Thursday, March 25, 2010

W@W: The Bride’s Yellow Pages (2010 ed.)

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Dear Online Diary,

The Bride’s Yellow Pages (BYP) is a bag-sized wedding directory containing pertinent information of churches, reception venues, honeymoon destinations and other wedding-related products and services. It is a perfect source of wedding suppliers especially if one would like to get in contact with some of the best and most sought-after suppliers in the industry.

Ms. Benz (of W@W. Thank you po for being so thoughtful :)...) sent a free copy to some of the W@Wies who helped her in completing the supplier’s directory, including me. It was on Monday when I received the copy. I immediately flipped through it’s pages and found loads of wedding suppliers. In fact, I’ll go ahead and make some calls and send out online inquiries to a couple of the suppliers that I found in the book.

{Our Free copy of BYP (comes with a nice W@W envelop) from Ms. Benz of W@W}

The book is also free on selected bridal fairs but if you want to grab a copy of the latest edition, BYP will be available for sale (P100/copy) at The Wedding Library, at the Filipinas Heritage Library (Makati) and at selected bookstores.



X.O.X.O.,
Myspace Glowing text

Sunday, March 21, 2010

The Chosen One

1 COMMENT/S
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Dear Online Diary,

... Our wedding date, that is. I was reviewing my posts when I noticed that there’s no entry about our wedding date – 10.23.2010. I believe it is important for people to know what’s behind it and how was the process of choosing the date (at least what we went through).

{The W@W calendar set on October 2010}

We, Filipinos, are superstitious when it comes to choosing the date of our wedding. Although there’s no clear view of how it started or where it came from, the one clear thing is that choosing the right date will bring good luck to the couple… and we want to have all the good luck that we can have. Who doesn't? :)

The church is non-negotiable. It has to be the Bamboo Organ Church. I mentioned here why I preferred to marry in this historical church and H2B agreed, without hesitation.

The next thing to do was to choose the date… THE date. We came up with these requirements:

A. It has to be on an uneventful month although we wanted to keep our anniversary date, which is every 21st of the month.

B. It has to be on a weekend. Weekdays are too stressful not only for both of us but for the guests.

Did I mention that 10.23.2010 wasn’t our original choice? We were keen on marrying on March 21st (which is today, actually. Oh gosh. It is such a coincidence that I'm writing about our wedding date today).

Around April last year, I dialed the Bamboo Organ registrar's office to find out if we can reserve the date that we wanted. The thing is, it falls on a Sunday and the church does not hold weddings on a Sunday but March 20th was still open. I wasn’t too keen on the date so I advised them that I’ll call back after consulting the situation with H2B, who later agreed on the day. As I dialed the number back to let the registrar know about our decision, I got nothing but a busy dial tone.

When I dialed the registrar's office after a day or two, March 20th was already taken. The only available slot was at 9:00 AM and nope, we do not prefer a morning wedding. It gave me anxiety and yes, my world turned upside down. The church won’t hold weddings every February because of the Bamboo Organ Festival so the next best thing is to choose from the –ber months.

Here are our arguments:

It can’t be on November. It’s my birth month.

It can’t be on December. Products and services are usually higher every December than any other months. We want a budgeted wedding.

It can’t be on September. It’s too early.

So, we chose October… Lucky October. It feels just right. Besides, 10-xx-2010 sounds great.

After coming up with our preferred month, we then chose the date. It has to be on a Saturday. We wanted to stay away from 10-10-10 because of some obvious reasons. We would have chosen the 27th of the month but I wanted to stay out of the Halloween weekend (no pun intended). 16th was taken. You now know what comes next. It makes me think that God reserved the 23rd of the month just for us. It’s ours.


And the rest is history. Fast forward…

It is only now that I discovered how lucky our wedding date is. Please note that we never referred to these things long before we choose our wedding date. Let me present some things I found out from vast resources that are worth sharing:

Exhibit A.
According to ancient beliefs, getting married on a full moon brings good luck to the couple. 10.23.2010 is a full moon as what we can see from the Lunar Calendar for 2010.

Exhibit B.
Chinese (and those who believe in it) publishes the auspicious wedding dates each year according to the Chinese Lunar Horoscope. 10.23.2010 is one of the lucky dates on the year of the Golden Tiger. What’s more interesting is that neither of us was born in the year of the Rat, which is a conflicting birth sign for this particular date. Neither of us is Chinese but it won’t hurt to believe, right?


Exhibit C.
We’re not heavy believers of numerology but the date should mean something good. And it does. Let’s do the math:

1+0+2+3+2+0+1+0 = 9

According to the trusty Wikipedia:

Nine

The number 9 (九, Pinyin: jiŭ, jyutping: gau2), being the greatest of single-digit numbers, was historically associated with the Emperor of China; the Emperor's robes often had nine dragons, and Chinese mythology held that the dragon has nine children.

Moreover, the number 9 is a homophone of the word for "longlasting" (久), and as such is often used in weddings.


As a final note, I’d like to stress that we did not prefer to marry on 10.23.2010 but God reserved it for us. Indeed, God makes the plan. HE wants H2B and I to exchange our “I do’s” on 10.23.2010.

That alone makes us love our wedding date oh so dearly. HE has given us the right suppliers. Although there are some challenging things we encountered and ought to be encountered in the future, HE's with us no matter what. Thanks to HIM. ^___^


X.O.X.O.,
Myspace Glowing text

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

The Birdcage Veil from PrincessWeds

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Dear Online Diary,

PrincessWeds offers an array of customized hand-made accessories that would let every bride's personal style transpire on her wedding day. They have loads of elegant products such as wedding cord, Bible with beaded cover, arrhae case, hand-made wedding souvenirs, hair vine, tiara and tokens for the principal sponsors.

Last month, PrincessWeds conducted a contest for W@Wies. It is pretty simple. All we had to do is to narrate how H2B proposed to us (B2Bs) and from all the entries, they are going to pick three W@Wies who will win a wedding cord, a birdcage veil and a hair vine.

Without hesitation, I entered the story (rather proudly) of how H2B popped the question on the occasion of my birthday. It was short and sweet but full of emotion and originality. To this day, I cannot believe that H2B can actually pull off such a romantic gesture. :)

{The screenshot of PrincessWeds' multiply site. Read the contest entries here including H2B's proposal}

Now here comes the great part. Just a couple of weeks ago, I received an email from Sis Che, a former W@Wie (hence, the contest is exclusively for W@Wies) and the brilliant brain behind PrincessWeds, informing me that they like the story of our proposal and that I’m one of the winners! Yey!

Soon enough (and after a handful of email messages), I received our prize, which was sent through Air21. It’s really pretty and adorable…

{The Birdcage Veil: Nice Packaging}

{The pretty birdcage veil from PrincessWeds}

Thank you, PrincessWeds, for sharing your God-given talent. You're an inspiration and more power! :)



X.O.X.O.,
Myspace Glowing text

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Bridal Fair Escapade: Wedding Expo Philippines 16th Ed.

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Dear Online Diary,

H2B and I attended the recently concluded Wedding Expo Philippines held at the PICC Forum. It was not as eventful as it was last year. Nevertheless, we enjoyed talking to some of the suppliers and gazed in awe to things, services and products that they offer.

{Environment-friendly bag from Themes & Motifs, wedding suppliers directory, Wedding Expo original audio cd soundtrack, entrance tickets for another bridal fair in April, and our name tags}

One of the drawbacks of this bridal fair is the fact that they do not allow taking of pictures inside the fair (it has something to do with intellectual rights). Too bad, most of the supplier’s booths are elegant and creative. Jason Magbanua’s booth is an epitome of a sari-sari store with a 32 inch LCD TV. It was very simple yet unique. It caught our attention when we passed by the photographer’s aisle. :)

We were looking for cake and invites suppliers but nope, we did not feel the “this-is-it” moment. We decided to go over the rest of the suppliers and we’re glad we did because we found a couple of impressive items and services. Here they are:

{Bride and Groom place card holder, Red Heart Key Holder, and trial photo from Poof photobooth}

The Bride and Groom place card holders are from Fun Wedding Souvenir Shop, which is an online shop for unique wedding favors imported from US and Hongkong. On the other hand, the little red heart key holder is from Splendid Specialties. They create one-of-a kind gifts and souvenir items. Fun Wedding Souvenir didn’t want to sell their items but I fell in love with the bride and groom place card holders. For a minute, I thought I wouldn’t be able to get it because the owner won’t sell any of the products (and stressed that it's for display to show to the clients). It was such a lucky break for us since the fair is almost over at that time (it was around 7:00 pm and the fair will close at 8:00 pm) and because I was a bit persistent, they sold it to me. Happiness.

We love the new feature that Poof photobooth offers, which is the ability to use not one but four custom layout designs which the guests can choose from throughout the event. after hearing this, we immediately jumped in front of the photo booth. True enough, the touch screen has four designs we could choose from – colorful nature, vintage red, purple elegance, and crazy black. What a great innovation. :)

All in all, it was a tiring yet happy event. We're actually excited to attend another fair next month (and hoping we could find our cake and invites suppliers). Happy preps! :)


X.O.X.O.,
Myspace Glowing text

Thursday, March 11, 2010

We Got Our Trip to Mauritius Prize!

5 COMMENT/S
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Dear Online Diary,

Yey!

Since it was my VL last Tuesday and I was in need of an outlet to de-stress, I went to SM Megamall, rather alone, to claim our Mauritius prize from The Wedding Library (and shop!).

It was a brief visit. Ms. Mehlda assisted me as soon as I arrived at their office. She checked the requirements I have, phoned Ms. Winnie for some reminders they might have forgotten to tell me and handed the certificate from Air Mauritius.

{The Wedding Library SM Megamall branch; Ms. Mehlda and yours truly; & our Air Mauritius Certificate}

Thank you to Ms. Winnie and Ms. Mehlda of The Wedding Library for being helpful. Now, what we need to do is to finalize the date we want to go to Mauritius and call them to set everything. Thank you, The Wedding Library and Air Mauritius. More power!



X.O.X.O.,
Myspace Glowing text

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

The Wedding Library and White Lace & Promises

1 COMMENT/S
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Dear Online Diary,

Did I mention H2B and I love to attend bridal fairs?

Attending bridal fairs is a must for couples who want to make their wedding preps memorable. There are so many things to learn while inside the fair as well as friendly faces to meet, not to mention, the chances of winning awesome prizes.

As if the prizes at stake at the fair weren’t enough, The Wedding Library sent an email survey to the registered brides who attended the Weddings & Debuts 2010 bridal fair. It was their way of thanking the brides who visited the fair as well as to get insights on how to mount an even successful event next year. As a token of gratitude, they gave away 28 White Lace and Promises by Agot Isidro Original Wedding Audio CDs, and 50 Honeymoon Sexy Underwear for the first 78 respondents (CD for the first 28 and sexy undies for the next 50) who completely answered the survey and sent it back.

It was such a lucky break. I received their email while browsing through my inbox, read it, answered the survey and in no time, sent it back to the appropriate email address. The same night, I received a confirmation email that I was one of the first 28 respondents. :)

So, just yesterday, I went to their SM Megamall branch to claim our prizes (the other prize is our trip to Mauritius -- click here for the full story). Here is it:

{Our Free White Lace & Promises Audio CDs: Album cover, two CDs, inserts (Agot's Thank Yous and the people behind the album), booklet (lyrics of the songs) and wedding discount coupons}


The Audio CD is packaged just like a wedding invitation would be. It’s very elegant and as a matter of fact, it gave me an idea on how to DIY our own invites. Awesome.

Thanks to The Wedding Library for being so generous. Please continue on inspiring and helping us, B2Bs, into staging our dream wedding. More power!




X.O.X.O.,
Myspace Glowing text

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Wedding Checklist: Caterer

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Dear Online Diary,

Thank God. We have a caterer. Finally.

H2B and I met Miss Anj of Ma Del’s Catering a while ago (right after work, I must add) to block our wedding date and give the down payment. Since H2B wasn’t around during the first food tasting (read the story here), Miss Anj graciously brought some food samples for H2B to taste.

{Sumptuous Food Samples: Roast Beef with Mushroom Gravy, Fettuccine Italiana, Pork Royale with Honey Dip, and Chicken Flambe}

At the end, H2B and I decided to seal the deal. We handed the down payment, signed the papers and set the date for the contract signing. It was such a brief meeting since Miss Anj and myself have been exchanging text messages about the deal. We went home super happy as we found a very reliable caterer. As for the wedding checklist, Caterer = checked!

{Smile for the Camera: yours truly and Miss Anj of Ma Del's Cuisine}

Supplier's Information:

Ma Del's Cuisine, Catering and Food Services
Tel. #: 641 3423
Cel # 0916 780 2705
Email: madelscuisine@yahoo.com

Website: http://madelscuisine.multiply.com/


X.O.X.O.,
Myspace Glowing text

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