Wedding Preps Series: Two Months to Go!

We're getting there. In two months we will tie the knot and we are so excited! That one day we have prepared for for more than a year will finally come. Two months!!!

So in terms of getting things accomplished, we're  almost done with all of the major stuff, as well as most minor things.  A rundown of our suppliers:

Ask Monique: Dangwa Florist

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope you're all having a great weekend. Thank goodness I managed to squeeze in an entry, here's another mail from a reader. She was referring to my wedding florist post found here.

Hi Monique! This is Tina congratulations and best wishes :) thanks for your blog now i know where to get affordable and quality flower arrangements that we need, we are also getting married next year February,garden setting, im also maximizing our budget this blog is really helpful, i also love to put personal touch on our wedding,im planning to also do the aisle arrangements as you've shown, surely i'll look forward for more of your blogs re: wedding preps etc, thank you so much also if you are not busy pls do me a favor if you found something cool and amazing about wedding supplies or anything regarding weddings pls let me know :) gomeztinamarieyahoo.com thank you PS just a question,
 are the rates they gave from the wedding expo also the same rate when you go to their shop? thanks :) 

coz im searching for more of your blogs i found this page :)

Tina

Ask Monique: Wedding Preparations

The first mail that I will feature is from fellow bride-to-be Grace sent to me a couple of months ago. My reply to her can be very informative for most bride-to-be's because she sure did asked a lot of questions! Haha! I love answering mails and helping out soon-to-be brides like myself. Here we go!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Hi Monique,

This is Grace, soon to be bride as well, like you. I came across your blog upon searching HMUA. Thank you for your article about Berny Tia. Will be meeting her soon. :) I found your site interesting. And I think we have the same personality. I just wish I could also have my own site. By the way, did you have coordinators already? I'm waiting for your blog. Hehehe I'm having a hard time looking bec of limited budget. 

Wedding Preps Series: Divisoria Finds Part 1

It's our first trip for our wedding needs to the wonderland you'll hate and love at the same time - Divisoria. It was exhausting as much as fulfilling and exciting.

Some of our finds today:

In Juan Luna St., I got some art supplies that I need for DIY-ing. You can't get them in retail, only wholesale.  The Japanese paper (for the paper poms) was P25 per pack of 24 pcs. I also got some coloring and activity books for our kids entourage for P78 per dozen - what a steal! I wasn't able to buy crayons,  but they were priced at P90 per dozen (packs of 8).  I was supposed to buy some illustration boards and brown folders, but minimum purchase requirement was too many for my needs. 

Wedding Preps Series: Entourage Cards and Pre-nup Shoot Preps

Happy New Year! It's less than a year to go before our big day! I've been so lazy lately. I enjoyed the Holidays so much, I didn't lift a finger to do any wedding prep since November. I'm thinking, I want to get married already and start decorating our home! Guess I started planning too early, and now I seem to be losing interest in this whole wedding planning. But now that it's already 2015, we need to get back to work.

I've started sending out e-cards to some of our entourage. Mostly secondary sponsors only - who are siblings and cousins. The rest we'll inform later when we get to finalize the entire list.

Here are some of the cards I made. I had fun doing them all. This brought my excitement back, and I can say: now we're talking! This is it. We're moving forward.

Yes, these give away our motif. I might do a separate post about motifs soon.

Wedding Preps Series: Major Suppliers Are In Before Year Ends

Though I'm not feeling well while writing this, I know I'm relieved to have booked (almost) all major wedding suppliers before the year ends. That made us exempted from any possible price increase next year. Most were booked with promos, big plus! Also one of the major advantages was locking the date, it is so important.

Here's our dream team as of today:

Wedding Preps Series: Photo & Video Suppliers Hunt

With all the photographers and videographers in the wedding industry I almost

didn't know where to begin. All I know was our budget isn't unlimited and we don't want too post-processed photos and video.  We've decided we want an SDE (same day edit) and as months pass by I find myself becoming more and more picky when it comes to SDE portfolios I see. While I give it to my fiance the decision on the photo aspect as he's more knowledgeable.

FemaleNetwork.com's Girl Talk was a big help. I learned about so many suppliers through it.

And so the hunt began.

I've inquired with so many suppliers and viewed countless photos and SDEs. It was crazy. It was tiring as some point. I also joined Ruffa&Mike and Jake Olaso's promo in the hopes if winning a free photo and video coverage. Unfortunately, they were both booked on the date of our wedding. So let that go. Back to the hunt.

Our ceiling budget is 50k for the photo and video. It's a gift my parents would gladly give us for our wedding. So I need to stick to that budget and still have the quality of the photos and video we wanted. I will share our shortlist,  as well as the full list of photo and video suppliers we considered:

Philippine Wedding Trends: Celebration or Show Off?

I have always envisioned my wedding to be intimate, surrounded by closest friends and family, perky, light, happy. When I started planning for our wedding months ago, I found myself overwhelmed by all the elements that are expected in a wedding here. Of course, I've been to several weddings before and even then I know that wedding trends here have just gone above and beyond what the essentials are.  It felt like Filipina brides undergo peer pressure and this pushes them to put together this typical modern Filipino wedding - which is way beyond simple, by the way.

Photo source: www.praiswedding.com

My mom would always tell me, you do not need to have lots of money in order to get married. Thinking of what a typical wedding here is, that's impossible! But I know what she meant - what is a wedding for anyway? Go define it yourself.

Wedding Preps Series: Church Booked for the Big Day!

The most important booking of the wedding done! After days of calling their office to check if we can already book our wedding for next year, finally Archbishop's Palace opened their 2015 calendar for bookings. And we're the very first couple who booked for that year!

I was on my way back to office from warehouse when I called the chapel and got the good news. Since August 31, I have been calling their office daily to check if booking for 2015 is already open because I certainly do not want to risk losing out on the slot for our date. We decided that we do not want any other church as Archbishop's Palace definitely is perfect for what we wanted - a solemn and intimate wedding ceremony in a small air-conditiondioned church or chapel.

We can just imagine spending our Sunday family mornings here with our (soon to be) kids :)

Wedding Preps Series: Hizon's Grand Food Tasting Part 1

We went to our most awaited grand food tasting of Hizon's in Light of Love. My parents went with us because I wanted them to see the place. Our AE in Hizon's, Jorina, registered us for the event, but my name wasn't listed when we got there. It was no problem though, they listed us under walk-ins.

The food tasting was held at Trust, one of the bigger venues in LOL. It's a tent venue. The place was set up nicely with several small square banquet tables for the clients / potential clients for that day. They also had a full set up for the couple's area, presidential tables and the round table for the guests. The set up was their Rustic Garden theme.

Wedding Preps Series: First Grand Food Tasting with CVJ

Yan's most awaited part of our wedding preps: food tasting! Yesterday we went to our very first food tasting at the CVJ Clubhouse in Marikina.

The place was fully set up as if a wedding will take place. There was a lighted buffet table where their best-sellers were served. We were given a menu of the items being served that day. I was so happy to see Yan taking lead for the first time since we started planning our wedding. He was the one really assessing each dish and checking and crossing out items on the menu. It's what it takes to get him to participate - FOOD.

Wedding Preps Series: My Wedding Party Venues Reviews and Shortlist

I am happy to share my supplier reviews hoping these will help other bride-to-be's who are looking for options and feedback. The first supplier shortlist post I did was my hair and make up artists shortlist.  And now I am sharing with you my party venues options and shortlist. 

I have already booked our wedding party venue. It will be at the Light of Love Events Place in Quezon City, and I could say that we don't have any regrets booking the place. I like this place ever since I saw its photos online. You may see here my stories of our very first ocular and when we finally booked it.

When choosing the party venue I considered the following:

1. Budget: Will it not exceed our budget? (Big question)
2. Value for money: Does it include packages that will make my life easier and will cut down on my cost? 
3. Not too stiff: We do not want it to look too formal so we do not want a ballroom. We also do not want the venue to look too stiff as we want a fun and perky party.
4. Ambiance: Is it beautiful? Is there anything special with the place compared to other venues?
5. Space: Is it big enough and will not be too tight? Tight venues are no-no for us.
6. Service: Will the staff be of great service to us attending to our queries and needs before and during our wedding day? Will they make our big day stress-free?
7. Food: If food packages are included, are they good enough? Is the price worth it?
8. Parking: This is important. Will our guests not have difficulty parking?
9. Location

I have researched so many venues and I will try to lay them all out here for you. I will quickly do a run-down of all the venues I looked at (online) and my actual shortlist. If you want to skip to the shortlist you may scroll further down as I have pretty much included in this post all the venues that I have encountered along the way, including those that I still looked up even after I have booked our chosen venue.

Wedding Preps Series: My Hair and Make-up Artists Shortlist

I'm happy to say that I have finally booked my HMUA after thorough research and forum reading - which you can read about here. For those who haven't booked one yet and are still looking, I want to share the HMUAs and their packages that I've shortlisted and considered. It's a copy-paste straight from my personal note (which I have organized a bit, of course) from my Wedding notebook in Evernote that I'd be happy to share with you.

As I have mentioned in my previous post, I've never considered booking an expensive HMUA because I know I can find lots who are as good and who offer reasonable rates. As I've began my hunt for my HMUA, I've seen a lot of artists who offer reasonable enough rates and I've compiled them all. What I look for? 3 main things (in order of importance): client feedback, rate, portfolio.

Wedding Preps Series: Wedding Planning Back on Track!

Holla! Just got back the country from a 2-week business trip abroad and I am so excited to continue with my wedding preps. I'm back on track. There are lots of things to accomplish!

I am sort of pencil booked with Berny Tia HMUA and Events Simplified wedding coordinator.

Wedding Preps Series: An Awesome Wedding Need Not Be Super Expensive

Every girl dreams of being a bride on her own fairy tale wedding.  As I grow up and take on adult responsibilities, realizations dawned on me that it is not practical to splurge most of our hard-earned money for a one-day event. Yes, it may be one of the most important days of our lives, but I cannot bear the thought of spending half a million bucks just for that. I just can't.  

Before I begin, let me clarify that this is my opinion and I truly respect the opinions of others who'd rather have grand weddings. Many believe that it's a once in a lifetime event, which is true, and worth-splurging for. Dream weddings vary and do what makes you happy.

Now that I am clear with that and hopefully no bride-to-be's will bash me, I will begin...

Last year I bought a condo unit and, of course, I am paying for its amortization. With that being said, I do not have the liberty now of splurging on unnecessary things.  I grew up being money-wise, thanks to my mom. I usually do not splurge on expensive things even if I have money to do so. I have never in my life experienced being "broke" or short of cash because I always make saving a priority. (Plus the fact that I do not pay for rent, food, power bills, etc. right now) With a condo unit I am paying for, it would be impractical to do a really expensive wedding.

Luckily, I have always imagined my wedding to be a small one, intimate rather than grand.  Surrounded only by our closest family and friends. That's my dream wedding.

Three principles I am sticking with:

1. Spend on what matters
2. Maximize your budget
3. Creativity is the key

Wedding Preps Series: Party Venue Booked!

After one more week of thinking it over, considering other options, researching, reading forums and blogs, we went back to Light of Love to finally book the place for our big day.

As mentioned in my previous post, when we had our first ocular last week there was a wedding reception going on (exact time as we'll be having ours) that's why we weren't able to roam around the room.

When we came back yesterday we had the whole place to ourselves, and I loved it even more. We can envision our after-wedding party happening here. It's perfect for us, for what we wanted.

Here it is!

I'm in love with the glass ceiling and huge chandelier.
Our wedding party will be under the stars. ♡