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In case you haven’t seen the news on Facebook, then here’s the announcement: Our rings have been made! *happy dance* Oneal’s Tita Angie recommended a jewelry shop in Meycauayan, Bulacan, where they could make the rings for a low price. We’d looked at wedding rings before, at bridal fairs and in jewelry shops in malls. They always cost upwards of P25,000, for anything from simple bands to elaborate affairs with engraving and diamonds.
All we wanted was a pair of two-tone rings, two outer bands made of yellow gold, with a white gold band in the middle. Matte finish, no diamonds, no engraving. Quotes at bridal fairs placed it at P30,000. Continue Reading…
Why is getting married so complicated?? All I want is to be one with my hunny bunny till death do us part. Why is there so much paperwork and fuss????
Right now, we’re working on our marriage license. We need to make a personal appearance at the Parañaque City Hall, and present our CENOMARs, NSO birth certificates and Oneal’s certificate of residency.
We also made reservations to attend the pre-cana seminar at the Center for Family in Ateneo in January. But before we can do that, we need an authorization letter from the church. AND we need to submit our birth, baptismal and confirmation certificates. Egads! Surely getting married was never this complicated before?
On the upside, I think all the suppliers have been booked. The venue is now fully paid, yay! We’ve also finalized the program.
It’s only two months away, and it feels like there’s still so much we need to do. To top it all off, it’s Christmas! But I guess Christmas is just another opportunity to be thankful that I have a wonderful Oneal who wants to marry me.
It’s going to be a Merry Christmas indeed!
– rej
Typhoon Ondoy has sidetracked many people, and many plans. That weekend, we were supposed to have a family pictorial! Obviously, we had to cancel it.
Since that weekend, and through the other typhoons that have blown through the country, we’ve been busy with relief efforts here and there. Also, Oneal has a new job, and I have two new projects that keep me busy. So you can understand how our wedding planning got sidetracked.
Now we’re gathering our wits again, and going through all our wedding checklists to see what else needs doing. Fortunately, there’s not a lot left. All the major suppliers have been booked:
- Ceremony and reception venue – Fernwood Gardens, QC
- Caterer – Shangri-La Chinese Restaurant
- Florist for the church – 15-58 Flowers and Styles
- Florist for the entourage – Go4Flowers
- Photographer – Pat Mateo
- Videographer – 30fps
- Cake artist – Our friend, Reitch Calabia
- Couturier – Our friend, Jenny Rojales
- Rings maker
- Bridal jewelry – Our ninang, Ruby Bayan
So now, here’s what we need to do next:
- Book the hair and make-up artist
- Complete our wedding documents
- Draft and finalize the missalette
- Design and finalize the invitations
- Decide on the music for the ceremony
- Decide on the music for the reception
- Decide on the preps hotel
- Finalize the reception program
- Attend a pre-cana seminar
There’s more that needs to be done, but these are the most urgent. We’re working on some of them already:
- Some of the documents have been obtained while a few others need to be requested.
- We’ve canvassed 4 hotels in Quezon City already.
- I know which HMUA I want to get.
- Jovan is working on our invitations.
Some things need more work than others, obviously. 
But we’re getting there. Wish us luck! In the meantime, it’s my birthday on Saturday, and we’re flying to Bora for a much-needed vacation. Yay!
– rej
while we already *heart* the NSO for having a convenient and comprehensive website for requesting birth certificates and CENOMAR etc, they also delivered these documents quickly right to our doorstep.
now we *heart* them long time
-oneal
It’s not often you’re happy with the service at government offices, so when it happens, it’s a cause for celebration!
For the wedding, among the documents we need are birth certificates and certificates of no previous marriage (CENOMAR) from the National Statistics Office, dated within six months of the wedding. Since we only have 4 months and three weeks to go, I figured now was a good time to apply.
I went to the website (thanks to Dante for the link!), filled up the forms, and was done! It’s so wonderful when you can be efficient from the comfort of your own home. Even better, I was able to pay for the certificate requests online, through Banco de Oro online banking.
The website says it will take about two weeks for delivery. So not only can you make the request from your own home, and pay online, but your documents will also be delivered right to your doorstep! *happy dance*
– rej
well, at least the priorities are done. we’ve given downpayments for the venue, caterer, ceremony and reception flowers, photographer and videographer.
just today we signed the contract with the Manila String Machine.
the funny thing is that we never tell any of them about the theme of the wedding when we initially meet. we only inform them about what we have planned right after we sign the contract and give them the check. fortunately, none of them reacted violently when we tell them what we have planned. they all seem to get really excited when they find out it will be a Star Wars wedding.
they can’t wait to be a part of it because it is something different from what they usually have to do, which can get tiring after a while.
the best part is that they can play the Imperial March! 
5 months to go and we are ahead of schedule.
- oneal
Donation to the GMA Kapuso Foundation, September 2008, SM Marikina
As you may have noticed, we update the wedsite sporadically, but when we do, we post a lot of stuff! I usually write the long entries, and Oneal fiddles around with the code.
This time, we’ve added links to the websites of our suppliers, removed some clutter, and changed a few settings. Please feel free to leave a comment or two (or more)!
Also, please check out our other pages, as we’ve posted some updates:
– rej
We met Ted Amper a few weeks ago.
The best gauge we have for booking any of our suppliers is how well we get along with them. Naturally, we canvass different suppliers first based on price, availability, and the quality of their work. But sometimes their personality is more important than that.
Take for example one account executive from one of the florists we met with. She was polite, yes, but she also didn’t seem very receptive to our ideas, and was even correcting us on several points. It’s our wedding, not hers, and if she thinks she can improve on what we want, she should be able to phrase them such that we’d be inclined to agree with her.
Suffice it to say, we didn’t hire that florist, and instead we went with the one with very helpful and effusive account executives. So what’s this got to do with music?
From the start we knew we wanted strings for the ceremony, and possibly for the reception too. We asked around for contacts, but never really got to get in touch with the musicians until recently.
Our friend Zuri told us about Manila String Machine, which was the group that played at Issa Litton and Tiger Garido’s Star Wars wedding last December. I sent an SMS to the cellist, Ted Amper, and he gave us their website URL. The repertoire was all we needed to see.
It was full of movie themes by John Williams, and lovely, lovely music from Ennio Morricone, as well as a few other gems. There were links to YouTube videos of their performances, and one of the videos showed them playing Ennio Morricone! *swoon* I fell in love.
The price was also good, and their terms very reasonable. So we decided to meet with Ted.
Ted was really, really nice. He was very amusing, very warm and friendly, and quick to answer our questions and dispel any doubts. After he left, Oneal said, “You like them na, no?”
Indeed, the repertoire, the price, and the terms were great, and it sounded like Manila String Machine was a group that really loved to play music, and they already knew the music we wanted. What’s not to like?
So today, we booked Manila String Machine. I hope they can learn a few more new pieces for the wedding, like my bridal march. We’ll meet them in about two weeks for the downpayment and the contract-signing.
– rej
I owe so, so, so much to Tita Peachy, my mom’s friend from college, for finding us our priest, Fr. Clod Bagabaldo. We met him last Tuesday, and the meeting went so well!
We met at Bizu in Greenhills at 8PM, since he said Mass at 7pm. He seemed a little lost as to why we needed a meeting in the first place. He said that for most couples he’s marrying, he doesn’t meet them till the wedding day itself.
So we explained that we wanted to get to know him, and for him to get to know us, so that we were all on the same page about the wedding. We wanted to know if there were any rites we were forgetting about. I also wanted to consult him on the matter of my confirmation certificate, and the bridal march.
Most important of all, we wanted to tell him we were having a Star Wars wedding, because we wanted him to understand how important Star Wars is to us. We wanted to show him pictures of the costumes the entourage were wearing, because we’d heard stories of other priests refusing to proceed because the bridesmaids wore strappy dresses, of the hemlines weren’t low enough, or some other objection. If Fr. Clod had any objections, we wanted to hear them early on, so we could address them.
Well, it turns out we needn’t have worried at all.
Fr. Clod is very open-minded, and he says whatever we want is fine. All other things associated with weddings are just fluff, traditions that aren’t crucial to the marriage rite. If all we wanted to do was get married, the rites would only take 15 minutes! He even said that since everyone was there already, and we had prepared so long for the big day, then it was just as well that we have a full Mass and have the parents and the principal sponsors play a part in the ceremony.
We asked him about the entourage attire, and the bridal march, and he just waved our worries away, and said those aren’t really important. The bridal march isn’t part of the marriage rite, so why should he mess with that? When we showed him the pictures of the attire, he admired them and said they really were different, and that was that!
In short, I should have known that Tita Peachy knew me and Oneal well enough to recommend for us a priest who was not conservative. Tita Peachy, thank you so much!
And Fr. Clod, thank you for agreeing to officiate our wedding. God bless you indeed!
– rej
From the start we decided that we want to have a photographer with at least two cameras shooting at once and that goes the same for the video. this is so that they can take multiple angles at once as well as get shots of us and the crowd simultaneously.
we selected and booked the photographer so now we were choosing from a shortlist of videographers who have the right number of cameras for reasonable prices. some of the ones we wanted were already booked on our date so we asked one of those our photographer recommended, 30Fps we looked at their website, checked out their rates and watched a few sample videos. they seem to have the right equipment including a glidecam setup and glidetracks for more stable sweeping and panning shots.
we asked for service only because a friend has volunteered to edit the video the way we would like it. i spoke to Paul Macasaet and told him they were referred by our photographer. he originally asked if we could drop by the wedding fair at the PICC to sign a contract and give the downpayment, i told him we didn’t like going to wedding fairs anymore and he said even though they don’t do pencil bookings, he’ll take our word and put us down as confirmed for the February 20, 2010 date and wont take any more clients on that day.
we are meeting them on Wednesday to finalize things.
on that note, we seem to have all the suppliers done and ready.
- oneal
