The Quest for Our Wedding Invitations

Before we scouted for the supplier for our invitations we already had something in mind. We wanted something not too formal like the all too common wedding invitations that we receive when someone gets married. We wanted something different, hip, young and fun and which would reflect both our personalities. Not like this invitation in the picture, it's too stiff, too formal and NOT us.

(too formal and gaudy for our taste)

At first I wanted them personally handcrafted by yours truly but as time passed by I realized we just didn’t have time for that. We were both busy, we had work, had a lot of extra curricular activities and a very active social life, plus we are preparing for a choral competition in Indonesia on July 28 to August 2. Hectic! So nope, “sariling sikap” was totally out of the question. And so the hunt begins..

(DIY is easy on the pocket but time consuming)

I surfed the internet for card makers only to find they have common classic designs. We even went to Divisoria to look for suppliers and found most of them had the usual classic designs too. There were a few fun designs we liked but we were half hearted about those. And then we also heard of horror stories where some of these Divisoria suppliers could not keep their delivery date and some would even deliver the goods a good 1 week before the event itself. No thanks I didn’t want that kind of headache.

(worth P45 each duh i can make these for a cheaper price, wala lang time)

We went to the bridal fair in PICC a few months ago to hunt for our wedding suppliers. Now I have to describe how my partner and I looked like. We both look young and are always mistaken to be in our early 20’s. Both of us were wearing jeans, loose shirts and rubber shoes. I was with my blue kiddy backpack slung all the way down my back, fiancé was looking oily and pimply =)

We went to that exhibit with the sole purpose of looking for our wedding photo-videographer (PV). We already booked with our PV and was ready to go home when we saw the side where all the invitations were. We were so intent in our hunt for our PV that we didn’t notice all the invitation suppliers were just opposite of the PV suppliers! So with a bit of excitement at having all those suppliers in one place we went about the booths looking for designs that would really catch our attention. The first 2 booths we looked at had the typical classic and formal designs but we still kept on browsing for anything that might catch our attention. The representatives of those 2 booths didn’t even give us any attention at all because we both looked under-dressed and kept giggling at the cheesy designs we saw.

(one of the exhibit designs but we were half hearted about it)

As we moved on to the third booth named WINGDINGZ we already noticed a lot of people looking at their exhibits and I mean a lot. It was siksikan and we were at once intrigued. Upon entering, the decision was made—We. Wanted. Them. We began looking at their samples with growing excitement --There were a lot of possibilities, you can choose a design but you can still further customize it-- it was too good to be true! Then here comes Ms. Dennise herself (I think one of the company marketing staff) assisting us, answering our questions, looking very pretty and giving us her bubbly laughter. Right then and there we booked them and paid the downpayment (which was only P500 but we gave P1000 to avail of the bridal fair raffle promo) and was given 20% discount just for booking at the bridal fair. We didn’t even bother looking at the other invitation suppliers coz we were pretty sure no one could beat the Wingdingz offer.

A month after booking we met with Ms. Dennise at their office to make another partial payment and choose our design. We had a hard time selecting our design coz there were a lot to choose from. Finally we picked one that we feel would reflect our personalities and our relationship. We further discussed the format, additional designs, color motif, what to put on this page, what font, what style of card and envelope etc – we had to be particular since communication from there on would be via email.

(from outside pa lang you could see their booth looks so fun and colorful)

They sent us a rough draft of how our invitations would look like. We loved it already but there were some stuff that still needed editing. Communication was mainly through email but we were never ever disappointed because their replies were prompt. If we had questions email replies were always there in a few minutes or a few hours. I usually emailed revisions during the morning and in a few hours the revised design was already in my inbox. They were also very patient with us. They had to send us 5 drafts because we kept changing the entourage.

June 16 – we went to their office to take a look at the printed sample of the invitation complete with lamination and stickers. We made just 2 minor revisions but the editor was very accommodating even letting us peep at his computer and see how he edits it. For the stickers we wanted to put an ambigram of “yayiglets” that CM designed himself. Again mister editor was very accommodating. He made CM do a bigger version of the ambigram on a bond paper, scanned it and edited it further on his editor (whatever his program was). Voila! In just a few minutes our ambigram was done and was embedded on the sticker design. We loved it and gave the go signal to print the entire package leaving their office with big smiles.

That same day I had to text and email them of another change in the invitations, again, because of another entourage change. Ms. Dennise was kind enough to delay the printing and wait for my email.

June 22 we went to their office to pick up the invitations and were given coffee and a room while we waited for them to wrap the invites. There were some new samples ready for the bridal exhibit this June 26-27 and we looked through some of those. We were astonished when we saw the map for our invitation in one of their best samples. That made us smile =)

The thing we love about Wingdingz: they give and do what you want, they are prompt, give quality personalized service, are professional and very accommodating.

The thing we love about their invitations:
- For custom made invitations their price is a steal for the quality (prices as low as 3k++ for a package of 100 invitations complete with envelope and stickers)
- They have a lot of invitation formats to choose from (square, slim peek-a-boo, slim pocketfold, classic, standard slim)
- invitations and stickers are printed using the latest printing technology (hindi sha mukhang cheap!)
- cards are laminated matt or gloss with no extra charge so even if you spill some water on it you don’t ruin the whole thing or don’t smudge the text.
- When we started distributing most comments were how the invites reflected our personalities (very light and carefree) and how they looked cute and modern
- I love them!! =)
- To DIY die hards out there please don’t comment magkaiba po ang DIY sa custom made thanks.

(lovin' it!)

Our Wedding Rings

We booked our rings with Goldenhills during the Megamall Bridal Fair a few months ago and were given 20% discount for booking on the spot. They had the biggest display counters in almost all of the bridal fairs we’ve been to and was always top booker. We looked at other smaller booths but they sold the same designs for a much higher price. So we didn’t have second thoughts.

We were a bit shy at first when we approached Goldenhills’ booth but the lady who assisted us was very kind, I guess she noticed our hesitation.

The good deals the lady told us that finally helped us decide if we want them:
- we could still change our chosen design if in case in later exhibits we find a design we like better.
- you only pay a minimum payment of P1,000 to book on the spot and you get 20% discount which is applicable even after the bridal fair is over
- We can make monthly installments until we complete the contract price
- can keep changing designs until 1 month before the wedding as long as there is no go ahead from us for the creation of our ring
- can have the rings laid away (for safety) even after full payment until we are ready to pick them up
- lifetime warranty for resizing, as long as it is just half size resize per transaction


So now we had to choose a ring so she can put that on our receipt. We still didn’t know what we wanted and they had so many rings on display we had a hard time choosing. We decided we wanted a two-tone ring predominantly white gold with accents of rose gold (we took to rose gold because it gave a warm reddish-yellow glow), with maybe a few small diamonds. I don’t like big rocks kasi it’s not safe here in the Philippines. We found what we were looking for and she let us fit the rings. Wow! “This is it!” we told ourselves.


A few days later we went to Ongpin to check out the designs there. My mom warned me though to be wary because there were some unscrupulous jewelers there who wouldn’t give a second thought to conning us since fiancé and I looked young. Not a problem since we already booked our wedding rings before we toured Ongpin. We just wanted to compare prices.

We found one Chinese shop that looked ok because there were so many Chinese customers going in and out of their shop either looking at or buying new jewelries or having them cleaned or plated. So I guess this was a trustworthy jeweler. We were able to choose some samples and pretended to inquire… prices were fairly the same with Goldenhills. The lady wanted us to pay as much as 50% so they could have our rings done. We asked if we could do lay away installments for months before taking the ring home since 50% was heavy on the pocket. She gave us a brief odd look as if she’s never encountered our kind before. Well, no harm in asking hehe.. We tried looking in other smaller shops but it was hard to trust after the first jeweler because these shops didn’t even have customers. Oh well, after a few more shops we called it a day.

We chose their Trinoma branch as our "base" because it is where their "blacksmiths or service men" (or whatever you call them) were located and all Goldenhills customers who needed their services had to go to the Trinoma store. That was good coz we live just 10 minutes away from there. We did monthly installments all the time looking at Goldenhills' recent designs. We also went to their store in SM the Block to check out their designs. We had a few new bets:

This really appealed to me but fiancé didn’t like the design which is one side gold, one side white gold.

This one appealed to us both but we wanted it predominantly white gold. Plus it is so much pricier because it has larger diamonds. And it breaks the continuity of the circular band so that it is no longer a complete circle. We wanted our rings to be a complete circle.

This is our chosen design. It is a continuous circle, predominantly white gold with a belt of rose gold that “binds” the ring. We wanted it semi-matt so that the ring is not too shiny that it overpowers the brilliance of the diamonds. (This one in the picture is extra matt so looks kinda dull)

We already gave the go ahead a week ago to cast our rings. After seeing the final cast of our ring and trying it on we agreed it was a good choice =)

BRIDAL FAIRS

When we decided to get on with the wedding preparations I was a bit worried that there will be too little time. Believe me, surfing the internet is ok but setting up appointments with suppliers for discussions takes a huge amount of time. Realistically speaking, you can only meet and discuss with as much as two to three suppliers per day and that's if you have nothing else to do than prepare. If you are working and also have your social life and other extracurricular activities then that's a different matter altogether. Add the fact that you are working and also have your social life. There’s just so much to be done when you’re organizing a wedding so time is precious!

I believe Bridal Fairs are such a heaven sent because you save so much time and trouble. A lot of the suppliers are gathered in one place complete with their sample products, packages, and sales/marketing staff (for the haggling part) so it’s almost like a one stop shop.

I would strongly recommend soon to weds to attend as many Bridal Fairs as they can because you could really compare products and prices between many suppliers. Plus, you also get discounts and freebies if you book your supplier on the spot. We got three wedding suppliers during visits to bridal fairs and we were given tons of discounts and freebies.

Honestly, we participated in a lot of bridal fairs before coming to a decision. There was a time that we attended every bridal fair we heard of (SM Megatrade Hall, PICC, Trinoma exhibits, SM North exhibits, SMX, SM City Sky Garden Dome, etc)

To be frank, we saved P22,500 because of our on the spot bookings =)

Church Hunting in Manila

A week after the pamanhikan we had to rush our church hunting. The wedding date was so near imagine we had 3 months left. I was fretting because I knew there would be limited slots due to the fact that most couples book their churches way, way in advance -- as in 6 months to 1 year in advance.

Ok, so first stop: Sto. Domingo Church along Espana. It wasn't actually a first stop because our car only passed by the church so we could look at the facade. CM was shaking his head in the back seat. Sto. Domingo was too far from our booked reception venue (Intramuros).

Next stop, Ermita Catholic Church, otherwise known as the Nuestra Senora de Guia Parish. It is along M.H. del Pilar street in Ermita, a fair enough distance from Intramuros. There was an available slot for 2 pm but we didn't really feel like being wed in that Church. The surrounding areas of the church was a bit seedy and a little smelly, the parking was very cramped, the traffic outside is busy. It's not a very nice feeling to hear jeeps and cars honking during the wedding ceremony. The church itself was a bit narrow but as a bonus it had a long aisle.

(we liked the airy interiors but it wasn't really "wedding-y")

The package as I remember it was at P8,000 and it includes the physical arrangement, flowers, officiating priest, church organist and wedding singer. Not bad but we're not so crazy about it.

Next stop, Malate Catholic Church otherwise known as the Our Lady of Remedies. A bit farther than Ermita Church, we immediately liked the exterior of the church. This one had an old world feel to it thanks to the big stones that made up the church walls. Almost perfect for our theme (Filipiniana/ Spanish). The bad news is, August 28 was already fully booked since a year ago! Anyway, we fully expected that since the Malate Church is very popular.

(we were wowed by the facade)

(the interior was too dark and gloomy)

The package was P15,000... a bit over our budget but a steal for a popular, historical and beautiful church (compared to San Agustin's P22,000 or Manila Cathedral's P26,000).

A minus factor I noticed though was the main door of the church opened and closed just outside the busy street so I was wondering where all the entourage would come from. A few days later we witnessed an actual wedding and to our dismay saw the entourage start marching from the closed door and the bride waited just outside the door -- on the sidewalk while jeeps and cars passed her by subjecting her to the sun, pollution and dust. Not so good. Plus you could hear the traffic outside while the ceremony was ongoing. Also, the church felt gloomy and rather heavy I guess because of the dark interior.

Anyway, off to our next church. We went to the Pope Pius XII Catholic Center more commonly known as the Maria Goretti Parish. This one is located along UN Avenue and was probably just 10 to 15 minutes away from Intramuros (that includes the traffic). Of all the churches on my list this was my top bet (I guess because it was airconditioned hehe..)

(my original bet but I was kinda disappointed by what we saw)

We didn't really like the exterior of the church since it was under conctruction at the time of our visit. Also, it's so small you would think it's just a chapel when in fact it's a parish church. One positive point we saw was the huge parking space. The inside was a bit dark and dusty (also owing to the fact that it was under construction). The Aisle was too short.. it would probably take you just 10 steps before you reached the altar.

They offered a good package for P15,000 complete with flowers, physical arrangement, priest and air conditioning -- only the air con was not very cool. Anyway we still inquired and they had available slots for 2 pm and 4 pm. We pencil booked it for 4 pm just in case.

Off to our next church then, we went to Saint Peter the Apostle in Paco Manila. We liked it at first glance--the exterior was modern Gothic. Funny thing out front were the 2 gargoyles flanking each side of the church door, standing sentinel. It had no parking since the church opened right outside the steet.

We inquired and to our dismay discovered they offered a package of P20,000 which includes flowers, physical arrangements, air conditioning, officiating priest, and a choir. They have a lot of extra charges like for your photovideographer's lights, advance turning on of aircon, choosing your bet from their 3 choirs, etc.

(nice sana kaya lang super pricey and a bit small)

The inside was wide and spacious but the aisle was short. It was modern with huge stained glass windows at the side but in spite of these windows, the interior was still dark. The airconditioning temperature is really cool BUT it's not a very economical choice (and we weren't too crazy about choosing from their choirs because our choir would be the Madrigal Singers). Anyway, we still pencil booked for 2:30 pm.

So now we were off to our last church and least choice on our list. We weren't too keen to look at it since we were not familiar with it, never been there and it was inside Adamson University so we were thinking it might just be a small chapel. After some disappointments with the previous churches we visited, St. Vincent de Paul was different.

A first look at the exterior of the church gave us positive points: First--they had a big parking space and the parking was walled and had a gate. Second positive point, the church seemed to soar.. it was tall and if you were cruising down UN Avenue and looked to your left you could see the towering dome at the back of the church (it is an arresting site amidst all those roofs).

(we love those colored windows plus the interior feels cheerful)

We inquired first at the office before looking at the inside of the church. They had an open slot for early afternoon and early evening. Hmm.. well the time slot was definitely a bit of an inconvenience but the package price was just right for our budget. Only P10,000 including flowers, carpet, officiating priest, candles and electricity (no additional costs for photo video or guest choir).. Hmm we liked it immediately so we pencil booked the early afternoon slot.

(amazing!)

When we did an ocular of the inside we were astounded by the lovely colored windows and the domed ceiling right at the center of the church. The choir loft was spectacular and the aisle was long and wide. The church was obviously well maintained because the ceiling didn't have water spots and the walls didn't have molds or moss. Despite not being air conditioned, the church was cool and felt light, airy and bright (unlike all churches we went to who all felt gloomy because of the dark interiors) Perfect! We wanted to book it right away but wasn't able to because when we came back the office was now closed (it was a Saturday and we arrived 10:55 at their office. They close 11am hehe..). We went back on Tuesday and booked it and the rest is history. Happy with our choice.

You might noticed that I put a lot of emphasis on the interior of the church. We didn't want a dark church because CM and I are both naturally carefree and happy so I guess it follows that we want our ceremony to be held in a place exuding of positive vibes. As for the parking space, of course the security of our guests property/ vehicles are of utmost priority therefore parking space is indeed a priority.

Getting Married

I am getting married! Happy? Of course! Excited too and everything else. But it's not exactly smooth sailing.

CM formally asked my family for my hand in marriage last May 16 but prior to that we already told our parents of our plans. Last February I told my mom that CM proposed and last March during CM's lunch birthday treat we told my parents that we were planning to get married August 28.

During the "pamanhikan" our original tentative plan of a Christian wedding was changed. My side of the family is very Catholic so they wanted a Catholic wedding. "Honor thy Mother and thy Father" and that's what we did =)

We were not really aiming for a "bongga" wedding. I actually want it simple and intimate, just family and really close friends. Some people would say you only get married once so give it your all -- unfortunately that is the very thing that makes me cringe. I will get married only once, will wear my wedding dress only once, will walk down that beautiful aisle just once, everything will happen in just one day. So why spend too much (almost half a million pesos or more) like so many couples do nowadays? CM and I, we talked about it and agreed that we've been waiting for this, our friends have been waiting for this so will work on a budget that would mean we WOULD spend to make our special day beautiful but not too much so that we won't be able to eat the day after the wedding.

We set a target budget. We canvassed for suppliers, asked for quotes, haggled, compared prices, checked package inclusions and quality, did numerous food tastings and ocular inspections. We spent a lot of time itemizing suppliers and their corresponding costs, computing and re-computing, also making a maximum and minimum budget. Our goal was to work on a budget fit for 150 guests that would not look "tinipid", but just right.

Wedding preparations have not been easy. At present it still isn't and well, I guess not all wedding preps are easy. Being the frugal person that I am (and also Charlie for that matter) we opted not to hire a wedding organizer because we were cutting costs and we knew we can do it ourselves. I am a very organized person, obsessive-compulsive to a point, and CM is supportive and helps the best way he can. I am very thankful because not all husbands-to-be are as willing to help in the preparations like my fiance. We have our own assignments but I guess the bulk of the stress goes to me because I am the bride and as with any typical bride I want my day perfect. Who wouldn't?

Negative points to not hiring an organizer:
1) We are constantly tired and lack sleep coz we do all the hunting/ canvassing/ bargaining, etc.
2) I am usually in a bad mood especially if something didn't turn out ok and as a result I snap.

Positive points to not hiring an organizer:
1) Our wedding is very personalized
2) CM and I actually have fun canvassing coz we realize what we really want
3) We saved a lot (an organizer's fee is anything from P15,000 to P70,000 depending on the extent of the organizers task)
4) We get to bond more - this one is PRICELESS..

So how about you? Do you want to get married?