18th Month Surprise

And it sure was the greatest gift ever that he's given me. A pleasant, pleasant, uber pleasant surprise.

Find out about it.

Soon. ^________________^

Little Updates

So we were Curacha yesterday. Walang pahinga. We got off work around 7:30am. We headed to meet someone and left their place at around 1:45pm. We were at Bacoor, Cavite by 3:30pm, thanks much to those stoplights, crossings and undisciplined drivers, we got stuck in traffic and calloused our butts for 2hours when we could've spent the time eating decent lunch or resting, to the very least.

Earlier that day, I texted the mananahi of our entourage's cocktail dresses that I'll be picking up the dresses after lunch. So after lunch was a vague description of when we'd arrive at her shop. We got there by 3:30pm. Thanks to my maid of honor, who patiently waited for us at McDo.

So we headed to the dress shop, my MOH had her fitting, a little adjustment and off we go. I didn't get to check the rest of the dresses as I'll have it delivered and fitted by the rest of the girls this Saturday. Overall, the dresses were okay, not that stunning as we didnt get to have them accentuated with beads or any other embelishment. It was simple, but still elegant. For Php600 each, the dresses were nice.

We didnt get to drop by the printing shop for our invites to deliver the paper materials. I promise we'll get it done by tomorrow so we could get the output by Friday and have it distributed by Friday evening and over the weekend.

And oh, we didn't get to sleep. We were home by 4:30pm, freshened up by 5:30pm and 6:00, we were then riding the bus again, heading to work. Again. Almost no shut-eye moment at all(we only get to close our eyes on the bus ride) but nonetheless, the day was great.

By the way, we're getting our license in a couple of days. Can't wait!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!

Wala lang. I just wanted to release that feeling na parang super scared and nervous and overwhelmed and problematic but still ecstatic.

Yun lang.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!!!!!!!!!

I know.

Crazy, right?

Who cares?

I don't. =))

Thank you, Divisoria!

Despite of me not feeling that well, we headed to Divisoria to buy materials for our souvenirs and check out other stuff that we need for the wedding.

As expected, thousands of variety of choices are there and of course, millions of people in all levels of society. I even thought that a W@Wie and her groom-to-be was there when we were checking out our flower girl dresses. :p

Anyway, here're our finds:

1. Tatay's suit - Php2,500 for the coat and the pants. Name of the establishment: Hi-Ico Commercial, located in 50-52 Pasilio W Cor. Pasillio Z Ilaya St., Yangco Market
>> we used Nico's body to fit the suit for my Tatay. You see, my father is the type who prefers to stay home. That is why he argued with us during the pamamanhikan when we told them that we intend to have the reception at a restaurant and not at our compound. Anyway, luckily, when we went home and had my father fit the suit and the pants, it was perfect. ^_^
2. Flower Girl gowns - Php400 each. We bought two for the little ones. Since we are on a black & white motif, we chose a white gown for them with minimal design on the torso as we plan to put a black satin/silk sash on the waist for them. Again, since it's Divi and we're from Cavite, we didn't bring the kids with us, so we have to use the power of our imagination to make 'tantya' the sizes of the dresses. When we got home and had the kids try them on (which by the way, they looked very cute with the dresses, too bad there are no pictures), both dresses fit the girls exactly however, my sister and my mom thinks we have to get a size bigger for both of them as they deem the girls to grow bigger in 4weeks time. Seriously? 4 Weeks and they'll grow bigger? Well, as they said, "Mabuti na yung may allowance kesa maliit." Okay fine. Oh, we bought the dresses from Jack & Jeng / FNB Bridal Boutique at Pasillio V, Yangco Market, Ilaya St., Divisoria

We haven't bought the black sash yet. But below the flowerettes will be where the sash will be attached.

3. Towels and ribbons for the towel cake souvenirs - Php, 1700 for 10 dozens of towels and 10yards of ribbons. My sister wanted the towel cakes for souvenirs as she has been lacking of creativity practice so, we let her be. And besides, the photobooth is a surprise. :p

4. Roses for headdress and entourage dress accents. - Php25.00 each. The first ones we found cost about Php45.00. Good thing we looked for other items and was eventually referred to Morning Glory store where all ribbons, beads and flower decorations are available in the cheapest prices. ^_^ I think this store is at Ilaya St. as well.

Lucky Cat Creations #3

I did not notice there were actually three different designs hahaha! I was so overwhelmed by the first one that I saw. Good thing I was reminded by my agents that there are apparently 3 designs to choose from.

Please vote which one you girls think is best.

Lucky Cat Creations #2

When H2B and I were at the first stage of planning for this wedding, we thought about the color motif. I browsed thru numerous googled sites and found a website that explains things about choosing the wedding colors and its meaning. We were targeting the combination of black and red but I saw there that it was bad luck! Haha! To keep the black motif along, I saw the meaning of the black & white combination motif. The Yin and the Yang. Balance. I thought, perfect. I never thought of pushing through with a monogram but when I made the deposit with Partypics, Miss Nadia asked me to send softcopy of files of the invites, the monogram, the prenup pics and the details for the photobooth backdrop. That was when I started googling again for sample monograms that I can use as reference when I design our own. I thought back to when we were starting the preps and I rememberd the yin-yang thing. I googled and found this yin-yang image with the rose. I then emailed JJ, my very artistic,-award winning- graphic designer friend the yin-yang image that I found and asked if he can make extra time to create us a monogram using the image as inspiration. Here’s what he was able to do for us.

I fell in love.

Highest props to my dear friend, JJ, aka the Lucky Cat for creating us the designs that suits us and our wedding perfectly. With little instructions and a couple of pegs, he sure did one hell of a job for achieving the absolute look that I was aiming for. I love you, friend!

P.S. Anyone interested on his designs, let me know and I'll tell him. Not sure though if there would be corresponding rates next time. Hehehe

Lucky Cat Creations #1

Prior to my friend and I's attempt on having a DIY invite, I originally asked a guy friend who is a graphic designer to do our invitation designs. But due to his busy schedule, we weren't able to discuss stuff until about the middle of April. He was able to get into working on the designs only about a three days ago (I think) because he was waiting for me to email him the details of the invites.

Earlier tonight, I received a text from him saying:

"May sinend ako sayo. Grabe, nahihiya ako sa inyo"

and another, 30minutes after the first message:

"Pasensya talaga. I kind of let you down."

I was on a cab then when I read the message, an hour and half after he sent it. I replied, "I haven't seen it yet, keri lang noh ka ba" though I must admit, i kind of got worried, thinking, "hala, ano kayang ginawa nyang ichura ng invites namen?" I felt chills run down my spine. Apparently, it was just because I was soaking wet and the taxi's aircon was in full blast. I was just feeling cold, nothing related to the invites yet. Haha!

And so, I arrived at the office 20minutes late from my scheduled shift. Darn that nonesense of being stucked in traffic for an hour and a half.

As soon as I was able to pull my systems up, I checked my work email and opened my yahoo mail secretly. I know this will get me in trouble but heck, I won't wait til tomorrow to get home to see what he did for us. And there I saw his name under the From tab and the subject, "invites design" with an attachment. I was excited and scared while waiting for a few seconds for the email and attachment to load. On his email, he wrote:

Pasensya na inabot ako ng pagkatagal tagal. I had a block, kaya pasensya na sa mga design, kung mayron lang ako naging extra na oras sana napaganda ko, eh i've been busy kasi, lam mo na, biglaan ako nawalan ng trabaho eh kaya madaming mga inaasikaso. Sana hindi pa kayo huli at hindi ko sinayang ang oras nyo. Okay lang kung yung original design nyo na ang gamitin nyo hehe seryoso. Pasensya na talaga.

You can mix and match elements from the different studies, you just tell me. If you want to use the designs, just proof the copies, tapos advise mo lang ako para maprepare yung files for printing.

Pasensya na ulit. If you dont mind stretching your schedule a bit, i can prepare a couple more studies, bigyan mo din ako ng ibang pegs.

He was apologizing for what he was only able to do for us. Nahiya naman ako lalo. For me, the fact that he accepted my request for him to create an invite design for us was already too much and beggers cant be chosers, I was more than thankful already regardless of his output. And so i opened the attachments and here are what he sent me.

mock-up sample image

I wont be posting the details of each page of the invites though. I'll have it saved for the wedding pictures and stuff. ^_^

He also created a monogram for us. That will be saved til the next post.

I TOOK THE RISK!

I did! And I do not know what to feel. I am embarassed for the sound of desperation on it but I am excited and hoping that I'll get a favorable response though I must admit, I am scared to bits that if she says yes, where would and how would I produce what is asked of me?

Ah, the price that we have to pay.

Hope my prayers will be answered.

The Church and my little issue of kaartehan

How will it be possible for the entourage march to last 3:25 minutes and the bridal march to take at least 2:00mins with a church aisle as short as 10pews (at a maximum)? This would not be like Caleruega wherein there's the pretty garden 'trek' that they could use as alternative for a longer aisle effect.

I have a month and 2days to analyze things. *shudders*

taken through my phone's camera. i'm already at the farthest point from the altar here.
got this through googling. this shot is from the gate and shows the right front side of the church entrance

Sunshine after the rain

And after days of pouring rains and with the sun refusing to shine it's light, now we're feeling the summer again. About time.

Along with the bright light of the sun is an answered prayer for one of the important keys on our upcoming marriage. The wedding rings.

I have previously posted how depressed and frustrated I was with the outcome of our wedding rings. After we took the courage of returning the rings and talking to my sister's friend, the rings were sent back to its maker and was re-furnished.

What we asked for was done. It may still have a few things off from what we were expecting but at least, what we hoped to be a better output was given to us. Our rings were simple as we wanted them to be. And it's simplicity made me love 'em more.

Here's how our rings turned out to be, after the 'tragedy'.

this is by far the best image we've came up with for the rings. Bear with the camera phone.

Spaces, Two Letters of the Alphabet and a Period

And I thought it was just me who has issues with names.

For those who know me from school, my first name has always been twined with a "Ma." (short for Maria). After 21 years of being identified as the youngest V with the Ma., and writing the longest whole name on every school paper, I found out that my birth name was just as plain as my face, without any accents, or second names and what-have-yous in it.

Eventually, I got over it. Haha. my only mistake was, I was stubborn to still put Ma. on some of my employment information. But no worries, in about a month and a half, I'm officially changing last names, and along with that, correction on my first name. Sigh!

The chaos with names doesn't stop with me. Apparently, my husband-to-be also has a teeny bit of discrepancy on his middle name. His was De La Cruz, with all the spaces evident on his birth certificate. And for crying out loud, i cannot believe a single space (or the absence of it, for this matter) can cause so much inconvenience! His driver's license and other valid IDs shows his middle name as DELA CRUZ. The DE and the LA clearly attached with each other. He even took time to argue with me, comparing his middle name with a known school here in the country. To top it all off, his mother, my MIL2B (mother-in-law-to-be) also doesnt have spaces on her maiden name on her voter's ID. Wow. Talk about overlooked detail. And for that, they got everyone all confused. Me, the registrar's office employees and even my parents.
Geez. I thought submitting the darn documents for the marriage license application will be as easy as paying for my dark mocha frappuccino. I clearly thought wrong.

Eventually, we were able to secure an affidavit of discrepancy for Nico and shelled out extra funds for that. Whew! I was almost on the verge of quitting. Good thing, my future husband is as patient as ever and super positive all throughout the process.

Right after we walked out of the registrar's office, we both heaved a sigh of relief. 14 days. 2 Weeks and we're getting our license. Hopefully.

Wassap! Wassap!

No, this is not Toni Gonzaga and Vhong Navarro's old Studio23 TV Show. I'm just posting a bit of what we've been up to with regards to our wedding preps.

Aside from buying my shoes for the wedding, H2B also bought his from Traffic at MOA. For crying out loud, I really cannot believe and super cannot understand why a pair of men's shoes will cost that much considering they all look almost the same to me, with the exemption of course of some with tied laces or buckles. Think of this, with his shoe value, I could've bought at least two pairs of Charles & Keiths!

Anyway, aside from our accomplishment for our wedding shoes, we were also able to finally find and buy his wedding suit! And on top of that, we got the coat and the pants for a total of Php4,500 only! H2B, happy. Me, happy. Our wallet, super happy! I was actually expecting to find the costliest at about Php5000 for the whole suit but lo and behold, Wharton saved us. ^_^ He is still contemplating on going all black with white tie or white tie and white longsleeves inside. He is also considering wearing a vest. Oh dear, I thought I was the one who's supposedly maarte between the two of us on what to wear, but hey, I am so dead wrong.

**For an overview, he's aiming for a Justin Timberlake-look on our wedding. And who am I supposed to be? Britney? Hahahaha!**

In addition to our wardrobe accomplishments, one more paperwork to go and our documents are all set to be submitted to apply for a marriage license. We just need the physical presence of our parents upon signing the parental consent form to submit for the license application. It sure is difficult to get married nowadays. *sigh*

On Saturday, hopefully we get to complete our church requirements both documentation and seminars. Lord, we pray for Your guidance.

That's all for now. I'll go visit Suyen's site again and try refreshing the page, hoping she's uploaded her wedding pics already! Excited much? Hahaha! Best wishes and Congrats sis Suyen!

Success!

I know I mentioned they won't be silver but hey, beggers cant be choosers :p I did follow most of my guidelines, though.
1. No blings!
2. Not higher than 2inches
3. No flowers
4. No exaggerated bows

And for that, here's my lovely lovely new pair of peep-toes, my bridal shoes!

White Ladies

I'm tamad to write lately. So I'll post pictures instead. These are from Rock and Roll Bride (click and drool ... lovely, lovely weddings there!)

What's the word? Teamwork!

I've been chanting those lines over and over again while H2B and I were doing our own little mock invites hahaha! I bought sample materials a few weeks back but never had the time (kasi tamad) to actually start with printing out samples. What we tried to finalize was the invite main page which details the wedding celebration itself. I just wanted to see how it would look like. :D So here're some pix of our first tangible DIY hehehe!

Materials used for our samples are just plain white bond paper and black cardboard which has this sparkling effect in the actual form.

A lot are still to be finalized as to the printing of the invites, though. Hopefully, we'd get to produce the look that we're aiming for.

Credit goes to www.weddingpaperdivas.com for the template/image