Filipino Wedding Customs

One of my friends at work told me a wedding custom that she was doing for her younger sister that's getting married this coming weekend and I was very surprised with the custom that she shared since i have not heard of it. I was almost certain that it must be a Western culture but later after some research, found that it IS a Filipino custom to give the newlyweds a potty/bedpan/chamberpot as part of their wedding present. Read on.....

Filipinos still adhere to numerous widely-held folk beliefs that have no scientific or logical basis but maybe backed-up by some past experiences (yet can be dismissed as mere coincidence). ...

• Brides shouldn't try on her wedding dress before the wedding day or the wedding will not push through.

• Knives and other sharp and pointed objects are said to be a bad choice for wedding gifts for this will lead to a broken marriage.

• Giving arinola (chamberpot) as wedding gift is believed to bring good luck to newlyweds.

• Altar-bound couples are accident-prone and therefore must avoid long drives or traveling before their wedding day for safety.

• The groom who sits ahead of his bride during the wedding ceremony will be a henpecked husband.

• If it rains during the wedding, it means prosperity and happiness for the newlyweds.

• A flame extinguished on one of the wedding candles means the one on which side has the unlit candle, will die ahead of the other.

• Throwing rice confetti at the newlyweds will bring them prosperity all their life.

• The groom must arrive before the bride at the church to avoid bad luck.

• It is considered bad luck for two siblings to marry on the same year.

• Breaking something during the reception brings good luck to the newlyweds.

• The bride should step on the groom's foot while walking towards the altar if she wants him to agree to her every whim.

• A bride who wears pearls on her wedding will be an unhappy wife experiencing many heartaches and tears.

• An unmarried woman who follows the footsteps (literally) of the newlyweds will marry soon.

• Dropping the wedding ring, the veil or the arrhae during the ceremony spells unhappiness for the couple.

** courtesy of Weddings at Work

Amazon..com -- isn't it Amazing!!!

I have been so lucky to find many wedding related items on Amazon lately that i feel like it has been such an awesome resource for us. I haven't used Amazon until Ed and I got engaged. My first purchase was Ed's Game Over t-shirt (that he has yet to wear!!) and then it was followed by many great purchases - flower girl dresses from Webb Direct and now my wedding shoes (they're on their way home, by the way!!). We also found one of the groomsmen's gifts that I posted about - 50 Jobs Worse than Yours...

I wonder what else great deals is hiding from me at Amazon. How about you? Has Amazon been an amazing resource and what have you found?

Tags..tags..and more tags....

The next big project I have on my list is to make tags for our cookie/candy buffet bags that we purchased earlier from Paper Mart. Ed & i are doing a candy/cookie buffet for our reception for our guests to take home as their last treats for the evening, aside from the favors that we will be giving out.

We conceptualized many designs and thought that we should do something really simple but yet affordable and aesthetically pleasing. We were running errands yesterday afternoon and ran inside Jo Ann's to look at some punches for tags that my sister/MOH wanted to use (I think it's for my shower!!). Then during a very boring day at work, I started day dreaming on how I can make simple tags for those cookie/candy buffet bags with the different tag punches that we saw. I got home from work and started sharing my idea to my sister and a trip to Michael's was planned and executed. With cash on hand and a 40% off coupon, we bought a tag punch, card stock paper, embossing clear gloss, stamp ("With Love"), blue embossing powder and spools of green ribbon.

We're on our way to finishing all 200 of these tags. As soon as we finish, I'll make sure to post the directions and share more pictures of them.

I love how they turned out - just what I wanted - simple, affordable and aesthetically pleasing.

**We're still working on it as you can see our very messy working station...


**Pictures of cookie buffet courtesy of Weddingbee: Real Weddings of Jenny & Andy

I FINALLY found them ... and they're coming home!!

I finally found my wedding shoes! I have been on the search/hunt for the perfect-just right wedding shoes. I've worn the ever so popular Nine West shoes and the shoes from David's Bridal that seems to be another popular shoes for many brides but just didn't suit me - at least not for my wedding. Besides the aesthetic factor, I wanted the shoes to be comfortable and at least 3 1/2" heel for additional height. My husband to be (as some of you may know) is 6'1 so additional height won't hurt at all - in fact it's almost necessary.

I was browsing Weddingbee, of course one evening and found Ms. Cherry Blossom's posts on shoes and the Grace Crystal shoes happened to be one of her first choices but the hefty price tag was a definite hindrance. I must admit that I was a bit discourage by the $130 price tag but then started to poke into other resources like Amazon and Zappos. I actually found the same shoes on Amazon for $30 less than the original tag so I decided to jump on the ball and get the shoes. The shoes is a satin sandal with a band over the toe, accented with a rhinestones broach. Although the shoes aren't dyeable, I was still very happy with the shoes since it was just what I was looking for.

I was very happy to see my Gmail this morning with an email from amazon that my order has been shipped. WOOHOO for my new shoes!!!

The funny thing is that just last week, my sister/MOH and I were shopping at our local TJ Maxx where we found a really good pair of 7 for all Mankind jeans and a BCBG dress on sale. I ended up buying both - jeans for me and dress for sister so she can wear it to an upcoming wedding ( I plan to borrow the dress for either my engagement pictures or my bridal shower). I convinced myself to buy the new pair of jeans (it was only $99 so how could i resist when they use to be $200+) so that I can wear it for our engagement pictures sometime in October. Not even 24 hours after my purchase, i had some sense knocked into me and decided to return the jeans for money back. I just figured that i really didn't need those jeans and if i were in such great need of a good pair of jeans, AE has been always good to me.
So the jeans went back!! and Yes, I was disappointed (especially after the husband to be says "You should've just kept it!!!" but he always says that anyways..) but I figured I needed to put that money into some of my wedding related stuff... Few days later, i found my perfect just right for me wedding shoes...

In just a couple of days, we'll be meeting eye to eye.. HOW EXCITING!!!!!

Save the Dates are DONE!!!

Yes!!!They are finally complete. One of the major things we wanted to take care of before the end of the summer was to send out our Save the Date cards. With the help of our very creative MOH, combined with some A6 flat cards and envelopes from Paper Source, rubber stamp, embossing powder and some wrapping paper - a Save the Date is born.
These are the materials that we used to finally get to the final product.

Materials:
Paper Source A6 Flat Cards
Paper Source A6 Envelopes
Paper Source stamp
Stamp pad in Jade Green
Embossing Powder in Gold
Container Store Wrapping Paper
Clear labels for return address
Double sided tape
bone folder
Save the Date cards:

1. Printed the text on the A6 flat cards using Microsoft Word. Tip: Print on a regular 8'' x 11'' paper and use that to line it with the A6 flat card to see if everything is aligned correctly. This will save you from wasting any of the A6 flat cards.
2. Choose where you would like to use the stamp. This step will vary since some might like it in every corner while others prefer to have it scattered. We chose to stamp in 3 out of 4 corners. use the 8'' x 11'' sample paper you printed earlier for your stamping.
3. Once the card is stamped, put some of the embossing powder over the wet ink and remove the rest of the powder by tapping the sides of the cards. For this step, we used 2 paper plates to catch all of the embossing powder & reuse them.
4. Heat the stamped & embossed section with a embossing dryer/tool, similar to this one in the picture.
5. Repeat steps 2-4 until all of the cards have been stamped and embossed.
   
6. Use a small paint brush to brush off all the excess powder on the cards.

Envelopes:

1. Print each of the guest's name and address on the A6 envelopes using MS Word.
2. Print return address on clear labels to place on the back flap of the envelopes. Place 1 return address label in each envelope.
   
3. With an A6 envelope template, measure/trace the same number of envelopes on the wrapping paper to serve as the envelope liners. Tip: Prior to doing any cutting, measure the wrapping paper to make sure you have maximize the paper. Save scraps of the paper for smaller wrapping jobs or other DIY projects. We will be using our scraps for other tags that we'll be making.
4. Cut the traced envelopes from the wrapping paper.
   
5. Use double sided tape to attach liner to the envelope.
   
6. Use a bone folder (straight-edge or a ruler also works) to make the creases on the envelopes.

Here is our finished product...






Now that they are all complete, it's time to take them to the post office. Now it's starting to finally feel real.

Kids' Gifts

Luckily we found these cute flowergirl dresses through amazon.com and they were just what we were looking for. Since then, i have been looking for cute t-shirts for our flowergirls and ring bearers to wear during the rehearsal dinner. I really wanted something different and something that they would be able to wear again - re-usability is really BIG for me as most of you know by now. The thought of making their shirts was an idea I started to look into and found some cute pink shirts at Walmart (they actually came in all colors) that came with a metallic embroidery with rhinestones in the front of the shirt. I picked up green iron on letters to iron on their first names in the back of the shirts to personalize them. The shirts came out really cute and I will be asking them to wear the shirts at the rehearsal. Now, I'm off to buying more shirts for little boys. What other DIY projects/mini projects did you do for your flower girls & ring bearers?

BRIDE + organization

While at a family party this weekend, my FMIL made an observation about me and my wedding planning skills. She was very proud to tell my future aunts and uncles in law how organize I am as a bride and that’s why Ed and I have bee very fortunate in planning this wedding. One of the examples she used was our experience with Rockwell’s Creative Cakes. We really thought that our cake tasting would have taken us at least 1 hour in order to get everything in order, especially including 2 extra opinions that might be different than ours. Everything just went so smoothly with Rockwell’s that I think we were there for about 30-45 minutes. I came in there knowing what we want, with a picture on hand and a copy of our monogram. My FMIL said that she was just impressed on how organized and detailed I am with what I want which is why our cake tasting didn’t take as long as it would normally have taken us.

So is the key to planning your wedding being organized? Honestly, I think I have lots of room for improvement on the organization but I’m glad that others can see that I am somewhat organized. What keeps me organized? I think that one of the things that has kept me somewhat organize through this process is my TO DO LIST. I love listing – I think since I got engaged I have began this listing bit where I carry a small notebook in my purse (Yes I actually physically write each task and list them one by one.). Being able to see what I need to do and what I haven’t done actually keeps me organized and focused on what’s ahead. I love being able to check off things off my TO DO LIST and moving forward to the next task.

One of the other things that I think have helped me is having a supportive fiancé who’s willing to take things off my plate. I know that I am able to delegate certain tasks to him and he would be able to handle it. This doesn’t mean thought that I wouldn’t follow up because I do. I try to check up on him and see the progress of what he has and if he needs help or suggestions – like for his groomsmen’s gift, for example. He is also the keeper of all of our wedding related stuff that we have accumulated as well as our house wares. We have boxes full of decorations like votive candle holders and hurricane holders for our guest table area. Then, there’s also our box full of gifts for our bridal party that we have started buying. Recently, we organized everything in boxes and labeled them to make our lives much easier in searching for specific things. It really does put things in perspective for us.

Lastly, having my family being totally organize helps a TON. My mom started collecting pictures of ideas from magazines, even before we got engaged and she used sheet protectors and a binder to organize them. It really gives me some inspiration if at times I feel like I have hit a wall and don’t know what to do. There’s no fancy organization on her binder which is actually what I love. It’s simple but yet full of wonderful possibilities.

So am I an organize bride? Yes I am. What other ways have you as a bride done to keep yourself organized?

**Photos courtesy of Real Weddings: Jenny & Andy via weddingbee

Sister Day!!!

So we took a break from our DIY days of making our STD cards and went to Pasadena for some pinkberry and Akbar for dinner. Our main purpose was definitely a trip to Pinkberry this weekend so off we went to Old Town Pasadena. We've heard a lot of raves about them on theknot and Weddingbee so we decided to find the nearest Pinkberry.

We shared a large (Yes, a large!) of the original Pinkberry yogurt and topped it with fresh slices of ripe mangoes, lychees and cap n crunch cereal. It was very delish and satisfied our sweet tooth. It's definitely a must go again SOON.

After some window shopping and walking around, I took my DIY "princess" for dinner at Akbar, an Indian restaurant in Old Town as a Thank you for all the work and creative ideas that she's helped us out with. We had some yummy Indian food for dinner like Chicken Tikka and Seekh Keba paired up with some saffron rice and garlic nan. WOW!! My husband to be and I went to Akbar last week and i told my sister how great the food was so we decided to go for dinner and it was really good since she loved it.


More blogs to come this week since i haven/t blogged in a couple of days about wedding related stuff....

What's Next for our DIY family?

Our current DIY project is definitely on its way. I just love how they’re turning out. I will be posting pictures of our DIY project/STDs as soon as we finish all of them. Since my family is such in a DIY mood (but then again, we always are in a DIY mood – it’s in the blood streams, I think?) – my next upcoming DIY projects would be our (1) cookie buffet bags that we need to put tags in and (2) our wedding favors.

When the craze about candy buffet spread, I was among many brides that wanted to do a candy buffet as well. But then just recently we decided to go against the grain a bit (not really!!) and do a cookie buffet instead to give our guests that extra something to take home for a snack. One of my close friends at work has a friend that is starting up her own baking business so we were invited to her cookie affair this coming weekend to taste some scrumptious cookies. Hmm can’t wait!!!! I bought 6 1-gallon glass jars from Ikea a while back to hold all of our cookies and we were thinking of using 5 different types of cookies. The idea is that we would double up on the most popular cookie which is chocolate chip, most likely. I purchased these awesome white bags from Papermart last month for our cookie buffet that we need to spruce up with a tag or something to tie it into our whole wedding. We are probably going to go with DIY tags like “Love is sweet. Ellaine & Ed 01.05.08” I don’t know. Any ideas or suggestions?

The other DIY project/undertaking would be our wedding favors. Right after we got engaged, we decided that we would like to incorporate the 2 cultures in our wedding favors so the idea was to find some type of native Filipino wicker container and use some authentic Spanish pastries or candy inside. Is that still the plan? Well, since we’re trying to stick to our budget as much as possible (the budget that is probably spilling over) – we need some suggestions on what to put in our wicker containers. My cousin in Manila actually bought us 220 containers and sent them through one of our family friends that came back from Manila when we got engaged. I was starting to look into truffles but I haven’t really stumbled to the right vendor. I looked into homemade truffles, Dan’s Chocolates, Harry & David’s and See’s Candy and still no luck. So what to do? We also need something that would be ok to pack into the containers about a week before the wedding day and I don’t know if the truffles will really sit well outside of the fridge. I’m thinking about using those chocolate dipped shortbread cookies but don’t know where to get them in bulk.

Trust me -- its Wedding Related!!!!

This might not seem wedding related at first but it truly does. Ed and I were talking about his groomsmen’s gifts this weekend and since he’s a big book reader, he wanted to give each groomsmen a book that they would all love. Luckily he found the perfect book at where else, Paper Source, of course. He actually found several books there before but he found the perfect book that would fit him and the rest of the guys. The book was “50 Jobs Worse than Yours” by Justin Rasz. My husband to be besides being a very kind hearted and reliable friend is also a job whore. He’s had so many jobs within the past 8 ½ years that we have been together and not until a year or two ago have I really comprehend why the need to find the perfect job was so necessary. So stumbling to this book was perfect for Ed and his groomsmen.

Just this morning, one of the sub headlines on Yahoo was “What to do when you hate your job”. So I thought how appropriate that is with the book that we found this weekend. Here’s a link to the full story courtesy of Yahoo.

http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/jobseeker/tools/ept/careerArticlesPost.html?post=147

Wedding Weekend

Do you feel like there are weekends when you are supper productive and there are weekends where it just flew by you without having anything done? Well, glad to say that husband to be and I had a very productive weekend this past weekend. The master plan for this weekend was our Save the Dates cards and our cake tasting.

My sister/MOH offered to design and do all of our Save the Date cards in order to free up some time for our friend who is designing our invitations, menu and programs. We finally decided on the final mock up of our Save the Date cards so we’re very excited to start working on them. Another trip was made to one of my favorite places – Paper Source in order to get all of our DIY materials and Container Store for our envelope liners. We found this great green and white colored paisley style wrapping paper at the Container Store that we plan to use. The best part was that they came in rolls so we would be able to cover more envelopes. Since the colors match our wedding colors, I’m thinking about using the same wrapping paper for all of bridal party gifts. I couldn’t resist buying other types of wrapping paper and those double faced ribbons since I just loved the look of them – wow another favorite place. Since it was a very busy weekend, we didn’t get into the full mode of DIY so we slowly started working on the envelope liners in order to find out how many A6 envelopes each roll would accommodate. It ends up that it will cover 28 envelopes and we need 100 envelopes to cover. I picked up 3 rolls of the wrapping paper and it looks like yet another trip will need to be made to the Container Store. Woohoo!!! I also started the print job on all of the flat cards that we purchased from Paper Source but have not finished I thought that it would be a better idea to do them in batches so that our poor DeskJet printer wouldn’t freak out as much. J Once our DIY is in full force, I will make sure to post pictures of our fabulous STDs and list as much of the details as possible.

The other thing that was checked off our list was the awesome cake tasting at Rockwell’s Creative Cakes in Orange. It was so great that I had to post about that great experience. J

Thinking both of our major plans for the weekend was taken care of; I would be done for the weekend. Well, while browsing at the Bombay Company (I usually don’t go in there on a regular basis since the prices seem so high) I found some great wooden jewelry boxes to give to all of our female sponsors. They were originally $20 but was marked down to $12.99 so I went ahead and picked up 6 for all of our female sponsors. Since most of our sponsors are married to one another, we planned on getting them gift cards to different restaurants for them to enjoy but since we’re providing the male sponsors with sage green ties to wear to the wedding, giving our female sponsors something extra would be great also. I really liked the jewelry boxes and thought about purchasing more for other people but…. decided not to…

After, I headed to Papyrus to look at their embossers (I was inspired to finally look into it after reading a recent post on Weddingbee). I really like the look of embossers on envelopes so since we’ll be sending our STDs in the next 2-3 weeks, why not order our embossers. I’m excited for it to come along with the gold seals that I ordered. I think I’ll be using the gold seals to seal our STDs instead of getting stickers to close them. The Papyrus folks said that it takes 2-3 weeks to get them in and it usually takes about 2 weeks so I’m really excited to see them.

Mother/Son Dance

So yes, while on our way to Cha for Tea Ed brings up a point that he might not do the mother-son dance since it’s not traditional anyways – it’s more for the father-daughter dance. Thinking about that night, I had no clue how and where he brought it up from but he did. I just assumed (I know I shouldn’t assume) that he would do it since he’s even picked a song for him and his Mom to dance too. There was no hesitation when I asked him months ago if he’s thought about a song for him and his Mom and he said – “How about that Boyz II Men song?” Great suggestion and just seems meaningful, especially since after his father passed and his brother & sister moved out, he’s been the only one living at home with his mom so I think over the years he has paid extra attention to her. So the question goes back to – Why the heck did he changed his mind? I know that he has some time and he doesn’t have to choose now but I’m quite boggled with the idea he just brought up. This could be a couple of things:

1) Shy/embarrassed at the thought of having 200 people pay close attention to him and every move he makes. (DUH! It’s our wedding, of course they’ll be paying attention to the 2 people that are there.)

(2) He sees it as an emotional moment that he might not want to happen during our wedding. Too emotional, in fact. He’s already said that he won’t cry and not to expect him to shed any tears. He is very good at hiding his feelings until everything spills out and he’s had enough, which most of the time not a lot of people have witnessed.

(3) He’s not a dancer and he figures the one time he really has to do it will be our 1^st dance. If he can just sit and talk with his friends, then he’ll be good.

I told him that it’s his choice and if he doesn’t feel comfortable doing it, then he shouldn’t (although I’m really hoping that he does!!).I just think that this is his mom’s only opportunity to do this with him so why not take the chance and do it. So what if you just swayed around the dance floor a couple of time – it’s your day, the guests aren’t going to be judging you as if we’re on Dancing with the Stars.

So for those brides out there that’s had this similar situation happen, did you do anything in lieu of the mother/son dance? This was actually the part of our reception where I was planning on showing some clips of him as a baby with his dad but guess I’d have to think of putting that somewhere else. I still want to do something in the reception to honor his family so it doesn’t look like it’s only my family party. Your thoughts?

Cake Tasting

Cake tasting was this past Saturday at Rockwell's Creative Cakes in Orange. I was really nervous coming in to this tasting since I have not used them before and thought that I was set with Beverly's Best to do our wedding cake. Much to my disappointment, our reception place tells us that they have a contract with Rockwell's for all of their wedding cakes. Sure enough after hearing that piece of news, Ed and I headed to their shop in Orange to see if we could try to taste some of their cakes to purchase for home. They have multiple locations and the shop in Orange was specifically for people to order their cakes and do their tastings so that pointed us to their loc in Yorba Linda. We tried several cupcakes and cookies and we weren't too impressed. So not you can see why I came in to this tasting with such nervousness.

We invited our moms and my MOH (but she wasn't able to go) to go with us to the tasting for moral support. So you're probably thinking how did your tasting go? It actually went very successful, easy and fast. I was shocked to see 2 other brides there for a tasting but Kelly was so helpful with all of our questions and needs. I gave her the cake picture that Ed and i liked from a Martha Stewart mag and gave her a copy of our monogram to incorporate in the cake and we were off to actually taste the flavors. We had: lemon cake, carrot cake, white cake, chocolate cake and marble cake with vanilla buttercream and raspberry filling, cream cheese frosting for the carrot cake, chocolate mousse, strawberry mousse, raspberry mousse, cappuccino mousse, and banana mousse. The obvious faves were the white cake with a strawberry mousse (HIS) and the marble cake with a chocolate mousse (HERS). Due to the number of guests that were having, we were given 4 tiers for our cake so we used our 2 faves and asked for a red velvet (one of my new faves) with cream cheese as another flavor.
The most exiting part of the tasting was when she told us that we can take the top tier to eat a couple of days after the wedding (since we probably wont have any cake after our cake cutting) and were told to specifically not to freeze the cake and wait for our 1st yr anniversary. She told us that they would give us a free top tier cake for our 1st yr anniv so no need to freeze the cake which would probably be yucky in 2009.


** our moms and my husband to be intently looking at all the cake designs.



So all in all the tasting was a HUGE and AWESOME SUCCESSFUL experience. Can't wait to have more cake...

Song for Mama

You taught me everything
And everything you've given me
I always keep it inside
You're the driving force in my life, yeah
There isn't anything
Or anyone that I can be
And it just wouldn't feel right
If I didn't have you by my side
You were there for me to love and care for me
When skies were grey
Whenever I was down
You were always there to comfort me
And no one else can be what you have been to me
You will always be you always will be the girl
In my life for all times
Chorus:
Mama, mama you know I love you
Oh you know I love you
Mama, mama you're the queen of my heart
Your love is like
Tears from the stars
Mama, I just want you to know
Lovin' you is like food to my soul
Yes it is (5x)
You're always down for me
Have always been around for me even when I was bad
You showed me right from my wrong
Yes you did
And you took up for me
When everyone was downin' me
You always did understand
You gave me strength to go on
There was so many times
Looking back when I was so afraid
And then you come to me
And say to me I can face anything
And no one else can do
What you have done for me
You'll always be
You will always be the girl in my life
Chorus
Never gonna go a day without you
Fills me up just thinking of you
I'll never go a day without my mama
Chorus
Yes you are

Pretty song right? But now I think he's re-considering not doing the dance at all? WHY? I don't know!! More to come later...

STDs

One of our good friends was gracious enough to design all of our paper products for the wedding so he gave us several samples for our invites and monograms this past weekend. One of the paper things that I really wanted to take care of is our Save the Dates. Since our wedding is fast approaching, our goal is to have the STDs sent out during the later part of August or at the very latest the early part of September. I didn’t want to send it out later than that since we’ll b sending our wedding invitations in the beginning of November. It seems that the time frame won’t be an issue with our STDs so he’s still designing it as we speak.

I guess you can say that I had a slight panic moment – it’s also thinking that the STDs wouldn’t be done in time with this guy being so busy and I really wanted him to focus on our invites. I started looking around and was inspired by a sample from weddingdivas.com. Weddingdivas seemed really reasonable but I thought that I would be able to save some money if I tried doing it myself. Thus, the trip to Paper Source was made. My handy dandy and very artsy fartsy sister/MOH was on the verge of stamping and embossing our STDs and came up with several mock ups. I really love how they came out with such elegance and simplicity. I told Ed that this doesn’t mean that his friend shouldn’t work on our STDs but this will give us something to choose from. I know I can be very partial, especially when it comes to my sister’s work so I think this will be one tough move. Time to convince husband to be that we need to use our mock ups in order to free up some time for our friend/volunteer, especially since he has a 7 month old baby. Wish me luck!

Something, Old, New, Borrowed and Blue

So I started thinking about this and what would be my something old, something new, something blue and something borrowed. The obvious choice for my something new would probably be my white dress. The last white dress I bought and wore was probably for my 2^nd grade communion in the Philippines so those people that know me, they know that white and I don’t mix well. Given that information, I really treasure this something new that I purchased and decided that I would appreciate it for what it’s worth. This is another reason why I opted not get a 2^nd dress for the reception because I wanted to enjoy my wedding dress since this would be the only occasion that I would be wearing it. For now, I don’t think I will be the sentimental mother that forces their daughter to wear their wedding dress in order to keep some tradition. My mom didn’t force me to so why should I? And I also think that each bride deserves their own dress – whether it’s a dress that came from their mothers and grandmothers or its brand new or custom made – it has to be their dress and no one else is….. Something New – CHECKED!

Then, thoughts about my something borrowed came about and the coins that Ed and I will be exchanging during our ceremony will represent that. I chose that piece because the coins were originally used from my parents’ wedding 31 years ago in a small province in the Philippines. My mom tells me that my late grandmother had some original silver that she had melted in order to get these coins made for their wedding. I believe my 2 cousins from my mom’s side of the family used it at well so it is definitely a nice piece of heirloom that I would like to incorporate in our wedding…… Something borrowed – CHECKED!

On to Something Old and Something Blue – I could always purchase a blue garter like most brides do in order to have something but I wanted something more meaningful. Ed thought that it would be nice to choose some soft blue touches in our wedding, including our flowers to give a punch out of all the greens, whites and creams. So I know we’ll have blue somewhere in the wedding – I just can’t seem to pinpoint one specific thing that I will personally use on that day. <I’m gonna need some thinking time on this one.>

As far as my something old, I really wanted to use either something from Ed’s dad (like a piece of jewelry) since it would be a nice way to commemorate him on our special day and make him feel included. Ed’s dad passed away more than 5 years ago from a heart attack. I know that our wedding will be a bittersweet moment for most of his family members because I know that they’ll be happy for us and our union but sad that Ed’s dad wouldn’t be able to join us. I still have yet to talk to his mom about this since I haven’t had the right time. Their house just recently got burglarized 2 weeks ago where most of his father’s belongings got taken away so this is just not the right timing. <Another one that’s gonna need some time thinking.>

As you can see I have two major things taken care of and two major things that need some extra thinking time.. Any suggestions? What are some that other brides have used in the past?

Soon to follow....

I WANT!!!!

The more and more I think about my dress and the perfect accessories, I really like the Regina B. bracelet that a lot of the brides have been talking about. I was looking at Weddingbee and Mrs. BellPepper's blog and although, I would love to own her Haute Bride bracelet, I don't think I can shell out that much money on one bracelet. :( I think the Regina B. bracelet would be more practical for me since i would most likely wear that bracelet again at a fancy dinner or company parties. What do you guys think? I wonder where I can get that bracelet - physically walk in somewhere and buy it instead of ordering it...

**photos courtesy of mrs.pootiekins married and planning bios

Dresses ... CHECKED!!!!

I finally ordered all of the bridesmaids dresses tonight through netbride.com and even though it will take 14-16 weeks for it to be shipped, i am excited for it to come to my doorstep. Can't wait to see them!!!!

Do Something Creative Everyday

Today was a good day. I saw Ed and we had dinner at Cha for Tea with my sister and we proceeded to visit one of our fave stores at South Coast. Yes, we made a very necessary trip to Paper Source.

i love love love love Paper Source.... They have so much stuff that i could potential do a lot of stuff with and i always come out with ideas floating around in my head. Today, we came out with lots of paper, 3 different kinds of stamps, 2 stamp pads and 2 colors of embossing powder. Although, we did not get much help from the workers, i think we came away with plenty of stuff to keep us busy for couple of days to do mock ups.

Stay tuned...

I Do Times

Since Ed and I got engaged, I have been interested in putting together a newsletter for all of our bridal party. Originally, I thought it would give our bridal party (including our bms, gms & sponsors) a peaked into our wedding plans since a lot of them have been asking us for a quick update from time to time. But then, I thought that the guys might just think that it was a waste of time that I obviously have to put the newsletter together so i decided to just keep the newsletter for our bridesmaids, mostly with information pertaining to them. Since my sister/MOH has a background on newsletters (she was an editor for PASA in college) so I recruited her to do all that creative stuff.

She used Microsoft publisher since she was familiar with that tool already from her previous experience and I wrote all of the articles and got all the pictures ready for her to post. I started introducing all of the bridesmaids and gave bit of information about the groomsmen - which led me to deciding to send the newsletters to all of our bridal party. The end result surpassed all of what i was imagining it to be so i am so glad at how great they came out and so was everyone!!!! (even our gm)