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...