Supplier's Ratings

by: Karen

Our wedding day was a success!!! Thanks to our suppliers who, from my point of view gave their outstanding performance.

Below is our supplier's ratings:

Grade:
5 - Malufet!!!
4 - Magaling!!!
3 - Pwede na!!!
2 - Medyo may kulang pa!!!
1 - Kung gusto mong mamroblema sa kasal mo!!!


1. Church - National Shrine of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Rating - 4

The church is very strict when it comes to requirements and along with it came other rules such as no unity candles, no personal vows, etc. We didn't had the chance to talk to the church choir personally for the songs which I think led to the mismatched songs played but anyway, the strictness paid off come wedding day and everything was properly laid out. Even the "manangs" were there on the altar to usher and to assist us. A note of improvement: it would also help if the personnel in the church office would slightly tone down their "masungit" factor.

2. Reception - Dusit Thani Hotel
Rating - 4

Dusit hotel is where we had our preparations and reception. Everything was followed. Although prior to the event we had a hard time coordinating with them since they changed frequently the banquet sales manager; however they still managed to organize everything and no problems was seen during the wedding day. They even offered us free meals for the kids and unlimited drinks for the guests! We got their string quartet package, minor thing we noticed was that "medyo pumipiyok yung mga singers nila". But the good thing was that they were able to follow the song list we gave them! The waiters were very accommodating and extremely nice. Very attentive and fast to work! The cake was okay and the bridal car came in right on time.

3. On the Day Coordinator - Events By The Friday Club
Rating - 5

Despite us just getting an on the day coordinator; Liza was superbly professional to attend to our on the spot inquiries. Being an overseas bride, it was really hard to manage all the wedding details so I had to delegate some of the foot work to my mother. Thankfully, Liza was very cooperative, easy to talk to and full of ideas and advice that helped us achieve a very successful wedding. From major to minor details they were able to handle and her team was very efficient and very helpful all the way. I was so calm during my wedding day because I knew they will be able to handle everything.

4. Photographer - Redefine Weddings by Jayson Arquiza
Rating - 5

As if I could not praise this supplier enough! Two words I would remember them by Asssteeeeggg and Happing Happy! Jayson, Joanne and their team was so easy to work with. Despite the last minute changes it was such a miracle that they were available during our wedding day to think that they are the most in demand photographers for weddings! Anyway, everybody loved them from me, to my parents, to the groom, to the entourage and the guests... everyone liked their work attitude; they were so accommodating, talented and down to earth and their work?? Superb! The onsite avp was excellent; we never grew tired playing it over and over again. I'm still waiting for the final output and pictures which I bet is another great masterpiece!

5. Hair and Make-Up - Irene Manigo
Rating - 4

I so love the hair and make-up done to me by Irene and Ava. Prior to the wedding, I gave them a template of the hairstyle I wanted and they were able to follow it exactly. I cried, danced and all but the hair and makeup was very much intact. One slight problem was that the mothers didn't like that much their hairstyles; they expected a more stylish approach. My mom's hair looked like she will go on her sweet teens and not as the bride's mother :-) Anyway, the make-up done to them and my entourage was still great and long lasting. They used the most quality makeups and provided retouch just when we needed it.

6. Coutourier - Mia Barlaan
Rating - 5

I love the gown created by Mia and so did the guests! They didn't scrimp on the beading and they were very quick to make the last minute alterations. The entourage and mothers' gowns were simple but exquisite. We also had to get an additional on the day assistant, Clements for the fitting of the gowns which we weren't informed initially so we had to pay extra. It was worth it since Clements was very prompt in assisting us and had the needle and threads for last minute alterations. All in all everything was great!

7. Secondary Sponsors and Flower girls Gown - Aling Violy
Rating - 2

This is the one and only supplier that gave me major headache during the wedding preparations. There was so many mistakes and misunderstandings. First, the cloth that should be used for accent was used for the main body. Second, the designs were all wrong and not followed. Third, we specifically told her to make a template or first lining first so we would not waste any materials just in case adjustments are to be made but she didn't follow it; and instead went with finishing the gowns and as expected she had to redo most of the gowns. Fourth, she was so hard to talk to. She would say different information to different persons so in the end we all got confused as to which is which. It's a good thing she was able to finish the gowns on time and they looked okay, nothing special just enough for a person to wear and so ends my nightmare.

8. Flowers - Mang Boy Mahusay
Rating - 5

Now I can really say "Mahusay talaga si Mang Boy Mahusay!" The flowers came in just in time on the hotel and they efficiently setup our flowers in the church right after the other wedding. My bridal bouquet was great! I so love the color and it stayed fresh even until the next day! I had no problems with coordinating with this supplier. They were easy to contact and didn't forget all the last minute reminders.

9. Emcee - May Ramos
Rating - 4

Even though we were not able to meet personally with May and despite the last minute program changes she was still able to carry out the program spontaneously.She was very eloquent and nice; although I was slightly hoping she would throw in more jokes and funny expressions here and there to lighten up the mood especially since some of the guests were somewhat dismayed on the delayed lunch proper.

All in all, these suppliers did their best for my wedding day and each of them played an essential role in making it successful. I can't thank them enough for being there during my wedding day for making it such a memorable event. Kudos to you guys! Hope to still bump into you one of these days! Keep in Touch!

Wedding Give Aways

by: Bryan

Last February 2008, we were thinking of a good wedding giveaways for our guests. Karen and I together with my mother-in-law to be, went to Divisoria to scout for good design for the souvenirs. Most of the figurines we saw were the typical wedding souvenirs being handcrafted by vendors in every stores across the streets of Divisoria.

Then, we saw this ceramic jewelry boxes with different shapes: round, square, heart, oblong. We liked it and we decided to have this as giveaways on the spot. This souvenir matched with our motiff; Shades of pink.

We bought 75 pieces and some pink wrapper and ribbon. After few months, we decided to add another 25 pieces just in case we need more buffer. I asked my mother, aunt, uncle, and cousin to have this giveaways wrapped and here are the pictures:



Here is the sample wrapped giveaway:



Simple but elegant.

Primary Sponsor's Gift Favors

by: Karen

For our Ninongs and Ninangs

Looking for the best gift favors for the wedding is actually not that easy to find. You're torn between being budget conscious and being lavish since the wedding is within the Christmas Spirit time (so it is the season to be jolly and generous). Amazingly, we hit the right balance of the two and found some good finds here in Singapore.

For the Ninangs, it's a pashmina and a Victoria's secret lotion. A pashmina will really be useful especially since the reception I imagined to be very cold (Dusit Ballroom) and the lotion (my Mom bought from Canada), well it's an added treat.

For the Ninongs, I can say was the hardest to find. I want to do away with the usual Wines, what have you; but would like to give them something they will be able to use and gives a somehow touch of Singapore. So there we decided for a desk pen holder found in some specialty souvenir shops here. :-) We're planning to wrap them once we get back to Manila since it's not worth the risk packing them now and cramming them in your luggage hoping for dear life it won't get smashed or crushed down along with the heap of baggages.

So here are the much awaited pictures:

Bride and Entourage Gowns

by: Karen

Since I am literally free nowadays, I've decided to post some updates. First, I finally saw my wedding gown with which I have provided Mia the sample design I wanted (simple yet stunning!). Second, I saw some pictures of my entourage fittings which the gowns are still yet to be fully completed. Well, here it is picture, picture, picture!!

Bride's Gown:
The Original Design..

The actual design..

Flower Girl's Gown:

Secondary Sponsor's and Maid Of Honor's Gown:

Mother's Gown:

As per the rave and rantings, I will save it after the wedding :-P We are all expecting the gowns to be finished by 2nd week of December (yikes! Wedding is fast approaching!).

The DIY Misalette

by: Bryan

Last March, we requested from NSSH a copy of our nuptial mass or misalette. NSSH sent us a soft copy of the template. Ate Tess, our contact with NSSH, informed us to atleast provide four copies to be distributed during the ceremony. The important thing is that the priest should have one.

At first, we didn't think of a DIY style of misalette, a simple print out would do, until Bhy saw a sample of a DIY misalette from a couple at http://www.weddingannouncer.com/. Well, we will not copy the idea though; We were thinking of a design that is simple and not costly. So I opened the laptop and created a design in MS Publisher, and for the final design:

A simple, 10-paged booklet style printed black and white in A4 bond paper. Here is the front page:

I printed a couple of samples to get the correct paper feed from our printer to print on both sides of the paper. After getting the correct sequence, I printed several copies.

The DIY Invitation

by: Bryan

After we finalized the design of the invitation and Bern, our photographer, gave us a good profile picture to be included in our invitation, we started to print our invitations. We scheduled to print at least 10 invitations per day. Even though there were some technical problems we encountered in our Lexmark Printer; we managed to finish all our 80+ invitations with minor problems.

From my previous post about our invitation, we slightly changed the outline by removing the location map of the church and reception at the back of the invitation. Instead, we just printed it in separate paper which will be included inside the envelope.

The Tools

Using the Photoshop, I designed the layout based on the draft I used. Here is the picture of the plan:
The picture is not good in quality, it just showed the dimensions, how the layout will be designed in photoshop, including the canvas size, the margin settings, the colors to be used and how to print the image.

Here are some of the tools we bought and used in the invitation:

Papers:

• Elite Nature Prints specialty paper available in National Bookstore. Paper specifications are:
• 10 sheets - 180 gsm
  
• Size: 8.5 x 13 inches
  
• Color: Blue
• Design: Big Flower

• Best Buy Tracing Paper available at National Bookstore. Specifications are:
• 10 sheets - 70 gsm
  
• Size: 8.5 x 13

• Paperpoint specialty paper available in bookstores in Singapore. Specifications are:
• 35 sheets - 160 gsm
• Size: A4 - 210 x 297 mm
• Color: Flamingo pink

Different kinds of punchers, including border, corner and hole punchers:
Different ribbons:
Glue, scissors, cutter, ruler and clips:
I bought an embosser with two swans as design. When I was in Manila, I have it created as dry seal in Makati. I'm not able to bring it to Singapore for baggage problem reason, so we will just apply the embossed design to the invitation when we return to Manila by September. Here is the embosser plate: The embosser is somewhat similar to this one but not that elegant... =):


I taught Karen how to set the printer in printing out the invitations. I also taught her how to punch the border using the puncher I bought here in SG. She did the punching of border every afternoon after she cooked our dinner while I was on my way home. I was the one who folded the invitations based on the designs, cut tracing papers for covers, fix the large ribbon wrapping the invitations. While Karen was the one who attached the inside ply, the tracing papers and the ribbon inside. I also taught her how to punch hole for the inside ribbon.

And the final product:

The location map for the church and reception will be printed to ordinary A4 size bond paper and will be included inside the envelope.

Sample Make-up and Hairstyle

by: Karen

The trial make-up and hair style for our pre-nuptial pictorial was done by, Irene Manigo. They came on time 12:00 o'clock noon last June 9 to fix my hair and makeup for our 2:30pm Pre-nup pictorial at La Mesa Ecopark. Irene's hairstylist was Ava who was very good in hairstyling my hair. I really loved the way she styled my hair. It's not the typical updo; as you can see in the back side it has layers of curls and pins.

Irene Manigo was very professional. She used Laura Mercier products for my face and it gave me the feeling of "no-make-up-on". She emphasized my long eyelashes, cheekbones and the blending of colors just matched my skin tone. She said she will deepen more my eyes and the colors on the day of the wedding. Surprisingly, during the Prenup the make-up stayed on and the more it was there despite us being sweaty and all, I still looked radiant and not tired/haggard at all.

I'm so glad we made the right choice for our hair and make-up artist. I can't wait for the wedding day itself.

Here are some of the pictures during the trial make-up and hairstyling:

The Wedding Invitation

by: Bryan

After we decided what would be our wedding motif and listed our principal sponsors and entourage, we plan for our wedding invitation.

We decided to have our wedding invitations be custom-made by us instead of having it created by vendor. At this setup, we can customized it the way we want. Karen did some research of the proper wordings being used in wedding invitations, some wedding invitation samples and designs. I did some trials of invitation styles using softwares like Microsoft Publishing and Adobe Photoshop. After comparing the styles, we come up with a design we created in Photoshop.

It is a three-fold design invitation. We bought specialty papers that would match with our motif, embossing template, punchers and ribbons. First, we printed a sample design in A4 size bond paper and have it showed to our families in Philippines. They were impressed with the style we created. We saw an elegant but simple specialty paper at National Bookstore so we decided to change the paper size so have a lot of space for the designs. Here is initial draft of invitation we showed to our relatives back in the Philippines.

We are still looking for best tool we can use to create the invitation. Here is the Photoshop images of the content of the invitation.

The design is already finalized.

We first planned not to use an envelope, but we realized, it would be more formal if we use one. So we looked for envelope sizes that could fit to our invitation. A 6" by 9" Catalog envelope fits perfectly for the invitation but we are still looking for a Baronial type of envelope for more formal look. After our vacation in Philippines last week, we found light blue Baronial envelopes in National Bookstore Glorietta. We will post here the final invitation once completed.

The Entourage

by: Bryan

During the planning, the first thing we listed are the list of who are we going to include in our entourage o mga abay. These includes Best Man, Maid of Honor(not Horror!), Groomsmens, Bridesmaids, pairs for veil, candles, and cord, flower girls, ring bearer, coin bearer. We decided not to include the bible bearer as we can designate it as part of the responsible of the Best Man.

So here are the list of our Wedding Entourage:

Best Man: Pio R. Balistoy, Jr.
Pio is a friend of mine since college. We were schoolmate in MIT. He was also one of my senior co-scholar in DOST at MIT. At work, he became one of my teammates in Accenture, unintentionally. He was also my mentor as DBA and teamlead in Accenture and one of the witnesses of our love story(masugid na tagasubaybay). After we pursue individual careers in Singapore, he become my teammate again in Dupont Singapore.



Maid of Honor: Julieth C. Doroja
Julieth or "Jules" for short, is a "Kumare" of Karen at Accenture. Jules was her batchmate/"kastart-group", CRmate and "kacoffeehan" in Accenture. She was one of her closest friend during her Accenture time. She is also one of the witnesses of our love story. She is still working with Accenture.





Groomsmen:
Phyll Jayson M. Aytona
Jayson, also known to others as "Phyll" is my first cousin and "Kinakapatid". He is the unico-hijo of my Ninong Phil(brother of my father) and Ninang Theling. Jayson is currently studying at Philippine Womens University.







Errol Jay F. Aytona
EJ is my second cousin. He is also unico-hijo of Tito Oyette(brother of my father) and Tita Dhina. EJ is currently on his second year high school and studying at Dasmarinas, Cavite.








Bridesmaids:
Carina M. Blanco
Carina is Karen's cousin. She is the only daugther of her late Tito Juan(brother of Karen's mother) and Tita Alice. She is currently working in one of the call centers in Makati City.








Tracy M. Aytona
Tracy is my only sibling. She is seventeen years old. She is currently studying at MIT.








Candle: John Paul H. Torres and Joesil P. Flores
John Paul, better known as "Ipe" or "Doc", is my high school friend. He is one of closest high school buddies. This tsinito-looking guy is a registered Dentist. He is currently working in a clinic in Makati City as Dentist. He is also a single and available. =)


Joesil is one of Karen's close friends back in Accenture. Joesil was her coffee buddy, charades-partner and also one of the witnesses of our love story. She was part of our team in Accenture until her team re-organize to another team. She is still happily working in Accenture.




Veil: Jeffjodel S. Martinez and Marigrace B. Mendez
Jodel is my closest friend since we were first year high school. He is the "lukayo" of our barkada. One of my "Utol" sa tropa. We once mistakenly recognized as my "kakambal" or twin brother when we were in high school.


Grace, also known as "Gara", is one of my cousin in my mother's side. She is also considered as my sister as she grew up and lived with us since she was a child. She is a registered nurse.




Cord: Dennis M. Gamez and Ross Elizabeth R. Asto
Dennis, or "Bam", is also one of my closest friend since high school together with Ipe and Jodel. Dennis is my distant relative on my father's side. He is the first in our barkada to become married. He is currently working at one of the branches of BPI in Metro Manila.


Ross, better known as "Rach" was my former teammate in Accenture. She was also my teamlead in DBA team and also one of the "tagasubaybay" of our love story.






Flower Girls:
Anjoli Mikaila L. Aytona
Kyla is my first and only female cousin in my father's side. She is the unico-hija of Tito Bong(brother of my father) and Tita Sol. She is now five years old and studying at Alfonso, Cavite.








Reysell Anne P. Mendez
Reysell, or Bianca, is one of my cousin in my mother's side. She is seven years old and daughter of Tito Oyoy(brother of my mother) and Tita Russell. She is currently living and studying at San Jose, Pangasinan. She is also one of my "inaanak".





Pamela Kirsten G. Olalia
Pamela, also known as Pam, is Karen's niece. She is the youngest daughter of Zen(Karen's cousin) and Quesa Olalia. She is seven years old and currently studying at Paranaque City.








Ring Bearer: Sid Alfred A. Perez
Sid is one of my young cousins. He is also the unico-hijo of Tito Hernan and Tita Lu(sister of my father). He is seven years old and studying in Bacoor, Cavite.








Coin Bearer: Juan Carlo P. Paje
Juan Carlo is a second degree cousin of Karen. He is the son of Mr. Herbert Neil Paje and Mrs. Cecille P. Paje (Niece of Karen's Mom). He is five years old and is currently in kindergarten.