CieLJ Wedding Ring Plate

Middle part of the year, LJ and I decided that we will not have bearers and flower girls. We don't hate kids, we actually have an overflowing list of cutie nephews, pretty nieces, and lovely inaanaks that we really wanted to be part of the line-up.

We had to be realistic though, being that it's a morning wedding, there's a high probability of sumpong and an epic fail walk.

Along with dropping the bearers, also went my plans for the DIY pillows. We don't want to embarass our secondary sponsors by telling them to bring the usual pillow. However, it just seemed too plain to just hand the priest the box of rings, so I browsed for alternatives, and I found this....  

It's a wedding ring plate or dish, that can be ordered from the US. I was a bit hesitant to ask LJ's mom to order it for us because of the hassle, and to top it off... for such a small plate, this costs around $40, nye! So the plan to get the plate was axed. 

Two weeks before the wedding, I still haven't given up. I was browsing for a local supplier or at least another alternative for the ring pillow when I chanced upon a sulit.com.ph ad! Yahoo!! 

They were even nice enough to accomodate my request with just a week of prep time till our wedding.   

I wanted the scribble to be like the one from the US, but after reviewing their past creations, it may not work out. The one from the US had laser cut precision letters, while the one created by Designers Avenue had a more rustic look.

I just settled for a fancy letter 'M' instead. The initial of our last names. 

Here's the finish product...

It turned out a lot better than what I was expecting! It was also very photogenic, and it matched our impromptu arrhae box as well.

Here's their contact details if you want to order

Janess Ojeda
Mobile: 0939-9075560
Email: janojeda@designsavenue.com

Wedding Duties: Our DIY Wedding Cord

There was absolutely no plan to make our own wedding cord. Tito Boy assured me that he will provide us the rope that we can use for the ceremony, and I was totally fine with that. 2 months before the wedding, I was toying with the idea of making our own. No reason in particular, I just want to do some DIY, it's sort of a way for me to de-stress I guess. 

I did a bit of research and found some blogs that suggested to go to Wellmanson. You can read more about how we were able to get there, here. 

The original plan was for us to get raw materials so we can make a big rosary. True enough they were cheap at about 30 to 60 pesos per strand. We picked the colors we liked and started to compute how much we'll need. We walked around the store and I was looking for some nicer ones that I can use for the "Glory Be" beads when we spotted some bracelets. 

LJ was already tired, so guess what he did... got the bracelets, linked them together and proudly said "ayan! tapos na!" I was in shock, and a little sad about the idea that I won't make it from scratch, but he did have a point. The last thing we wanted is for me to be stressed about this DIY cord and be covered by strands of beads... and of course, crying.

The beads were already nice, and all I need to do now was to link the hooks together. So we did get the bracelets, and I also got the pliers and some extra rings, 

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! ",)

Wedding Duties: Engagement Shoot BTS

Nearly a year after booking our photographers, we finally had the chance to schedule our engagement shoot. The location choices ranged from EK, to date night/action in Eastwood, Greenbelt or Fort, to 'work/recruitment,' and finally we landed at the Philippine Air Force Museum. 

LJ wanted a Mr and Mrs Smith appeal...

while I was hesitant to join that bandwagon. After a little "let's do this!" talk, I finally agreed to the action theme... BUT... gusto ko Nikita! haha! 

To prepare ourselves, we even watched Skyfall. The whole time I was thinking, ok... we need that dress, and that one... ohhh... and THAT one! 

The day before the shoot, we borrowed the guns (Shoutout to Alou! mwahh!), got our outfits together, shopped for some baon and prayed for the best. 

Knowing our luck, I was already anticipating rain. According to all the weather websites I checked, there's 30% to 33% precipitation... In tagalog... malabong umulan! 

we'll... 

umulan! 

CieLJ Cravings: Vikings, Marikina

Eating at Vikings Luxury Buffet was a dreaaaam... LoL! My dad got to eat here even before I did and super inggit!!! 

It was a good thing that Vikings in SM Marikina recently opened and they offered some promos. We immediately grabbed it! 

Alou was celebrating her birthday so she ended up eating for free. But even without that treat, since we liked and shared the Vikings Marikina Facebook page, we could get 20% off! yey! To make it even more fun, Alou treated us! so double yey!!! 

Some of the choices were great, some were ok, some can be classified as a 'miss.' It all depends on your taste. The good thing about eating at Viking is the variety. If you don't like a particular cuisine, then just skip it, and you still have dozens more options to try.

As for me, I started with some Japanese food... 

The Accidental Haul

It started as a normal weekend -- I decided to go to a dermatologist for a check-up to prepare myself for the big day. I knew there would be recommendations for Sun protection, probably facials and moisturizers. Well, let's just say it became more of a sales talk for 'stem cell' treatment, rather than a consultation. At the end of the discussion, with 8k worth of skin care and body products on the table, I told her I would come back. 

LJ was supportive and gave me permission to spend for the 'stuff,' but I wasnt sure if I needed all of those. I mean, 9 products to be used religiously?? Whoa! Now that's a commitment! I decided I wouldn't purchase the loot anymore. Knowing how my skin reacts to such things, I'm almost positive that there wouldn't be much of a difference. I might even end up with a breakout!! 

The doc, however, did point out my skin's weakness (I'm not getting any younger yah know!) so for the whole evening and morning after that, I was just researching about moisturizers, sunblocks and any other anti-aging potion in the universe. We had time in the evening so we dropped by Megamall and well, they had a sale. No, this is not the usual SM sale na walang kwenta, I do mean they have a SALE! eeeeek! 

I was just supposed to get a good moisturizer and an eye cream, BUT, I ended up with this... hala! anyare?! hehe!

CieLJ Cravings: Kusina ng Gerrys

Wedding preparation also means paperwork, lots of it! For us, that meant a lot of trips back to Olongapo, LJ's hometown. To make the trip a bit worth it, we dropped by the Harbor Point mall to try something new. I was attracted to Kusina ni Gerry's because of the combo meals. So, instead of ordering my fave viands separately, I can just order them as part of the combo, yey!

Wedding Duties: Engagement Shoot Location

Can you just imagine where we would be in this stage of the wedding planning without the internet??! All of us have to agree that this is such a great tool! For this particular assignment, I don't think I would have the strength to go through every nook and cranny of Manila just to check out locations that would be suitable for our photo shoot. 

While I was ready to pull out my hair trying to figure out a location for our engagement shoot when LJ found this article in Spot.ph. If you are also searching, we highly recommend that you browse through the different locations that they've suggested. 

SPOT.ph

Let's Go Snoe!

A couple of months ago I blogged about the new toner that I've been using - Etude Wonder Pore Freshner. During that time it was part of my skin routine, and helped removed the traces of make-up. It worked so well, I even let LJ use it.

Unfortunately, as the big day is getting near, stress is just inevitable, and zits followed suit. I had to change to something that is a notch higher and decided to try Snoe's Star Night, Star Bright Night Perfecting Toner. I got mine by chance, and packaging is not as cute as Etude's, so it's a bit intimidating. It reminds me of spell potions, well, if it's a beauty potion, then why not give it a try. LOL!

Wedding Duties: Happy Tummies!

They said that for the wedding, you should invest on two things -- great photos and amazing food. We do like to eat, but we don't have gifted palettes that enjoy complex recipes. We eat what we like, we eat what we crave. So for our wedding, we used that as our guide. When we were picking our caterer, we based our decision solely on the food. So far, we are happy about our pick and hopefully, our guests will be too.

We've attended food tastings with Center Table in the past. In fact, for this week, we had two. Takaw?! 

Wedding Duties: Bargain Hunt

My lovely Maid of Honor went with me to Divisoria to scout for good deals. The plan is to find items at wholesale prices so that it will be cheaper compared to the mall. LJ wasn't going with us so we had no plans to buy anything. I can tell you right now that this plan failed! hehe! 

Wedding Duties: Pre Cana Seminar

We were lucky that Mary the Queen offers a pre-cana seminar. We didn't have to book at another church or pay an additional fee. 

Prepare to give up a weekend and be stuck in a room to complete this activity! But seriously, it isn't so bad. It's just two 8am-5pm days and both of them could end up interesting. We know ours did! haha!

They have a room, specifically arranged for the pre-cana seminar, the seats are comfortable enough, and the space was well air-conditioned. 

Wedding Duties: CieLJ SaveTheDate Magnets

We've talked about how much we love the comic cover that Andrew Villar created for us here. It's been two weeks since we received it in our email and we are still raving about it. Best decision so far! ",) 

We never intended to have the image printed out, we just wanted to use it for our on-line invite, an event image in FB, and probably use it here in the blog. When we received it though, it was just too cool to keep in the internet and we decided to move a bit of money to have some photo magnets made.

Since this wasn't part of the budget we had to look for a supplier with the best rates. I stumbled upon Lil Whiskers by browsing through Sulit.com.ph. I'm not sure what to use as keyword so I just entered photo magnets. The list came back with photo 'booths.' nye!

Quezon Road Trip

LJ’s friends invited us for an impromptu road trip to Quezon. Unisan, Quezon to be exact. Where is this place exactly? It’s at the very faaaar side of the Quezon province. 

We left at 7am and arrived close to 3pm. We were unlucky enough to be stuck in a 3 hour traffic because of some bridge-road construction. At one point, we were beside a JAC liner bus with free Wi-Fi. It required a password so Alou knocked on the driver’s window to request for it. Resourceful! That Wi-Fi connection entertained us for a good hour.

Despite arriving late, we still continued with the island hopping. We paid 1,200 for the boat, 30 pesos for the Dampalitan Island and 20 pesos for Borawan. 

Wedding Duties: CieLJ Saves the Date!

It’s finally here! Our much awaited Save the Date illustration. LJ really wanted to have this old school style comic cover ever since he saw samples in the internet. He said I can do anything I want with the formal Invite, but he’ll be the design master for the Save the Dates.

After much delay, LJ sent an inquiry email to Andrew Villar. He’s the creator of the popular weekly comic strip seen in Manila Bulletin’s Entertainment Section, “Ambush.” Fortunately, he was open to our idea, and asked more questions to better understand the concept of what we would want to appear in our 'comic cover.'

Here’s the scene set-up that LJ provided… the advantages of being engaged to a writer, hehe!

Without further adieu, here’s Andrew Villar’s masterpiece for us…

Wedding Duties: Invitation Design

The rain and the fear that the roads were already flooded on that Saturday afternoon did not stop us from heading over to Printed Matter's concept store in Quezon City. I'm glad we went there since the invites displayed in the bridal fair were conveniently transferred to the store, making it very easy for us to recall which ones we liked. 

Just in case you are heading over to the Printed Matter Concept store in QC, they've posted a map online. You can view it through their website. 
Before going there, we browsed through some sample invites from the web, 

we were thinking post card, 

we were thinking simple, 

we were thinking washed out map background, 

semi-rustic... 

Wedding Duties: Hear ye! Hell yeah!

Less than 3 months left and we finally got a supplier for our wedding invites! Yey! We booked Printed Matter when we attended the Themes and Motifs bridal fair held at SMX. 

We weren’t really planning to hire anyone, this was supposed to be my DIY project… 

LJ thought otherwise; he was already imagining how I would look like -- a month close to the wedding, I'm covered with wrapping paper and entangled in ribbons, while crying that I can’t finish it. LOL! 

123rf.com

So to prevent the drama, we went ahead searched for a reasonably priced invite.

CieLJ Tips: Getting your NSO BC and CeNoMar

We talked about how we did not call the NSO hotline here. We didn't request for our documents to be delivered, and instead decided to do it ala-DIY by going to one of the NSO Serbilis Centers. 

In our case, the Makati City Hall (old building) was convenient for us, this is one of NSO's listed Serbilis Centers, so off we went. This is the building right along JP Rizal.

Here are the steps, it's quite easy. You seriously don't have to deal with fixers if it will be just for this. 

What to bring when getting your NSO Birth Certificate: 
Ballpen, for the forms
Envelope

A street vendor sells this just within the area if you are feeling lazy. There's no getting around the need to fill up the redundant form though... So flex those fingers! 

Here are steps as posted along the NSO Walls... 

Step 1: Get application form from the SCREENER

--- one form for the Birth Certificate, another form for the CeNoMar

Wedding Duties: NSO Documents

Amidst the fun and colorful wedding preparations, we simply can’t ignore the boring legal requirements.

One fine afternoon, LJ and I headed over to the Makati City hall to request for copies of our Birth Certificates and Cenomar. Oh! Fun!

Make-up Pick-me-up!

Etude is currently on sale, so I decided to swing by Megamall while LJ was spending a couple of hours at the gym. He allowed me to go alone with the condition that 1. I get back in time so we can still got to the Themes and Motifs’ Bridal fair and 2. I’ll get him some Spam Jam Musubi, deal!

The goal is to just go to Megamall, hoard Etude products and then get back home to finish some wedding planning… well I got a bit side tracked… hehe!

CieLJ Tips: How to Get to Tito Boy's Shop?

A small help for those who needs to get to the shop of the ever famous and well loved BKS. I'm sure there are more available routes, but these are the ones that we've tried. ",)

Here's the full address:

Unit 13 Cuevasville Commercial Bldg. 
Cuevasville Subd. along Daang Hari Road

Getting Ready for the Wedding

We will be having a morning wedding, not necessarily by choice, but I guess you can say, by fate. That being said, well for one -- good luck sa puffy eyes! I am a bit nervous about the preps. Since we'll start setting up at 3am, it's going to be very difficult to have a plan B in case we need to buy something or find an alternative if a supplier doesn't do well. 

demeblog.com

I ran across this article from theknot.com and found it helpful so I'm sharing it here. I particularly love Tip# 5, I'm pretty sure that will easily be confirmed on our wedding day. 

5 Tips To Getting Ready The Morning-Of Your Wedding

Wedding Duties: 3 month Stretch

It's three months to go until the 3am call time. Our major suppliers are booked, but now comes the hard part -- details. 

tybinc.com

CieLJ Cravings: Bar-B-King is Luuurv!

Have you tried eating at the Bar-B-King yet? no?! you should! 

With our frequent trips to Megamall, we've actually strolled past this resto many times but never really considered eating here before. That day, however, we were feeling a little adventurous (or perhaps "lazy is the right word, no?) we decided to just not think about it and walked inside the first restaurant we saw that offered rice and meat. 

We were so happy we did! 

Grilled Angus Belly Beef, Php 165