We all know how difficult it is to plan a wedding. The easiest way out is probably to just hire a wedding planner to do all the legwork, but I’ve always been a hands-on type of person. I don’t want to be limited to what a wedding planner tells me and just do things on my own. But as I have said in my post about wedding planners, hiring or not hiring one will really just depend on you—and the time you have.

I was lucky to have the time to plan my own wedding. That’s one of the perks of running your own home-based company—you have the luxury of scheduling your work hours, and the hours you’d like to spend planning your wedding. I did my research on the Web, and just called up and met those I even considered getting. My husband and I also visited bridal shows and expos just to be sure we’re getting the best deals possible. It doesn’t hurt to canvass as much as possible, but the thing is, it can be quite tiring.

What if you can “visit” bridal shows and expos online?

I think that’s the concept behind Online Bridal Shows. You get to save on gas and parking expenses, not to mention the exhaustion from walking through booths and booths of vendors. Another thing I hate about expos are the annoying sales people trying to get me interested in their products or services—I prefer to look at what they offer at my own time. Online Bridal Shows gives you that freedom; you don’t need to listen to sales talk unless you wanted to—you click only those you choose to hear.

To run Online Bridal Shows, you will need to download a 3D software from their website. There’s also a listing of the participating vendors within a specific area, which lets you know which to download and look for within the 3D bridal show environment.

This is actually quite an innovative idea, if you ask me. Even Bridal Shows are going virtual, explored through the comfort of your own home. Most of us might still want to see the real thing, but for others who do not have the luxury of time but would like to play a big part in the planning of their wedding without relying on somebody else to do it, Online Bridal Shows offer great convenience.

Visit the Online Bridal Shows website for more details. You can even share your own bridal story or participate in the message board discussions. Unfortunately for my Filipino readers here in the Philippines (and me), Online Bridal Shows only have US or UK-based vendors. So if you’re living in the US or the UK, you might want to give this service a try. Philippine-based brides-to-be might want to take a look too… There are also tangible wedding products offered in the Online Bridal Show (you can always ask a relative to purchase a wedding product for you and bring it along with their luggage or pay for international delivery). Who knows? Maybe one day they’ll consider having Online Bridal Shows here in the Philippines

I have always been fond of Chocnut, a local candy distributed here in the Philippines. It has a flavor of peanuts and chocolate at the same time. I just really like it, so much so that I named one of my favorite dogs, Choknat!

Anyway, during the course of our planning, I thought of giving away personalized Chocnuts to our guests. Marc liked the idea, but it came up a little bit too late—just a month before our wedding day. We didn’t have enough time to create these little yummy giveaways.

Since it’s a local candy, Chocnut comes in packs that are pretty cheap. You can get raw materials for decorating it in Divisoria (again, materials there are very cheap). The cost for these personalized candies isn’t a problem—it’s personalizing them that would take up most of your time. But if you aren’t busy, and still months away from your wedding, you can give this idea a try.

What you’ll need:

• Chocnut candy
• Regular bond paper (or shiny specialty paper if you want to go fancy, but avoid using the scented ones)
• Sinamay cloth
• Satin ribbon
• Glue
• Cutter
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Disposable paint brush
• Color printer
• Graphic-editing software (ex. Photoshop or PaintShop Pro)

Here’s what you need to do:
Create the design you want using a graphics-editing software. Make sure that your print area for each of the labels is 2” x 3” inches. On the image below, the red marks indicate the folds of the label when you stick it on the candy’s silver cover. (Once I upgrade this site’s hosting, I’ll provide a link to my Photoshop template file download The Photoshop template file is now available at the Downloads page). Make sure that you put in tiny light gray marks on the edges of the document so you’ll know where to cut.

Once you’re done, lay out the labels on a 7.5” x 9” inches graphic canvass. That way, when you print, you won’t waste paper and maximize the entire page. Print it out and leave the sheet to dry. Cut the labels carefully using a sharp cutter and a ruler.

Remove the labels on the Chocnut candies, but leave the silver cover on (the candy will break apart if you don’t). Put the labels you just made around it and seal with a bit of glue using a disposal paint brush (the bristles tend to harden if you don’t clean it properly afterwards, so it’s best to just get a disposable, cheap one). Don’t put too much glue, or you’ll smear the print.

When you finish labeling, cut a small piece of Sinamay and put a few candies in the middle. Take the four sides of the cloth and bring them up on top of the candies so they will be covered. With one hand holding the make-shift bag, tie it up with a satin ribbon. You’re done!

Chocnut isn’t the only candy you can personalize. Personalize any candy bar you want, just make sure you don’t remove the inner cover—glue on candy isn’t healthy You can even put tags and jazz up the candy bag as you see fit. Let your creativity run wild!

Whenever you hire a service provider, you don’t only pay for the product, but the cost of labor and creativity as well. My husband Marc and I run a small design firm, so we kind of know this for a fact. We don’t just factor in the hours worked on a project, but the value of the design as well. When you do things on your own, you only need to consider the cost of raw materials—you won’t need to pay for labor nor for design value, because you’d be the one doing it. Unless, of course, you need to “bribe” a creative cousin or nephew to do some “arts and crafts” for you. But still, it won’t cost as much as hiring a pro.

Realistically, you can’t do everything on your own. If you’re not an owner of a catering business, you’d definitely need to hire a caterer (you wouldn’t want to spend the night before your wedding cooking loads of food, do you?). Same with flowers. Hiring a florist would be logical if you don’t own a flower shop. But there are things that you can do ahead of time. Here are some ideas…

Wedding Planner. Marc and I have considered hiring a wedding planner, but eventually abandoned the idea. My work was home-based, so I pretty much have control over my schedule. I was able to find time to do the canvassing for suppliers and the actually planning on my own, with some help from kind friends and relatives. A wedding planner here in the Philippines can cost you more than Php10,000 (approximately US$200), which you could have added to upgrade your reception menu or get an incredibly nice cake. If the circumstances are right, you can do away with a wedding planner and lessen your expenses.

Invitations. If you’re planning your wedding in say, 10 months, you can actually do this on your own. Seeing all those fancy invitations can be pretty intimidating, but don’t let those embossed text and shiny boards fool you. Invitations valued at around Php80 a piece will probably only cost less than (or even more) than the amount in raw materials. Most of that amount is attributed to labor and creative value.

You just need to do a bit of research. If you’re not confident in your creative skills, there’s always the internet. Do a search of designs you like. Print it out. Then create your version.

If you like the “traditional” vellum, you can get uncut sheets straight from the factory. Veco Paper Corporation manufactures huge sheets of specialized papers for you to cut to your liking. If you’re not looking for fancy cutwork, you can always purchase the packed and pre-cut papers from a local bookstore—fold them up, stick the parchment with text, and put it in invitation envelopes you can buy in packs of 5’s or 10’s.

Going for the handmade look? Then go get yourself sheets of handmade papers. Bulaon Novelty in Tiendesitas and SM Megamall sells really pretty papers. Since you’re going to be buying in bulk, you can even haggle for a discount. That’s something you can’t just do when you’re dealing with an invitations supplier.

The photo on this series’ overview will show you how our invitation turned out (my sister, our household help, and I made those). I laid out the text in Photoshop, printed it on a regular bond paper, and had it photocopied on Parchment paper. Our guests never saw suspected it was made like that, and even marveled at how we were able to afford such “specialized” invitation.

If you prefer to have your invitation text embossed, no problem. Design it, print it out, and bring it to the long street full of invitation suppliers in Recto. They can do the cutting and embossing for you at about Php1,200 (approx. US$24) for 150 sheets of paper you provide. All you’ll have to do is to combine it with a specialized or handmade paper cover, add a little ribbon, stick some fake flowers, and there you have it: a seemingly expensive invitation for your guests to marvel at.

Souvenirs. The same principle in cost computation of souvenirs is basically the same as invitations: you pay more for labor and value.

A lot of the raw materials for souvenirs can be found in the streets of Divisoria. You can even find a supplier for personalized ribbons there. The challenge for you would be how to combine those raw materials, which can easily be remedied by searching the Net. Use Google or Yahoo. They’re here for a reason: search!

Personalized Items. Those were the things that probably made our wedding “special.” Everything just seemed to match. Marc and I went for a “modern Filipiniana” theme with a color motif of aqua blue and silver—we decorated things as mundane as our wine, table numbers, wedding programs/missallettes. Since we got the raw materials in Divisoria, we didn’t have to spend much.

The key in doing wedding stuff on your own are organization, patience, research, and creativity. You pay for labor and value if you can’t do it on your own, but if you can manage your time wisely, it shouldn’t be a problem. Besides, doing things on your own gives your wedding stuff a personal touch—trinklets made from your heart would be remembered and appreciated.

The first thing that you need to know is what exactly a wedding planner does. In the 10 months of my engagement, I’ve received quite a lot of proposals from wedding planners. And they offered me three options: Full Coordination, Semi Coordination, and On-the-Day Coordination.

With Full Coordination, your wedding planner basically just takes care of everything for you. If you’re the extremely busy type of person (like your scheduled is practically controlled by your organizer or something like that), I would suggest that you do get this option. Taking care of wedding plans is no joke, and if you know that you really don’t have time to plan your wedding, it’s best to just hand over the job to a planner. The planner will do the conceptualization, the canvassing of suppliers, and keeping you in check with all the things that you yourself will have to do (ie. Creating a guest list).

A word of warning though… Full Coordination planning comes with a price, and I mean that literally. Be prepared to part with a minimum of Php15,000 (approximately $300). Some even charge as much as Php25,000 or more. But then again, if you’re too busy to plan your own wedding, I’d assume that you’re making enough moolah that the amount for paying Full Coordination services wouldn’t be too painful in the pocket.

Semi-Coordination, on the other hand, is relatively a tad bit cheaper than Full Coordination. With this service, the planner takes off from where you started. Basically, you’ve already done some legwork yourself. This is usually best for those who thought they could hack it themselves but later on decided that planning their wedding is just too much work.

On-the-Day Coordination is what Marc and I have initially thought of getting. As the name implies, coordination is done only on the day of the wedding itself. Some would probably go out of their way to help you with RSVP and the reception program, but basically what the planner will do in this service offer is to make sure that the plans you made will run smoothly. But other than that, all the responsibilities of planning and supplier hunting fall on your shoulders.

Your decision on which wedding coordination service to pick really depends on your need, lifestyle, and resources. After my fiancé and I talked it over and analyzed all these factors, we reached the decision of not getting a wedding planner at all.

First of all, I’m self-employed. I run my own home office on web/blog design and development. I also own a small invitations and souvenirs business. Both are operated from home. So in other words, I have total control over my schedule—I would be able to allot time for planning the wedding since I didn’t have to endure the stress and fatigue brought about by traveling. I had the luxury of working at home.

Another factor to consider was the fact that I was connected with a lot of established wedding suppliers with the help of my dad who used to offer wedding photo and video coverage service in the 80’s. I knew where to look for the best suppliers, both online and offline.

Although Marc and I have seriously considered getting On-the-Day Coordination, we got lucky due to the simple fact that some of our friends from college volunteered to take care of the event for us as a gift. They were adept at planning major concerts and fund-raisers (our “main” coordinator even had experience planning his parents’ silver anniversary). And since they were doing this out of their own accord (and from the heart), we were assured that they would make sure that the plans push through (if there were any glitches, they would find a way to fix it).

Marc and I were glad we made this decision. Aside from saving a lot on our budget, it turned out to be a wonderful wedding. The execution of the wedding plans was even commended by our guests—they said it was a very organized wedding. Regardless of a few problems they encountered along the way, everything still turned out great.

I’m not discouraging you in hiring planners (far from it really), but my situation was a bit different. If we’re in the same boat, you might consider doing the planning yourself. If not, you’d better analyze your situation first before rushing into a decision. Remember, wedding planning plays a big role on how the actual ceremony and reception turn out. And this event only happens once in a lifetime.