Lessons Learned from our Wedding Preps Experience
This is our way of giving the love back to the W@W community that helped, inspired and supported us during our wedding preps.
hair accessories
1. Practice wearing your accessories. If you are like me na di nag susuot ng jewelry, pls pls pls try on your earrings weeks or even months before the wedding. I used my aunt's diamond blings for my something borrwed. Since she just came from the US, I only got to try wearing the earrings the night before the wedding. And voila! di kasya sa butas ng tenga ko. So what my mom did was pilitin na isuot. Nasuot naman pero my ears were sore for several days.
garter from Jamie's parents' wedding
2. Get a good coordinator, then let go. We enjoyed every bit of our wedding day because we were worry free. I told myself, 1 week before the wedding that I will let go of the small things and focus on what is important which is Franco.I told myself, kebs kung magutom ang guests, kebs kung matraffic sila, kebs kung di pa nafi-fit ng gowns ng moms and ento, kebs kung pinya yun barong ng isa sa mga secondary sponsors, kung kebs kung every hour ay nagbabago ang guestlist. We are getting married because we love and want to take care of each other at yun lang ang mahalga. Besides, when guests attend a wedding, ang expectations lang nila ay makakain ng masarap. They really won't notice the glitches unless sabihan niyo sa kanila.
eternity...
3. On doubting your suppliers. At some point, you will read a bad review or get impressed by another supplier. When doubting your suppliers, always remember why you booked them in the first place. Midway during the preps I realized that I wanted another gown. Inggit ako sa brides na may sketch at alaga ng mga designers nila. After 1 week of sleepless nights, I just told myself, that I bought my gown because I felt like a blushing princess in it and I would stick to my decision. I also read nega reviews about our suppliers pero I tried to focus on why I fell in love with them and just asked them during our meetings what I can do on my end to prevent the issues that other brides experienced.
Franco's heirloom bracelet
4. If you are getting married during December and have balikbayans coming home to attend your wedding, make sure that you plan your schedule/leaves ahead so you can spend time with them. There will be parties and get-togethers left and right. If you don't plan your schedule ahead, baka magtampo yun mga guests who made extra effort to attend your big day.
Here is how crazy our schedule was
Nov 19 - wedding day
Nov 20 - check out and go to calamba (Jamie's father side) to spend time with Tita from US and visit cemetery
Nov 21 - Go to los banos to attend balikbayan nephews' birthday party in the afternoon. then go to West Ave afterwards to attend Franco's office xmas party
Nov 22 - Move in to new apartment
Nov 23 -Buy stuff for new apartment in the morning and go to calamba for family xmas party
Nov 24 - Go to Malvar to visit Franco's maternal grandmother, leave b4 2pm (coding), go to Pque for Noche buena with Franco's immediate family
Nov 25 - Go to Los banos to spend the rest of xmas day with Jamie's maternal family.
Nov 26 - Attend Lapinid reunion.
Week 1 pa lang yan.
time's up!
5. Buy your xmas gifts early if you are having a December wedding. We had been so busy weeks before the wedding and totally forgot that we needed to buy gifts for our family. Yikes! Utang muna.
6. Good relationship with suppliers matters. You must be comfortably be able to say yes or no to your supplier's ideas and suggestions. In the same way, suppliers should be able to express if they think your idea is doable baduy or watever. I realized that those suppliers who didnt impress us that much during the wedding are those na di kami ganun ka close. I think yun iba said, "ok po" "gagawan namin ng paraan" knowing na mahihirapan talaga sila.
7. Put everything in writing and make a bilin list. Am so happy i did this kase lahat nasunod. Dont leave any idea unwritten kase makakalimutan niyo yan sa dami ng inaasikaso. One of my regrets is that I forgot to inform our OTD and P/V na we borrowed a friend's black MB to be our groom's car. Sabi ni Franco feeling nya raw napaka gwapo niya while he was on that car and i really regret na di manlang napicturan.
10. On guestlists. For the guestlist, di talaga maasahan ang mga pinoys na magkusang mag RSVP. If you can, assign someone to confirm per group. For us, MIL was in charged of RSVP's for Franco's relatives and one of my BM's was in charge of getting confirmations from HS friends. Tell your POC's that you need to have an idea of the final headcount because a lot of things depend on that, eg. final bill, seating arrangement, floor plan etc.
Yun mga taong di nagrereply, more than likely na nahihiya lang na magsabi na di sila makakapunta.
Expect na maraming dagdag bawas sa confirmed guestlist. Seating arrangement will give you headaches if gagawin niyong may assigned na seat and table per person. Zoning, as suggested by my OTD, is the way to go.
Thank God about 192 guests confirmed and 183 showed up. Ask your caterer/hotel if they will provide buffer. If they will, I suggest na declare less than the confirmed headcount kase nga defintely may di makakapunta. Kami we only declared 180, kaya 3 lang yun excess heads na binayaran namin. Ayos diba? Imagine if 192 ang nideclare namin, 9K na agad na nasayang.
Yun mga taong di nagrereply, more than likely na nahihiya lang na magsabi na di sila makakapunta.
Expect na maraming dagdag bawas sa confirmed guestlist. Seating arrangement will give you headaches if gagawin niyong may assigned na seat and table per person. Zoning, as suggested by my OTD, is the way to go.
Thank God about 192 guests confirmed and 183 showed up. Ask your caterer/hotel if they will provide buffer. If they will, I suggest na declare less than the confirmed headcount kase nga defintely may di makakapunta. Kami we only declared 180, kaya 3 lang yun excess heads na binayaran namin. Ayos diba? Imagine if 192 ang nideclare namin, 9K na agad na nasayang.
11. Join contests!!!! We got a cadillac as our bridal car for FREE because we sent at least 200 entries in one of the contests of Martha Stewart. I also had an all expense paid Bridal Shower c/o Cosmo Mag, Premiere Condoms and Victoria Court. The last free item that we got was the make up for our 2nd prenup. I won the Eddie Bruan Trial make up sa W@W auction for 600 bucks and Ms Benz decided to give it to me for free.
12. When doing your budget, make sure that you set aside the amount that you need after the wedding. If there were things that we wanted that were not part of the orignal budget, we tightened our belts and saved up for those things. In the end, we got most of our nice-to-haves without sacrificing the cash that we need for the construction of our house. In case your are wondering, ang going rate ng contractors ngayon ay 13-16K per square meter. Mahal diba? Wala pa dun yun cost ng pagbili ng lot.
arrhae from Jamie's parents' wedding
11. If you are paying for your centerpieces, make sure that your guests get to take them home. Since we had very lovely centerpieces, as in pinagkaguluhan. Our relatives were touched when they were told that I have a special request for them to bring some of the centerpieces to the cemetery for my dad and grandparents. I was also touched when i saw the flowers when i visited our family musoleo the day after the wedding.
Not sure wat to do to with the styro layers of your wedding cake? We brought ours to the cemetery, too. :P
we added coins from different eras (1888 dollar, 1908 Fil-Am, 1988 Edsa Commemorative, 1998 piso etc)
12. On cash gifts. I think it's the practical thing to do talaga. Make sure that you won't sound imposing, kumbaga suggestion lang. Here's what we used in our invites:
"With all that we have, we have truly been blessed, so there is no real need for a shopping fest, but if you desire to give, nonetheless, an enveloped gift is one we suggest"
When friends asked me what we prefer, we just said kahit ano kahit wala is ok but if they are to ask us, most practical would be monetary or GC's since I have been living away from home for 10 years kaya i already have the basics.
our cord, Commonwealth coins
13. We just started writing our thank you notes and it feels so good to write them. I hope our guests will be touched by this gesture. I actually haven't received any thank you note pero when i was in the US, i read one that was for my tita, and it was really touching to receive a handwritten peronalized thank you note. We had pictures with thank you signs and had them printed in wallet size (3.50 a piece at island photo)..
http://www..partypicslive.com/picture?currpage=13&name=12192008_Jamie_Franky&size=grids&parentgrid=115810-LOGO.jpg&picture=115810-LOGO
EDIT: I wrote this, days after the wedding and never got to finish all the thank you notes. Lesson learned: if you plan to send thank you notes, do them ASAP. Sa dami ng inaasikaso after the wedding, baka mawala na sa isip niyo.
arrhae and ring holders
14. Dont schedule your mani pedi and massage in the evening. Have it in the afternoon or morning para even if they arrive late, di kayo mapupuyat. I scheduled mine at 6:30pm, because of traffic, 8PM na dumating. I had to cancel the full body massage tuloy.
15. Barong looks better if the camisa de chino is not tucked in. This will also make your groom stand out since most people naka tuck in talaga. The sleeves of the camisa should be long, too.
16. Having a morning wedding was one of the best decisions we made. Guests did not party after the reception as expected, but almost 99% stayed until the end of the program. If we had ours in the afternoon, for sure, maraming magaalisan agad because it was so traffic going home and a lot of people have other parties to attend.
We did not have a lot of shots with our ento and family before the ceremony. But, we had more time for a couples pictorials.
secondary sponsor's veil from Franco's parents' wedding
We did not have a lot of shots with our ento and family before the ceremony. But, we had more time for a couples pictorials.
secondary sponsor's veil from Franco's parents' wedding
17. Having a hotel reception would mean scrapping our plan to have open bar and not having so many choices in the table cloths etc. But it also meant VIP treatment before during and after our wedding.
18. Another one-of-the-best decisions that we made, is getting service only photography package. Initially, video was not a priority since there will be three guys from Mango to document our big day. The difference of service only package from the normal package was about 30K. With that 30K, we were able to book Phoeben Teocson.
We are not sure yet if we will still get an album. An aunt bought us a digital photo frame so we can display our beautiful wedding pics. If ever we will get an album, we will probably order from Digiprint. Their 40-page 12x12 album are priced at 6K only.
We are not sure yet if we will still get an album. An aunt bought us a digital photo frame so we can display our beautiful wedding pics. If ever we will get an album, we will probably order from Digiprint. Their 40-page 12x12 album are priced at 6K only.
Growwwrrr..
19. Speaking of Digiprint, consider the season and your deadline if you are ordering albums from them. We did not want to give our parents a tribute AVP since their quite techy and make AVP's. We wanted to to give them a album of pictures from past and present. We were told that the album will be ready in maximum of 1 week pero tapos na ang wedding wala pa rin yun proof.. And nung dumating, we were disappointed sa lay out nila. In fairness to them, sobrang dami naman talaga naming binigay na pictures kaya mahirap i lay out.
20, Lastly if you are planning to have a delayed honeymoon, try to arrange a mini one. We were planning to relatives abroad late this year after the construction of our house has finished. Now that we are 17 weeks preggers, postponed na muna ang bonggang trips until our little Junjun is big enough or our bank accounts are fat enough for travel. Thank God, we were able to book a mini vacation to Iloilo. At least, wala man kami honeymoon, meron pa ring kaming R&R with each other before things get really crazy.
I can't think of any other way to prepare Franco and myself for marriage than the 13-month wedding preps adventure that we took together. It was during this time that we had our worst fight and best kiss-and-make-up. We learned a lot about each other and gained a wealth of insights from the seminars that we attended. I learned that although my Franco can be annoyinngly uncooperative, I love him still and his lack of enthusiasm on the things that are dearly important to me is just one of those things that I needed to accept. I love how Franco recognizes the stalker, the little miss competitive and the star-wannabee in me as part of what makes me a unique and interesting person. Compromise is important but we also learned that we are two different people and that we don't need to agree and share the same opinions all the time.
So, Sisses, enjoy your preps. Don't just plan your wedding, plan your married life too.
See you at N@W!
See you at N@W!
12.19.08
Magallanes Church/Manila Hotel
http://maquifranky.multiply.com
http://www.mywedding.com/maquifranky
Onsite video - http://www.vimeo.com/2621736
Comments
Mizzy on May 20, 2009
I enjoyed reading your tips.. Thanks for sharing sis! Take care!
eve vinluan-magat on May 21, 2009
sis, this is great!
to a new addition, congratulations! best wishes to you sis!
Allan&Sha on May 21, 2009
hi maqui,
now ko lng naread to coz i was in the ofc knina so pics ang inuna ko. but reading ur post was really very touching. i learned a lot tlga. pakopya ha kse bka makalmutan ko ung iba ehehehe.
congrats on the baby!
God bless...
Allan&Sha
jac on May 21, 2009
hi sis, tnx for the insights! wishing u d best!
blanche rivera on May 23, 2009
great tips, thanks for sharing! congrats on the wedding and the baby and the house. 8 ) Godbless!
blanche/rhoel
www.mywedding.com/beachphiles