I’m Married! :)

Whew, what can I say. The year 2010 hasn’t ended yet but in my 28 years of existence, I can say that this year is probably the most exciting, life-changing year of my life.

From getting engaged (though that was in 2009), to quitting a job that I love to plan our wedding, to getting into an accident, discovering a tumor near the base of my skull and undergoing a major operation to have it removed. From being paralyzed to getting back on my feet just in time for our wedding in 3 months, a lot has definitely happened.

But recalling those events would require another long post. This post is all about my wonderful suppliers that made our dream wedding possible. To those who are planning to get married in the years to come (hello W@Wies!), you might want to consider these suppliers for your wedding. And to our suppliers, I would like to share our rating and not keep them a secret from you because I know client feedback will greatly help in improving your service.

So everyone, read on! : )

CHURCH: St. James The Great Parish
RATING: 5/5
WE SPENT: P28,000 for non-parishioners / P20,000 for parishioners / add P15,000 for flowers

Without a doubt, St. James is probably one of the most majestic churches in Manila. But that’s not why I gave them a perfect rating. It’s because of Ms. Aycie Ropa, the church’s wedding coordinator. From the start, she was very accommodating and organized. She gave us a list of requirements we needed to give to the church (complete with deadlines!) and she even followed up on us when we missed a schedule. I also won’t forget how she allowed us to change our Pre-Cana seminar sched when she saw my condition. I just got out of the hospital then and when she saw me at our Canonical Interview, she suggested we take the later sched so I can recuperate some more.

RECEPTION: The Bellevue Manila
RATING: 4/5
WE SPENT: P450,000 for 300 guests

We availed of Bellevue Manila’s WEDDING PACKAGE which included the following:

• Sit-down customized Japanese dinner for 300 guests at their Grand Ballroom
• Chauffeured Bridal Car
• Three Layered Fondant Cake
• Choice of Mobile or String Quartet (we got the String Quartet)
• One round of Iced Tea
• Guest book and pen
• Two (2) night stay in Bridal Suite with Buffet Breakfast for Two
• Table Menu Card for Set Menu Arrangement, Place Cards (which we didn’t get since we printed our own)
• Floral Arrangements: table centerpieces, cake table decor, flowers for bridal car
• Bottles of Wine for Toasting
• Special gift for couple
• One (1) hour Shiatsu massage for the couple
• Buffet dinner for Two at Cafe d’ Asie

WHAT WE DIDN’T LIKE: My bridal car (a silver Chrysler 300C) was late for 30 minutes in picking me up. I was almost late for my wedding! Then they charged me an extra Php1,600 for supposedly going over 3 hours but I noted that I was picked up at home at 2:30PM and dropped off at Bellevue for the reception at 5:30PM. Their explanation was my timer started at 1:30PM!

Their waiter team was also understaffed. Some of our guests said it took a while for the waiters to serve their food during the main dinner. And during cocktails, it took them awhile to replenish our sushi bar so our guests thought there was no more food for cocktails when in fact the sushi was just sitting in their holding room.

Our bridal suite was disappointing. It was like they didn’t prepare it. We didn’t have any toiletries in our room (no toothbrushes, etc.) and we had to call up housekeeping the next day to request for them. The safe in our room wasn’t working so we had to ask them again to fix it. We didn’t even have complimentary champagne! : ( So sad.

WHAT WE LIKED: The food was very good according to our guests!

Tina, our AE, was very, VERY accommodating. She gave in to a lot of our requests (though I think it’s also because of my husband’s very persuasive and persistent personality, haha). We got a LOT of freebies and HUGE discounts! (Redeeming factor for those things we didn’t like, hehe)

The banquet managers/head waiters were also very accommodating and helpful in settling the turn overs after our wedding.

RECEPTION STYLING: Emma’s Flower Shop
RATING: 5/5
WE SPENT: P30,000

Emma’s Flower Shop is Bellevue’s in-house florist for their weddings. Fortunately for us, our Tita Dolly personally knew Obet of Emma’s Flower Shop. Tita Dolly and my mother-in-law were in charge of conceptualizing the reception design and Obet did a great job of implementing their ideas. We had three cherry blossom trees spread across the ballroom and the flowers for the table centerpieces were beautiful. They also did a great job in incorporating our own DIY decorations like the 1000 origami cranes, Japanese lanterns  and our bamboo wishing trees.

LIGHTS and SOUNDS: Contech
RATING: 5/5
WE SPENT: P21,000

I loved the ambiance of the ballroom. The mood lighting was exactly just the way I wanted! A touch of pink but not too overbearing. My husband was worried about the music during our after-party but Contech’s music crew did a great job of providing music that kept our guests (young and old, MOSTLY the oldies, hehe) dancing and having a great time.

STRING QUARTET: Bernie Pasamba Music Consultancy
RATING: 5/5
WE SPENT: An additional P5,000 for church. Included in Bellevue package.

Bellevue’s wedding package included the Bernie Pasamba String Quartet for the reception but we decided to also get them for the church. We didn’t get any vocalist though, just the strings but that was enough for me. The mood at the church was very solemn (just the way I like it). I didn’t have any special requests but I’m sure they can accommodate your songs as long as you give them ample time to prepare for it.

ON-THE-DAY COORDINATOR: Clarice of Events by Clarice
RATING: 5/5
WE SPENT: P28,000

Actually 5 is not enough to rate Clarice. I’d probably give her a 100/5, haha! But seriously, Clarice delivered, and did SHE deliver! Because of Clarice, we absolutely had a stress-free wedding!

When I met Clarice at our first meeting, I immediately liked her because of her warm, bubbly personality. She was very ma-’kwento’ and she makes you feel like you’ve known each other forever. But at the same time, she knew when to get serious. She’s very organized and very meticulous about everything. She caught the things we missed and would provide us with helpful suggestions and options when we were totally clueless about things (which were a lot of things, haha).

She really knows her stuff!

She’s very accommodating, too! She drove all the way to Las Pinas (she lives somewhere far north, hehe) got caught twice for color coding just so she can meet up with me in the comforts of my own home when I just got out of the hospital.

I cannot enumerate everything Clarice and her team did for us, but here were some of the notables:

• She made sure my husband was not late for our own wedding, haha. My husband is known for his chronic tardiness. That alone is a feat!
• She coordinated with all my supplier’s regarding the schedules. Not once did I need to call up my supplier’s after booking them. She made sure everyone did their job and delivered well.
• She made my sister’s obi belt magically appear! Haha. A vital piece of my sister’s Matron of Honor gown was left at my designer’s shop and we only discovered it 3 hours before our wedding. My designer’s shop is in Kamuning. Our wedding is in Alabang. When she said she would do something about it, she really did. And my sister walked the bridal procession, in her complete entourage gown : )

I’m very sure there were so much more obstacles that happened during our wedding day, but I will probably never know about them because Clarice was there to make sure everything was perfect for us. She became the bridezilla for me during the our wedding day, the sponge to all my wedding stress!

PHOTOGRAPHY: Carlo Cecilio of Imagine Nation

Photo Links: Wedding Preps, At the Church, At The Reception

RATING: To follow, but I have a feeling it’s going to be 5/5, hehe. Definitely 5/5 :)
WE SPENT: P65,000

Imagine Nation was great to ‘work’ with. They were a warm bunch and they definitely knew how to keep you at ease so you won’t look stiff or nervous in your photos.

We’re scheduled to pick up the CD from them and I can’t wait! Can’t wait to get our album now :)

VIDEO: Threelogy Video
RATING: 5/5
WE SPENT: P80,000

I loved our onsite AVP! It was CJ’s team who covered our wedding. : )

INVITATIONS: J-Fav Printing Haus
RATING: 5/5
WE SPENT: P21,000 for 300 pieces invitations

For our invites, I designed our invitations. I just needed to find a printer so my sister and I braved the streets of C.M. Recto. Fortunately, Kristel recommended her invitation supplier for their wedding. It was in the area so my sister and I didn’t have to walk around aimlessly for long.

Ms. Rose was very nice and she gave me a very good price for our invites. It included the invitation, the envelopes and monogram stickers that I also designed. Our invites came out just the way I envisioned them. We didn’t have a hard time dealing with J-Fav and they were on schedule. They said it would take 2-3 weeks after proofing for our invites to finish. And right on schedule, after 3 weeks, we had our invites picked up.

GROOM’S SUIT: Rodriguez de Alba
RATING: 5/5

My groom felt good and looked good in his suit. ‘Nuff said.

ENTOURAGE TIES: Tie Line
RATING: 5/5

I was planning on getting our ties from SM since the ties were cheaper there. But when we went to SM, they didn’t have enough of the ties that I wanted. I needed 24 ties for all the male entourage. They could only provide 2 pieces of the ties. They said they could place an order for the ties, but it would take 2-3 weeks. It was only 3 weeks before the wedding then, and to be honest, I didn’t want to stress out about the ties so I decided to just pay more. Tie Line was my next best option.

True enough, when I went there, they had a nice selection of pink ties and they informed me it will take them only 2 days to get my 24 ties. More expensive, but less stress! But atleast the ties were of good quality.

BRIDAL and ENTOURAGE GOWNS: Happy V. Andrada
RATING: 5/5

Since we were having a Japanese themed wedding, Happy was the perfect designer who came to mind since I knew she was into J-POP/Harajuku fashion. I had an idea of how I wanted my entourage to look like, with the obi belts but she was the one who came up with the origami-inspired design for my bridal gown. I wanted the mothers to wear something kimono-ish and she designed a wonderful bolero-styled kimono for them. For my flower girls, I wanted yukata-styled dresses and she chose a really nice pink cherry blossom fabric.

My entourage was pretty happy with their dresses and they all looked good in them, too!

Aside from the gowns, Happy included matching pouches, hair accessories for my flower girls and the bridal accessories like pillows, secondary veil, cord, arrhae (though I bought the Unity Coins from W@W).

BRIDAL SHOES: Perfect Match
RATING: 5/5
WE SPENT: P3,000

I had my make up artist friend, Omar Ermita design my shoes and had Mari of Perfect Match make them. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to wear the shoes since they had 3 inch heels and I can only wear flats. But nevertheless, I’ll wear them when I’m so much better since they look great enough to be gimik shoes, yay!

HAIR: Felicity Son
RATING: 5/5
WE SPENT: P5,000 for bride plus 2.

Felicity came late but he delivered! He gave me, my mom and my sister fabulous hairstyles even though he was being rushed, hehe.

MAKE UP: Omar Ermita of Shu Uemura
RATING: 5/5

Omar is a good friend of mine so he gave me a really good deal. I didn’t bother having a trial make up with him since I trusted him. True enough, on my wedding day, he made me look bee-yoo-ti-ful! The make up also lasted through out the night and didn’t feel heavy on my face. He also did my mom and sister’s make up and I think they were very happy with their make up as well.

MAKE UP: Ara Fernando
RATING: 5/5
WE SPENT: P7,500 for 3

I got Ara to do the hair and make up for my mother-in-law and my sisters-in-law. They looked good in person and in the pictures so I give her a 5! : )

BRIDAL BOUQUET and ENTOURAGE FLOWERS: Emma’s Flower Shop
RATING: 5/5

Our peg for the flowers were ikebana japanese flower arrangements. My bouquet was just how I wanted it to be! Though, Clarice had to change the lace of the handle and remove a few ‘things’ from the bouquet. The entourage flowers were also pretty, mainly consisting of orchids.

For the female Primary Sponsors (Ninangs), I wanted them to hold Japanese fans instead of flowers but my mother-in-law wanted flowers. So we came up with a compromise. We had fans made with flowers on them : )

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