One Year From Today..

 

One year from today would be my wedding day. It would be the culmination of a 12 year relationship and the beginning of building a life together with my best friend. The weather would cooperate (hopefully), the guests would be happy for us and we would be ecstatic to finally embark on a new journey, this time as husband and wife.

So what have we done in the past year in terms of preparation? To be honest, not so much. But the church, reception and videographer have all been booked. Next would be the photographer and the gown. :) We already have ideas on who we want.. just a matter of making things work which is always a balancing act of outstanding proportions.

We wanted to have a small wedding wherein our nearest and dearest friends and families would bear witness on this momentous day in our lives.. and hopefully it would be perfect and everything we would want it to be.

So the countdown begins (as the ticker on the right side of this blog would remind us). A year has passed with us being complacent, but now the work (and stress) begins.

To Ian, the one constant in my life – Goodluck satin! Hope we can keep the fights (which I hear happens a lot during preps) to a minimum. May we always remember what this event is all about - even in the face of all the hoopla and persnickety details of wedding planning. I love you.

And here’s hoping I won’t turn into a bridezilla.

Weddings, Weddings, Weddings.

In a span of three months, I would have attended three - count 'em - three weddings! From none in two years to three in three months is quite a leap. I've greatly enjoyed all of them. As a bride currently in the planning and preparation stages, it's really an eye opener as to how it all unfolds during the day itself. I do believe it was Robert Burns who said "The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray." And no truer words have been spoken.

Ausa-Alfonso 04.30.11

Mendoza-Galang 05.15.11

Borja-Wasan 06.07.11

On behalf of Ian and I, I would like to congratulate and extend my best wishes to Mr. & Mrs. Eggy and Len Ausa, Mr. & Mrs. Michael and Sherine Mendoza and Mr. & Mrs. Brian and Isbel Borja! Mabuhay ang mga bagong kasal! Nawa'y kayo ay humayo't magparami. :)

Wedding Fairs and What-Nots

Planning a wedding usually entails attending a gamut of wedding fairs. And Ian, being the hands-on husband-to-be that he is (plus the fact that I need a driver hehe) usually attends with me. 

We've been to two wedding fairs thus far. One was at SMX and was a relatively small one and the other was at the Grove. The "How To Plan Your Own Wedding" Fair was very well organized. And each couple received goody bags containing a wedding magazine, a map and schedule of the fair as well as a wedding checklist. Needless to say, we were both impressed.

Next on our calendars is the wedding expo to be held on the 12-13th of March. Its touted to be "Asia's Biggest Wedding Fair" so hopefully we'll be able to get some great deals here. Looking at their list of ~400 local suppliers (some of whom we'd LOVE to get as our suppliers), we probably will.

*photo taken from themesnmotifs.com

My color palette! :)

From the moment I heard that I won an inspiration board (see post below), I couldn't wait to see what Heidi would come up with. Ian and I were thinking of using three colors - espresso brown, dark red and gold. Armed with this information, Heidi was able to come up with the color palette below. 

I love my inspiration board.. and I love these colors! :) 

I won something! Yay!

A few weeks ago, while finalizing our color motif for the wedding, I stumbled upon a website called Be Inspired. It was a blog full of beautiful pictures that inspired Nycia (the blog owner) and she just happened to be hosting a contest wherein a lucky bride would win an inspiration board created by Heidi over at Zenadia Design. All one needed to do was to leave a comment saying why one might deserve a little inspiration as well as the colors that one might use in one's wedding. 

the contest announcement

I thought why not give it a shot. Leaving a comment isn't very hard. And I really did need the help. So I left a comment and just continued browsing both their sites for the pretty, pretty pictures. 

About ten days later, while checking my email, imagine my surprise when I got an email from Heidi saying that I won the inspiration board contest! It was so surreal! I was ecstatic! 

Karina! That's me! yay!

Heidi does amazing color palettes on her site and I cannot wait to see what she'll come up with for me! :) 

Kikay Post: Fake Nails

I have a confession to make. I am a nailbiter. There. I said it. This odious habit of mine have been with me since adolescence and has been a blight on my otherwise beautiful hands. (hehe). Understandably, this has been one of my concerns come wedding pictures time. It's hardly attractive to view - as Ian so sweetly puts it - my hobbit nails immortalized in print. 

Thankfully, one of my maid of honors, Chat, introduced me to Dashing Diva Virtual Nails Nail Extension. From their flier: "Revolutionary (patent pending), full-cover nails for a perfect custom fit. Price includes nail application and polishing with color of your choice." It would take a minimum of an hour, perhaps more, depending on nail type, length, condition, etc.

I have to admit. The fact that the nail would be glued on your actual nail and embedded on your cuticles did give me pause. But desperate times called for desperate measures. I wanted to make sure that I had this option just in case I have awful nails by D-day. But look how pretty my nails were. :)

At Php800, this treatment is not cheap. But it is definitely a problem solver for nailbiters all around. Supposedly, the nails would last 2-3 weeks depending on how careful you are with them but mine lasted about 2 weeks. For each nail application (in case you lose one), it would cost Php80. I actually lost one nail, had it replaced, and then broke 2 nails so I just had them removed by then. 

Which brings me to the nail removal treatment called "Soak & Remove". It costs Php150 and would take about 10 minutes up. The removal process is done by immersing your nails in a sonicator bath filled with an acetone/lanolin solution. The bath would literally melt the fake nails after some time. I have my concerns with this removal treatment so I just tried to immerse the nails in the bath and not expose more of my fingers than I needed to. 

My thoughts: Is this treatment worth it? For about Php1000 (give or take) to have picture perfect nails on your wedding day, I think this would be worth it. But I'm gonna give growing my nails out and trying to refrain from nailbiting a try first. Let's just say that I'm leaving this as my last resort. :)

Note: Dashing Diva has a facebook page and can be found in seven Beauty Bar locations in Manila (Trinoma, Rockwell, Midtown, Greenbelt 5, Mall of Asia, Alabang Town Center and Eastwood). I had mine done in Eastwood. 

Deciding on the Wedding Venue.

Once the date was settled, the next question to be answered was the church venue. As the largest Catholic country in Asia, there are a plethora of churches where one can get married in here in the Philippines. This is both good and bad - the wide variety of choices may cause headaches if one has no idea what one wants (like me). haha.

Upon scouring various church venues on the net, you'll soon realize that only a few are actually considered "wedding" churches. The main requirement being that it would look in pictures. hehe. For us, we didn't want a huge church because we don't believe that we'll have that many guests. And we don't want the church to seem empty or "nilalangaw" in the photos. We further refined the list of choices to those that would seat about 100-150 people.

And from this refined list of choices, I found this picture.

and so we will be wed at the Transfiguration Chapel, Caleruega in Nasugbu, Batangas. 

Note: I probably got the photo from the website of Nice Print Photography when they featured Janice's (the bride) wedding photos.