Recently, Blue Water Day Spa opened its first spa movie theater in Ortigas Avenue. This trendy new spa can accommodate 55 people at a given time, equipped with a Spa Theater, Couple’s Rooms, Common Rooms, Locker Rooms, and a Sauna. The Spa Theater, by itself, can accommodate 28 people at the same time.

A bridal shower might be a common thing for something like this—gather 27 of your girlfriends and party the night away at this unique new venue. The theater has High Definition cinema projectors with Dolby Sorround 7.1 sound (and plays the latest BlueRay releases), making you feel like you’re inside a real movie theater. While your maid-of-honor is belting out “I will always love you” on videoke or the girls are crying their way through a stack of chick-flicks, you can have Foot Reflex (With Back and Shoulder massage) and Foot Scrub done—the only treatments available at the spa theater. Which, I think, makes this spa theater really different from all the usual offerings of the Blue Water Day Spa in Ortigas.

Since the only treatments available at the spa theater are those that don’t require you to take off your clothes—something I’m sure you wouldn’t mind doing in front of all your girlfriends since all of you are girls anyway—the spa theater can cater to events for the whole family.

How about having your Despedida de Soltera at the Bue Water Day Spa theater?

Imagine having your “Farewell to spinsterhood / single-hood” at a spa theater. Despedida de Soltera is usually attended by the groom and the bride’s family and entourage. If you don’t have that many people in your crew, why not give them a relaxing treat? This wedding tradition is usually held a week before the wedding day—a day at the spa theater would be a great way to relax after all the months of tedious preparations. And since you have an entire theater to yourself, you can even show home videos from both sides of the family—an intimate bonding session where you can relive childhood memories, relax, and get to know each other better before becoming part of each other’s families come wedding day.

For more information about the Spa Theater at Blue Water Day Spa, you can visit Francis’ blog post. He also has more photos there.

Too bad I lost the link to this online quiz which “determines” if you’re turning to be a Bridezilla or not. But, as we all know, stress can really trigger the monster in all of us. And planning your wedding, can be really stressful. I can’t tell you if you’re already becoming a Bridezilla, but here are some things that might help you not to turn into one

Respect other’s suggestions and opinions
True, it’s your wedding. But you should remember that it’s not just about you, and it’s also a gathering of sorts. You must learn to listen to other’s suggestions and opinions too. Because of the stress, there might be some things that you missed out that others see. They’re not trying to overshadow you, control you, or ruin your wedding plans—they’re just trying to help. There’s no need to be Bridezilla and snap at just about anybody who tries to help. You’re lucky someone cared about you enough to help you know. Besides, they’re only suggestions—you just need to listen, you don’t necessarily have to do it if you don’t want to.

Make up your mind
This is a common Bridezilla thing that I have to admit I also had been guilty of: you must learn to make up your mind when deciding on things. For example, you’ve already decided on a specific custom invitation design. Make it final. Before you even decide on anything, make sure you didn’t decide in haste. You can’t just say, “I’ve decided on this design,” then change your mind later on. Imagine the hassle you will give your supplier. Remember, stuff like that requires raw materials. You can’t just change your mind in the middle of production.

There are times when brides hire freelancers to design their wedding stuff. I’ve heard some complaints from my friends who are freelance wedding suppliers about Bridezillas demanding for changes in the middle of production. Just because they aren’t big companies doesn’t mean you can abuse them. Be considerate. Imagine if the same was done to you. Just because you’re getting married doesn’t mean you can hassle anyone and everyone for your “perfect” wedding. Make sure you’ve already reviewed all of your other options before giving your suppliers your final decision.

Learn to compromise
Most of the time, grooms-to-be just let the women do the choosing of wedding stuff and suppliers. My husband himself didn’t want to think about the wedding details and left it up to me, although there were times that he took an active part in the decision-making—especially on things that could possibly affect him directly like the cake flavor and the design of his Barong Tagalog. But sometimes, there are grooms-to-be who would like to be part of the decision-making.

Arguments usually arise especially when the bride and the groom have different tastes. Sometimes these arguments could get so bad that a wedding is at risk of getting called of. The trick here is to not let things get worse. You and your groom-to-be should learn how to compromise. Find a middle ground where you both can be happy with. Some guys may let you have your way just to avoid another argument, but that’s not healthy. You’re not the only one taking vows—your groom-to-be would be too, so you must lower your pride and find a compromise. Remember, it’s not always about you and you alone. It’s about both of you.

Make room for errors
As much as you’d like your wedding to be perfect, you must make room for errors. There are unavoidable things that could happen—technical difficulties on equipment, sudden unavailable materials, etc. You must set your mind that these can happen, and be open to these possibilities. You’ll only add stress to yourself if you keep on wanting things to be perfect.

Is your wedding about how perfect your cake is or it is about you and your man? Don’t forget why you’re getting married in the first place. Sometimes everything just won’t be as “perfect” as you dreamed it to be. But that day would be the day you get married. Perfecting the little wedding details shouldn’t be the source of your happiness, but exchanging vows with the man you’d be spending the rest of your life with should be.

Weddings aren’t about perfect wedding details, it’s about celebrating the love between you and your man.

Find time to relax
The main reason most brides turn out to be Bridezilla is because of the stress the wedding planning brings (ie. “I’m not sure if we’ll have enough money to pay for all these”), or even just the idea of getting married itself. That’s pretty understandable. After all, things change when you get married. It’s ok to be stressed or scared… Just don’t let the stress or fear get the best of you.

Take the time to relax. Read a book. Take a day trip to Tagaytay just to enjoy the scenery. Pamper yourself in a spa. Just do something that will temporarily take your mind off the wedding. Besides, you wouldn’t want to look like a haggard old woman on your wedding day, would you?

These are just some of the more practical ways not be the next Bridezilla. Well, those are the things I know of anyway. If you got ideas on how not to be a bitchy bride (aka Bridezilla), do share!

Being a web designer by profession had somehow turned me off a bit from buying online. I guess seeing the production of a shopping cart from concept to execution just made me think twice before inputting my credit card info. It’s not because I didn’t have faith in online transactions, but it’s simply due to the fact that we have always found alternatives for shopping cart payment gateways because Paypal isn’t available in the country yet. It was the issues on Philippine banking laws that prevented us from having fully-functional Paypal accounts, which kind of makes you wonder if it really is safe to transact online. But ever since the Paypal ban has been lifted, I must say that I’ve been less paranoid about buying stuff online with my credit card—which makes my husband frown every time he got our credit card bill. Hehe.

So what does all this tech talk have to do with wedding favors? A lot. Well, in the case of this review at least, because what I’ll be reviewing is an online store for wedding favors: Truly Wedding Favors.

The name says it all—Truly Wedding Favors is a website where you can get what else? Wedding favors, souvenirs your guests can take home and remind them of your special day. You can choose favors that are related to your theme and color motif, or simple get generic ones if you aren’t fussy.

If you’re tight on the budget, I’d still recommend getting favors from Divisoria. Because yes, wedding favors are still way cheaper there—especially since you won’t be paying for guarantee and quality, not to mention delivery. Those are the things you’d be saving up on if you go to Divisoria instead—the favors won’t be delivered on your doorstep ready for giving to your guests.

There are some local suppliers here who can provide you with delivery if you have allotted a tad bit more budget for your wedding favors. Most of them are able to replicate those you can find online like this Personalized Coffee Kit from Truly Wedding Favors, but don’t expect that it would be exact and the quality the same. There are those that are quite difficult to replicate, like this Calla Lily Candle—unless of course you know a supplier who actually makes custom candles and won’t require you to buy in bulk.

If you’re not going to factor in shipping costs (ugh, that’s the worse when you’re buying tangible products online), the costs of wedding souvenirs that Truly Wedding Favors offers are basically the same as those offered by local wedding suppliers. Take the Calla Lily Candle for example (I just love this candle, it’s so pretty).

Let’s say you needed to buy 100 pieces. A candle costs $1.79 each, but if you can get a volume discounted price of $1.29 each since you’re purchasing a hundred pieces ($1.29 for 80-143 pieces, $1.19 for 144++ pieces). If the current Dollar-Peso exchange rate is $1 = Php42, then each of the candles would cost you Php54.18. Multiply that by 100, and you’d be spending Php5,418 for the candles—which is actually the within the usual range of a bride’s wedding souvenir budget. If you get the souvenirs from a local wedding favors supplier, you’d probably pay the same. And yep, I’ve seen lower-quality candles similar to this one priced at around the same amount—sometimes they’re even more expensive.

According to their website, Truly Wedding Favors offers a satisfaction guarantee. If you aren’t pleased with the quality, you can send back the unused favors in exchange for better ones. I think local suppliers do that too, I’m not sure though. Read the contract or agreement you have with them to know if they do offer such guarantee as well.

As I have said, shipping is the main issue that you’ll have to face when buying wedding stuff online. International shipping is quite pricey, sometimes shipping alone costs more than the total expense of the products being shipped. However, this might not be much of a problem if you have relatives or friends in the United States who would be coming to the Philippines before your wedding. You wire them the payment and they’ll purchase the products for you and have them delivered to their address. They can then bring the favors to you when they get to the Philippines. The only risk you’ll have to worry about in this case is having your relative/friend’s baggage getting lost in the airport, or the person bringing the favors suddenly couldn’t make the trip.

If you ask me, I’d honestly tell you that buying raw materials from Divisoria and making your own stuff are still always the best way to save on expenses for your wedding. Though there isn’t a guarantee that the quality you get is always “premium” quality, it’s really up to you finding the Divisoria supplier who can give you that. However, I won’t totally rule out buying wedding stuff online or getting from a local supplier. Some people just don’t have the luxury of time. And when you really think about it, convenience is actually what you pay for when you’re not the one making your own wedding stuff—you pay for somebody else’s time and talent to make your wedding things.

You might be getting tired of me saying this, but yes, it’s always up to you. Should you make your own favors, get from a local supplier, or buy online? You’re the one (and your groom-to-be) who decides. Just remember to study both the advantages and disadvantages of all the options in relation to your situation (ask yourself: “Do you have time to make your own?” “Can you find ways to lower the cost of shipping?” “Can your budget accommodate getting ready-made souvenirs?”) before coming to a decision. You wouldn’t want to waste your money would you?

UPDATE: Melissa of TrulyWeddingFavors.Com has generously offered the readers of My Filipino Wedding an additional 5% discount!!! Just use the promotion code TRULY5 upon checkout and you’ll get your discount.

I think it’s already quite obvious that you will have to get help from your family, friends and connections whether you like it or not—you just can’t do everything on your own. But sometimes, a bride can’t help but want to do everything, or at least take part on each and every single aspect of her wedding. That’s understandable. After all, it’s your most important day we’re talking about here. Just don’t forget you have to walk down the aisle, and not rolled into the Church in a coffin

Planning a wedding is actually a bit similar to running a business—the lower the expenses and higher the profit, the better. You want to have the best wedding at the lowest cost possible. And just like in business, pulling a few strings can help you do just that.

Marc and I were lucky that we had a lot of friends and relatives who were willing to help us plan and implement our wedding. We’ve been quite active in our college organizations, so we met a lot of people adept at planning and implementing events who became our great friends. Just think of it this way. If you and your friends are able to plan and implement full-scale concerts, food sales, and fund-raising drives, weddings are easy.

Instead of getting a wedding coordinator or planner which could have cost us Php25,000, we asked help from our friends. They were glad to do it—it was like holding another organization event. Before the wedding, we sat down with them tackling the wedding program, the flow, who will be in charge of what, the music the band will play, etc. etc. I’m glad they did, because as I can recall, I wasn’t really thinking properly in the morning before I walked down the aisle. There was excitement, fear, and anticipation—three different feelings that don’t really go well when decision-making was required.

The best thing about your friends being your wedding coordinators is probably the fact that you know they know your best interests, and won’t screw you. But if you really need to get a wedding coordinator for your day (if you don’t have friends who have experiences in events planning), it’s best to just get one for the day. Wedding coordinators also offer On-the-Day (OTD) Coordination, where they’ll basically just oversee the implementation of your wedding plans on your day. However, it’s still best that you have somebody like a friend or relative whom you can trust to see how the coordinator is doing. I don’t know about you, but I really do find it hard to entrust something as important as my wedding day to somebody I don’t really know.

Wedding coordination was not the only aspect we got as a gift (or, in simpler words, free) on our wedding. A lot more have contributed to how we were able to get a US$3,000 wedding budget:

• Live band at the reception
  Marc and I had friends who performed regularly at bars, and they gladly performed for us during our wedding—as their generous wedding gift. I found out later on when I asked them how they felt about performing at other people’s weddings that they wouldn’t have charged us much if we didn’t really know them personally. So yes, their rates are very affordable, and depends on how many songs they had to perform and how long. If you’re interested, send me a message so I can help you get in touch with them.
• Photo and Video Coverage
  Now, this is where we lucked out—really lucked out. My dad is a photojournalist, but he used to work in the wedding industry as a photographer when I was still a kid. So yes, he had a lot of connections in the field. Two of his photographer friends gave us photo and video coverage as their gifts. I have to tell you, what they did totally helped our budget—photo and video coverage is actually one of the costliest expenses of wedding planning apart from food for the reception.
• Souvenirs (200 pieces)
  My cousins offered to provide the souvenirs for our wedding, since they were found of making them anyway. And yep, the souvenirs turned out pretty well! Take a look at this post’s photo and see for yourself.
• Bridal Car
  My mom’s old friend lent us her silvery white BMW. She was godmother, so she wanted to take part in the wedding other than the entourage. When we asked her if we could borrow her car, she was more than happy to lend us
• Audio-Video Presentation (AVP)
  Our primary business offers web and multimedia services, so obviously this one’s free since we made our AVP ourselves
• Wedding Guestbook (Magnetic Album) and Pre-Nuptial Pictorials
  Another gift from a long-time friend who has his own photo studio.

I can’t remember all the other stuff we got for free, but these were the ones that had quite an impact on wedding budget. Let’s say we had to pay for these, we’d spend:

Live band – Php5,000 up
Photo and Video Coverage – Php60,000 up
200 Souvenirs – Php7,000
Bridal Car – Php6,000 for the first 5 hours
Audio-Video Presentation – Php5,000
Wedding Guestbook – Php10,000
Pre-Nuptial Pictorials – Php5,000
OTD Coordination – Php8,000

So we saved around how much on free stuff? Just about Php106,000 We saved an estimate of 106k out of the kind generosity of our friends and relatives. That’s quite a lot, considering the fact that it’s not even an exact figure (I’ve forgotten the other stuff we got as gifts from family and friends that helped in the implementation of our wedding).

* * *

Upon the many requests I’ve gotten through email, I am currently trying to get in touch with the suppliers I’ve had for my wedding for their updated rates and information. I’ll be posting the info soon, promise! Stay tuned!

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.

I don’t understand it much either, to tell you the truth. Weddings here are such huge events that even if a family isn’t well-off (like us!), they’d want an extravagant wedding (or “bongga,” in colloquial terms). A “simple” wedding here in the Philippines can mean a lot of things—having 50 guests instead of 100, or having a judge perform the rite and treat just about a dozen people to dinner for a reception. With all these different perceptions of what a “simple” wedding here means, allow me to just describe to you our wedding so you’ll have a pretty good idea of what came about with that Php155,000 (approximately US$3,000) budget.

My husband, Marc and I, had a church wedding in an air-conditioned parish. Our reception was held at a nearby clubhouse, with a band performing amidst bubbles and mood lighting while 200 guests were provided with full-course dinner and a chocolate fountain. We also paid for the gowns and Barong Tagalogs of our entourage including our own, and had 5 photographers and a videographer documenting the event every step of the way.

Our wedding was not as simple as going to the city hall to get hitched, but it wasn’t as extravagant as having fireworks or holding the reception at a hotel. BUT, we got some pretty good feedback from our guests. They actually thought we spent a lot for it, since that kind of wedding would usually cost around twice as much as our actual budget.

Although most of the entries I’ve written here in this blog are specific to having a great wedding without ludicrous expenses, I noticed that I haven’t really written anything that talked about how I was able to keep our wedding budget at around Php155,000 specifically. Thanks to this comment on my personal blog by Janet, I decided to come up with this blog series on how I did just that.

The thing is, there are a lot of factors to be discussed. Marc and I planned our wedding within the span of 10 months, so we picked up quite a lot of tips along the way. I initially intended for this to be just one long entry, but it’s difficult to squeeze everything in that I’d like to say. So there. I’ll just make it into a series of blog posts.

Before I get into the specifics, there are some important things that you need to take note of. Marc and I got married almost a year ago, and a lot can change from then till today—especially when it comes to cost. You really need to consider inflation. What cost us Php5,000 two years ago may cost more today. I won’t be able to guarantee that you’ll have your wedding at US$3,000 as well—it will also depend on you and the people you know.

What I will discuss in this series are mostly principles. I’ll probably put in some info on my suppliers too, but just don’t forget that we got their services almost two years ago. I’m no longer sure if they’re still the cheapest in the market—you’ll have to find that out on your own.

So… watch out for this series in the coming days. Subscribe to my feed if you have to, because I’ll be telling you how exactly we got our elegant wedding for only US$3,000.

The food servings given at events like these are only small portions—basically, just enough for you to have an idea of how their food tastes like. And because there are a lot of people going to these events, you won’t be able to see the actual table arrangements (they’ll show you photos of real weddings for those). Sometimes the caterers go all out on decorating their buffet tables (like Josiah’s Catering did on a bridal fair I attended), but there are also times when the setup is just simple (not the real thing in weddings, obviously).

The best thing to do in these events is to ask questions—a lot of them. The caterers’ sales representatives are usually scattered about in the venue, and they’ll make sure that you get the information you need (what’s the point of feeding you for free if they don’t have an opportunity to give you a sales pitch, right?). Ask them all the questions that you need to know about their service: food servings, table setup, stuff included in the packages, number of waiters, additional services, buffet setup, payment, etc. etc. Don’t worry, the sales representatives are used to answering a lot of questions. Their main objective is to get you reserve with them—it’s part of their job.

If it’s the first caterer you’ve ever tried, it’s better that you put off reservation until you’ve really canvassed and tried others. Take pictures so you’ll have a reminder of what food they served, then sit down with your groom-to-be to discuss which you liked best.

There are other caterers that don’t hold free food tasting events (the no-strings-attached events), and require you to give a down payment before you could even taste the food. Quality of food in such cases is very hard to determine, and you must really study their packages as well as presentation before making up your mind. It’s also advisable that you ask around—research on the net, or ask friends, colleagues, and relatives for feedback if they’ve already tried the service. If you’re totally lost (or don’t really have anybody to ask), you could try joining mailing lists for grooms and brides-to-be like the one they have on Weddings At Work and ask.

Catering will probably take up most of your budget (well, at least in ours it did), so it’s best to make sure that you really get the best (and at the most reasonable price) food for your guests.

* * *

Hizon’s Catering will be hosting a food tasting event on Sunday, August 5, 2007 at the Mango Farm Special Events Venue, 22 Shield Street, Kingsville Court, Antipolo. You must be registered to join.

Robert Camba Catering, on the other hand, has free food tasting every weekend at their showroom (#12 Resthaven St., Baler, Quezon City). The showroom is a bit small, make sure to give them a call first to set an appointment (Phone: 371-1098 / 372-9755) so there won’t be any problems accommodating you.

I’m still waiting for Josiah’s Catering to send me their scheduled food tasting events (I think they have a number of them this year).

Happy planning and eating!

Though my husband is very fond of volleyball, I’m not (definitely not)—I’m more of a basketball person. So I’m really sure when the proposal took place (I think it was during the Shakeys’ V-League last year, if I’m not mistaken).

Imagine proposing in front of hundreds of people (with video coverage to boot)…

You got to give the guy credit—that took guts! Lucky the girl said yes, or the poor guy would have had a broken heart right in front of all those people

How about you brides-to-be? How did your man propose?

The easiest (and cheapest) way to do this: get a wedding website.

A lot of people already have access to the World Wide Web, and what’s better than taking advantage of this technology? With a wedding website, you can show the progress of your planning and share wedding info with relatives who can’t be physically with you. Face it, brides have a tendency to want to talk about their wedding plans to anybody who would listen (I know I did!).

There are two ways you can acquire your own wedding website: sign up for a free account, or hire a professional.

I think there are more sites out there offering free wedding sites/blogs for couples, but I only know of two more popular ones: Wedding Announcer and The Knot. These sites let you have your own wedding site for free, and choose from a variety of templates that will fit your wedding theme and motif. I’m not sure of the extent of customization that you can do with a free account, but it’s relatively easy to use if you’re not a techie person. You can easily add pages where you can put your entourage details, suppliers, photos, a write-up on how you met, etc.

If you got a bit more cash lying around, you can always hire a professional to make a customized wedding website for you. You’d get your own domain name and hosting, which is good if you want your website to be easily remembered by your guests. The extent of customization will depend on your provider, and so will the cost.

Either way, you’d easily be able to stay in touch with your guests no matter where they are (unless they’re in the middle of some faraway forest where internet connection is unheard of). And yeah, it’s still cheaper—you’d get to save yourself from adding gazillion of inserts to your wedding invitation (the more invitation inserts you have, the more expensive the cost will be… unless your invitations supplier will be generous enough to give them all to you for free).

You can basically put anything and everything that pertains to your wedding on your wedding website. It’s really up to you if you want to put enough and let uninvited guests know about them