins from ross... i was able to find just one blue bin and the rest were bronze bins.... i went ross hopping hoping i could find another blue bin but i didn't get lucky......so i just bought a couple of blue scarves at a.c. moore and just wrapped it around the bins to kinda match them with the blue bin.... i made sand brushes to go with my "shoes optional" concept too and ordered the shoes optional wood sign from an etsy seller (signsbydiane)....

our DIY sandbrushes


i guess that's it!

i want to share the reception stuff that too... like our mesage-in-a-bottle guestbook.... our starfish/sanddollars escort cards, etc.....  but that deserves it's own kwento din, lol....





Saturday, May 26, 2012

the story behind the wedding gown


i previously blogged about my gown shopping for the civil beach wedding .... this is the sequel for that blog, lol...... just a story of how i decided that it's my "this is it" gown.....



at coronet bridal store






it's my friends who thought that gown really looks good on me.... didn't particularly liked it the first time because it's not as flowy as my other candidates and it just looks too simple for my taste...i want it simple, but with some wow factor...




trying it on for the last time







then i went home and watched all the videos we took that night at the bridal shop to see how all my finalist gowns look on me and that's how i saw what my friends saw.... the gown does looks stunning.... it hugs my body on all the right places and my waist looks smaller! and  i looked good on it on all angles unlike my other finalists that i have to be careful which side i need to aim for the camera so i won't look like a sack of potato or worst, pregnant.....







after that i made an appointment to the bridal store and went back by myself and bought it....

cheap find
at coronet with the lady waiting on me
the other nice thing about that dress is because it's a phased out maggie sottero (it's called SSM5161 and its actually from another branch named midgely sottero) the price already dropped plus the store is on sale that time so that's another price slash.... got my gown for $500+ which for me is a steal considering my finalists are priced from $1,100 to $1,300....and i want it cheap because i want to have a separate gown for the church wedding in the philippines so i can't splurge on the civil beach wedding's gown...








here's what the actual dress looks like, once upon a time when it's still posted on maggie sotterro website..... its now being copied and posted to several sites who does imitation gowns....





i just had the store remove the heavy train because its not appropriate for a beach wedding but i kept the outer chiffon layer so i'll still have a train.......then i added a one-shoulder strap because i really want a one shoulder style and then just bought a brooch to go with it.......i got the idea of the one-shoulder and brooch from an allure gown..... i was planning to make it look like the allure gown but the off-shoulder just looked better......
the allure gown with one-shoulder


i also added a sort of a cape-like thingie as additional accent..... i got that idea from one of pronovias bridesmaid gowns....... i thought that would look cool flying with the wind, which didnt really happen because it got all twisted out and didn't "fly",  but anyway, i just had to remove those additionals during reception so it would just be the original gown design....just a strapless sweetheart neckline chiffon dress....



pronovias gown (lerma) with a cape accent



below are pictures of the final design of the gown..... i decided to do an off-shoulder one-shoulder, if that makes sense, lol......




the heavy train removed and just the chiffon train left

the brooch i bought from amazon, the additional one shoulder and cape i asked the bridal store to add



extra post:

the bridesmaids dresses are from bill levkoff.... originally i was just planning to make all the bridesmaids to buy whatever chiffon-like cheap long black dress they could find but my MOH suggested it would look
better in the picture if bridesmaids gown all look the same so i gave in and this is the gown....



bridesmaids:
i want it black because (1) i want them to still be able use them after the wedding, (2) because black is slimming and (3) because i want to just give them a blue sash and parasol...... below is how my bridesmaids looked like....i get compliments on how nice the black and blue went well together....
 







groomsmen:
i really wanted the groomsmen to wear a black shirt so that the only color you'll see is black and blue but hubby said we shouldn't bother them with that, because atleast we're sure all of them have a white shirt and we dont want them buying a black shirt..... after the wedding i reminded him about my black shirt suggestion and he was apologetic for saying no to my suggestion when he saw how nicely the girls look and how the blue sash just pops with their all black dress..... but the groomsmen still looks good anyway, so i'm good.....and yeah, that's the boutonniere i made that they're wearing...