The CieLJ 12.08.12 Same Day Edit

Church: Mary the Queen, Greenhills

Reception: Oasis, Verandah

this can also be viewed in Vimeo http://vimeo.com/55445858

Credits to our wonderful suppliers

P/V: DB Phos

Bridal Gown: Boy Kastner Santos

Groom's Suit: Boy Kastner Santos

Entourage' Gowns and Suits: Alou Boutique 

Entourage Flowers: Serge Igonia
HMUA: Tippy Destacamento

OTD: The One Exclusive/Events by Thoffy Consulta

Church: Mary the Queen/ Annie/ Fr Rodney Hart S.J.

Venue: Oasis/ Jamie

Host: Missy Ferrer

Catering: Centertable/ Rina

Hotel: Astoria Plaza/ 2708, 2808

Bridal Car: Don Robert/ Jaguar Mark V

Photobooth: Purple Box

Wedding Rings: Hearts and Arrows/ Greenhills

Wedding Ring Plate: Trinkets and Favors by Designs Avenue

Wedding Cord: DIY, Materials from Wellmanson

Impromptu Post Nup: McDo Wilson ;p

The week after...

Exactly one week ago, we were in Astoria Plaza getting ready for the wedding. The plan was... or at least our abays plan for us was to make sure both of us were already in bed by 6pm Friday so we can wake up by 2am Saturday, in time for our our early morning ceremony. 

Well... that didn't happen. LOL! 

Friday, December 7

1pm - I was in High Street, looking for shoes! yup! less than 24 hours away and I don't have my shoes yet! 

2pm - LJ checked in for both our rooms in Astoria. I arrived about half an hour later. 

230pm - got some Mini Stop Chicken for late lunch (aren't Ministop chicken the best?!) 

3pm - Drove to Mary the Queen to check our contract. Good thing we did, since we missed a lot of primary sponsors names. 

4pm - dropped LJ in Greenhills, he still needs to buy shoes too! LOL!

430pm - I'm back at Astoria, just in time to see my parents pull over. Gina and Myra also just got there. Let the DIY cramming begin! 

6pm - My supposed beauty rest start time. LJ and I were cramming to get the Now and Then photos together. Astoria's wi-fi was failing us and we had to be creative. 

7pm - Ishy has joined us in the room. Souvenir bottles were prepped for some candy line-up. One of my bridesmaids, Stitch, dropped by to say hi. 

8pm - Nowhere near getting ready for bed. DIYs were in full swing. Ribbons! Ribbons! Tie those ribbons! 

9pm - off to Megamall to get my nails done. 

11pm - went to the condo to get my prep dress (which I will not wear in the morning, just because. LOL! 

12mn - we were still up... Mom's getting a mani/pedi, my kuya watching some videos, the bridesmaids (including a groomsman!) still in DIY mode, and Alou with Jake dropped by to lend me their arrhae. 

1am - Lights out for me at least. LJ decided to have a slumber party with his groomsmen and didn't sleep. Based from their stories, they even had the luxury of time to have some buffet breakfast. *inggit!* 

2am - Gina woke me up... we both fell asleep again!

4am - I got up... yup, just me. I took out the native fans and started to tie ribbons on them. I decided to enjoy the moment. Stitch arrived with KC and she helped me tie the ribbons. We joked that this was the 'calm before the storm' moment. 

430am - the DB Phos photo and video team arrived led by Chep, shortly followed by Tippy as my HMUA. 

5am - Tito Boy joined us and he immediately got to work setting up the gown. 

6am - well... we were preparing for a wedding. It was an organized chaos. I didn't feel panic, nor does it feel weird. Hair and Make-up was in full swing, people were in and out of the suite. 

7am - Finally got the chance to wear tito Boy's creation. There's so many words that you can describe it, awesome, amazing, and stunning were the top three words used. Friends and family however, described it with just one word --  "Cielo." It is exactly the gown that you will imagine me to want and to wear. Tito Boy did a great job, but more on this later.

8am - The pictorials were in full swing. This was the most awkward of all that happened that day. All those cheesy shots -- touch the gown, earrings shot, touch the curtain, look up from the flower shots -- well I had to do those. 

815am - mad dash to the church.  

840am - made it to the church. The bridal car was parked near the church office and I have a full view of the church doors. I had fun watching the guests gather up. 

9am - tito Boy was by my side, fixing up my gown, and making it all picture perfect. I heard the Manila String Machine start playing A Thousand Years and I was so ready to walk. 

I wouldn't say that the walk was a blur, I remember the faces, I even said 'hi' to a good number of them. I am aware of what's happening and what I need to do. It was just that I was too happy to care if anything goes wrong at that moment. Good thing everything went well though, and I finally reached LJ. We've been holding hands every moment we can since then. :) 

How to Get to Wellmanson Quiapo

I learned about this shop when I was trying to decide if I should DIY our wedding cord or not. I've read that they have all the beads, accessories and tools you'll need to make your dream wedding cord a reality. Naks!  

Since I have time today, I decided to pay Quiapo a visit. It's a weekday, all my abays have work, so I prepped to go there alone... with shaking knees. :) 

LJ tagged along, despite having zero sleep. He said it's part of his duty, so I happily allowed him to explore Quiapo with me! 

There are a lot of ways for you to get to Quiapo, we just decided to take the route that we think will be most comfortable for us, translation: naka-upo, with minimal need to transfer. So here it goes... 

CieLJ Cravings: PF Chang's

Wrapping up our engagement shoot at 6pm, with the sun setting behind us, our day was nowhere near over. We still had to drive to Cubao to drop-off Loi and Julius, return the dresses and props to the condo, drive the car to Laguna, and then commute back to Manila. As we left the condo to start heading for my parent's house, I realized I haven't eaten anything and was basically running on coffee and coke since 9am. We decided to head for P.F. Chang's China Bistro in ATC. It was the perfect place to have our impromptu date night and reminisce about the fun day we've had. 

P.F. Chang's classy interior is perfect for dinner dates, but cozy enough for family celebrations. 

Wedding Duties: 30 day countdown begins!

It's almost midnight and we've been so busy recovering from the body aches of the pre-nup shoot, getting the song line-up together, figuring out the guest list, following up with suppliers and handling our own office duties that it took me this late to recognize that we are already at the last stretch of our wedding planning. 

We were officemates in the past but this has got to be our biggest project together to date. From the beginning we've always treated this as business project -- I do the research, and he's the closer. We've dealt with suppliers with this tag team approach and we're happy, that for the most part, it has worked for us. I remember the first supplier we booked at the wedding fair, at the time we didn't have any experience in dealing with wedding suppliers. Heck, we don't even have a checking account then nor did we bring any money with us. Good thing they were nice enough to help us get to an ATM. That experience will always be one for the books; it was a milestone which pretty much gave us a preview of how this whole planning will be -- find the best deal, know what we need and what is important to us, be prepared and just go for it.

Dozens of supplier meetings later, we now have a whole team to help us get this wedding celebration rolling. We are proud of the group that we've gathered but more than anything, we are proud of each other.  Our tag team has helped us survive the emotional roller coaster that came along with the planning. I'm confident that after this whole crazy adventure, we can accomplish even bigger projects -- like having our own kid grow up with a British accent and make him learn a second language before he's three...?!?! whew!  

So before things get wilder, we just want to say, "Thank you!" 

To our suppliers na forever na namin kinukulit and yet, ever supportive pa rin...
Jamie of Oasis, Rina of Centertable, Thoffy of The One Exclusive, Joseph and Mark of DB Phos, Hearts and Arrows Greenhills, Lei of LilWhiskers, Andrew Villar for the comic cover, Annie and Noemi of Mary the Queen, Ted of Manila String Machine, Tippy and team (Loi and Julius), Kerwin of Printed Matter for our amazing invite layout, our dearest Tito Boy, and of course ang pinakamagandang designer namin ng entourage gown... Alou! 

We still need to touch base with the rest of the suppliers -- Missy for the programme, Serge for the flowers, Fin of Purplebox for the layout... it seems there's still a lot more things to do even with just a month to go but we're confident we'll wrap all of these up nicely...

We are grateful for our parents who keeps us grounded and shower us with TLC.Thank God for wonderful friends that we can lean on, for our whole entourage along with my wonderful MOH Gina, and our beautiful abay Ishy... they are keeping us from losing our minds.

Through the highs and lows, the tears and laughter, everything that came along with this experience will end up becoming priceless memories.

30 days to go... leshdothis! ",)