Wedding Gifts From Love Ones ...

Couple nowadays, are the one spending for their own wedding; and that is what Allen and I had agreed upon, to work and save not only for our future but also for our dream wedding.  But of course, who can resist gifts coming from our parents and from our friends.  As the saying goes "Masamang tanggihan ang grasya" :)

Allen and I are so thankful for having such a wonderful parents.  Both of our parents are so much excited on our wedding day, every now and then they checked out on how's our wedding preparation so far?  What else do we need and how can they help us?  These are the usual questions we've been hearing from our parents.  I guess, Allen and I are so lucky of having them as our parents.

Wedding ring, is the gift that my parents wanted to give for us and a cash gift from Allen's parents.  Allen and I really feel more blessed, when our siblings told us that they will sponsor some of our wedding suppliers.  Another blessings from us, when one of our friend (Allen's former boss) will hire a "photo booth supplier" as her wedding gift for us. 

Those gifts will really help us save our wedding expenses :) Allen and I are so much thankful of having them... little by little I'm beginning to imagine our wedding day, full of fun and full of love :)

To our parents, siblings, friends, thank you so much for your gifts.  Allen and I truly appreciate it a lot. :)

Gown Sketches by Noe Reyes

July 20, 2010 Allen got the first draft of sketches from our couturier Noe Reyes.  Allen and I are getting more excited on our attire.  Swatches to be finalized this month of July and measurement will start 1st week of August..... need to expedite our diet workout :) Hopefully we'll be able to follow our timeline despite of our busy schedule in work.....

bridal gown - front / side view

 bridal gown - back view

mom's gown

 flower girls gown

Gowns and Suits (Part 1)

Selecting a gown for me and for my entourage is really tough... Allen and I decided not to spent to much on our attire since we allotted almost 70% of our budget to our venue and food, we even thought of buying RTW bridal gown here in US for it is really cheaper compare to buying gowns in the Philippines.

Oh well, after scouting and browsing, we ended up of having custom made starting from my bridal gown, to groom's suit, and to all our entourage. :)  Our couturier is a good friend and a co-supplier of my events business, that was why we ended up with a very good package.:)

How did I came up with the design of my gown?
 

For me, the simple the better... I am not a bead type person, unlike any other bride I know what I want to wear.  I am a big fan of laces because I find it more sexy and fresh looking.  In terms of the design, of course I want to flaunt my assets for I believe you'll be more beautiful to highlights your favorite feature of your body.  

Good thing my mom knows how to sketch, and she happily sketched my ideal gown by showing her some pictures of my wedding gown inspiration :)

 

My mom sketching my ideal gown... Thanks mom! :)

My Ideal gown sketched by my mom

Wedding gown inspiration 1 - I want the band around the waist for 

our color motif :)  But definitely I will not go for the A line shape

I prefer a bell shape gown to flaunt my curve hips :)

 

Wedding gown inspiration 2 - I like the style of the bolero but I will

go for 3/4 and have a flare sleeves for a princess cut looking 

to match our fairy tale wedding theme :)

So much wedding gown inspiration, but I'll just wait for the final design and sketches of our couturier... can't wait for it :)

Below are the pictures of gown inspiration for our entourage.  We want to be consisted of the flower as accent to match our fairy tale wedding theme :)

 

Wedding gown inspiration - for our Maid of Honor

gown color: chocolate brown, band: turquoise 

  

Wedding gown inspiration - for our Secondary Sponsors 

gown color: chocolate brown, band: turquoise  

 

Wedding gown inspiration - for our Bridesmaids

gown color: chocolate brown, band: turquoise 

Wedding gown inspiration - for my mom

Wedding gown inspiration - for our flower girls

Suit inspiration - for our male entourage, best man, and bearers

Suit inspiration - for Allen

Suit inspiration - for Allen

 

 Suit inspiration - for our Dad

Photos and Video ...

Photos and Videos are ways to preserve your once in a lifetime event.  Thus, it is worthy to invest a photographer and videographer to capture all the details of your wedding.  

With so many wedding photo and video suppliers in the Philippines, not to mentioned that I have worked with most of them in my events business, Allen and I are so overwhelmed with it.  

We do have photographer and videographer in mind that are really good but unfortunately they are not within our budget. Thus, choosing a photo and video supplier was really tough for us, Allen even made a matrix to compare their packages, costing, and their works.   

The following questions had helped us in choosing our photo and video supplier: 

(1) How much do you want to spend? - Allen and I set a minimum and maximum amount on how much we want to spend for our photo and video supplier (I guess we had the maximum amount). 

(2) How do you want to remember your wedding? - well for every supplier in our shortlist we checked their styles and we decided to have an editorial style of photos which is a combination of traditional (classic posed portraits) and photojournalistic (artistic candid shots).  

(3) How comfortable will you feel with your photographer / videographer?  -  This is important to us because I know that we are going to spend the whole day of our wedding event with them, thus we wanted to be completely comfortable with them.  I have no doubts with our chosen supplier since Allen and I have worked with them in my events business...

Can't wait to see our wedding pictures :)

DIY Wedding Invites ... (Part 1)

May 15, 2010 (Saturday) another wedding prep mode day for me and for my family.  I asked my family to accompany me at craft store to checked out  and canvass for some paper / stationery for our wedding invitation.  

I know, it's been so early for us to do this task, my objective is to canvass and check on how much I can save if Allen and I will have our wedding invitation "do it yourself".  

We went to "Michaels" one of the known craft store here in CA.  It was my first time to go there, and I really had fun and enjoyed checking on wedding stuff...."Michaels" has a section wherein all wedding stuff can be found.

Michaels Crafts Store in Torrance CA USA

Wedding Items section at Michaels

My Dad and my brother is helping me to scout

for pre-made wedding invitation and some

wedding stuff...

We've got a lot of ideas and at the end my brother suggested to purchase the pre-made wedding invites and have our wedding invitation to be done by ourselves... for it would be more fun and as I'd computed it, it is 25% cheaper compare to having it done by a supplier.  Here are some of the pre-made wedding invites we had considered.... 

option 1 - turquoise and chocolate brown wedding invite

with elegant band

option 2 - almost same as option 1 but different band

 option 3

With the help of our smart phones... I emailed all the pictures of pre-made invites to Allen and on that day ... we had decided to have the item below :)  Since chocolate brown is our dominant color in our wedding motif, the pre-made wedding invitation we had chosen was perfect and the graphic details of it matches our wedding theme "fairy tale".

Pre-made wedding invitation Allen and I had chosen

To make it more fairy tale, my mom and my brother suggested to change the wedding  band instead of a simple ribbon, we'll modify it with flower and we'll put some tiny beads on it to make it more elegant :)  I am so excited to do it .... for sure it will be fun.. but it will be more fun if Allen is here....

My mom scouting for wedding invites band

Perfect band for our wedding motif ... Thanks mom..

Items for our DIY wedding invites :)

Planning Our Wedding ...

"Why is it that everything leading up to "I DO" involves a flurry of " TO DO's"? 

I can say that being engaged for a year is enough for us (Allen and I) to prepare the wedding we want.  Based from my experience as an event specialist, whether a couple plan to walk down the aisle one year or one month from now, they need to ponder the following questions

1) How much time do they have?

Aside from the fact that Allen and I will be needing couple of months to cover our wedding expenses, we really want to have a long engagement so that we can plan our wedding very well., for this is once in a life time event for us, well of course I am looking forward for our 25th and 50th wedding anniversary but of course, for sure our first wedding event will be the most memorable one.  Also, I believe if it is a long engagement like one year or more, the couple may find free time during the middle of their engagement. :)

(2) How elaborate do the couple want their occasion to be?

Every couple specially the bride would always wanted to have everything on their wedding day and some of these are only nice to have.  If the couple is very particular and very elaborate on their occasion I can say that they should think realistically about what they can accomplish in terms of their budget and time.  This is one thing I've learned not because I am into events business but I've learned this as being a bride to be....

Often times Allen and I discuss every wedding elements and rank them from most important to least.  We tackle things that we know we have the resources, we make sure that we are on the same page about the overall feel of our wedding... of course Allen and I don't want to spend the entire engagement arguing as I 'd mentioned on my previous blog we want to enjoy this phase of our lives.

3) Who's helping the couple plan and pay the bills?  

 

Allen and I are so blessed for having such a supportive family.  Our families specially our immediate family are always there to help us plan our wedding, and one thing that Allen and I are very thankful of - is that our family always respect our decision for every wedding plans we have.  They will just give recommendations or suggestions but of course the decision will be finalized by us - Allen and I.

I have encountered a lot of couples who are encountering challenges like most of their family specially their parents are taking over of their wedding plans and at the end they will find that  their wedding plans are get invaded by other people's ideas.  Always remember the fact, that this is your wedding and not your parents' wedding nor any other person's wedding.  I guess I can say, that Allen and I are blessed for we don't have any challenges like this.

One of the greatest challenge Allen and I have now is the fact that we plan and prepare our wedding separately (I'm referring to physical) since I am currently working here in US and Allen is working in the Philippines. Despite of our situation, Allen and I make sure to communicate every wedding details and wedding preparations through some technologies Allen and I are being utilized.  Since, Allen and I are both IT graduate, we are making use of the following technologies that help us plan and prepare our wedding together:

• Email - Allen and I signed up one email account (allen.raine2010@gmail.com) this is the email address that we give to all our wedding suppliers and potential suppliers, so that anyone of us can check it. 
• Smart phones -  Having a smart phone (blackberry for me, Nokia E series for Allen) make our communication very easily, we receive email with pictures attachment - so every time each one of us encountered pictures of some wedding inspiration we can easily exchange pictures and ideas thru email and receive it via mobile.  Aside from that, we can even chat (Yahoo Messenger) via our phone and through Skype mobile we can easily call each other anytime with no long distance charge :)
•  Wedding Wire (www.weddingwire.com) - this is the tool that Allen and I are using to monitor all our wedding activities online.  Wedding wire is a software that offers online search, project planning, and community tools for assisting with the wedding planning process.  This tool is not only good for couple but for vendors or suppliers as well.  It has a lot of planning tools available for the couple, some of the tools Allen and I are currently using:
• Wedding website - www.weddingwire.com/allenraine 
• Checklist - this is where Allen and I monitor our to do's and check if we are still on track.  It has a reminder notification if such activity is due. 
• Budget -  this is where Allen and I monitor and track our wedding expenses
• Vendor - this is where Allen and I manage all our vendors all suppliers
• Guests - this is where Allen and I manage all our wedding guests.  It has an online RSVP tool that we can easily track confirmed guests 
• Others (too many to mention)

Well, I can say Allen and I simplifies our wedding planning by leveraging technology good thing we are fond of using those technologies.  But what keeps our wedding plans and preparations on time despite of our distance is the fact that I have a very hands-on groom. 

I am so thankful for having such a very hands-on groom, Allen do most of the legwork of our wedding preparations such as meeting up with the suppliers,  signing of contract to our suppliers, ocular, canvass, etc.  I know it would be more fun if we do things together... but this is what we have now. We are just thankful that despite of the distance Allen and I have, not to mention the time difference... I can say both of us are having fun planning and preparing our wedding, and that is what really matter to both of us  :)

 wedding meeting with honey via skype :)

Save The Date....

A "Save The Date" is an item stating the date of a wedding so that the guests or recipients will know and will keep that date free.  It is usually in a form of a card / post card, it can be a refrigerator magnet, or any unique item.  A "Save The Date" are then usually followed by a formal wedding invitation. 

So when to have a "Save The Date" ?  If a couple is marrying during high-travel times like holiday weekend just like our wedding date "January 2, 2011" wherein new year's party and family reunion is usually being celebrated, a "save the date" is an expected courtesy. And having a "save the date" will give our guests specially our guests who are part of the entourage the heads up about our wedding plans, like we are planning to have an out of town wedding in Tagaytay.  

When do we send them?  Well, they said as a general rule, it's best to start spreading the wedding plans at around six months prior to the wedding date and eight months for out of town wedding.  This gives the guests plenty of time to book their travel, save a bit of cash, and of course, ask for the days off from work.  Any earlier is better, if it is given later it might as well be an invitation... 

Allen and I with the help of my brother already drafted and finalized our "save the date" and to follow our timeline we need to distribute it this 1st and 2nd week of May 2010.... Below is our "fairy tale save the date" made by Francis.

As per my opinion as a wedding specialist, there is no need to send "save the date" to everyone.  "Save the date" should be given first to guests who are part of the entourage and liturgical participants and guests  that you definitely want to attend.  Of course, we don't want to print 100 "save the date" that is not environmental friendly... so emailing it to our guests  will be the cheapest way to distribute "save the date", except for the guests who are part of the entourage, of course we have to meet them personally out of courtesy specially to our "ninongs" and "ninangs" to invite them. :)  Also, it is always a best idea to give them a means on how to get their response, an online RSVP is a very good tool, the way Allen and I did. 

Wedding etiquette tip - If someone receives a save-the-date and will be unable to attend, they are likely to offer regrets far in advance. You still need to send a wedding invitation as a common courtesy.