Wedding Planning: The Engagement Shoot Select Pics

The concept was Mr & Mrs Smith. If you don't get it, you need to see the movie.

Some of the outtakes

Wedding Planning: The Invitation

Our invitations cost us 31 pesos a piece. This type of invitation is being sold at mall-located-invitation-kioks at 60-85 a piece, and at Recto for 40-50 a piece. But I am an OC Bride who thinks no one can pull off the invitation that I have envisioned in mind, I DIY'd it. :)

We bought the bottles in Divisoria, 7 pesos each

The stickers we asked Robee Stickers to do, 3 pesos each

The invitation printing - we had made in Jherland (JohnKyle bookstore) in Recto, 20 pesos with the pink ribbons.

The yellow ribbons, 2 pesos per yard, but each bottle only used around 4-6 inches, I just rounded it off at 1 pesos per bottle.

The fonts, I got from a digital scrapbooking website: Kevin and Amanda's Fonts For Peas. You can download the fonts for FREE.

Not Liking Someone to the Verge of Homophobia

I love the gays. I have a lot of gay friends. And I love them. The thing is, same with girls and guys, I also choose which gay I get close to.

I'm an intovert. It might sound weird and funny and pathetic that I'm introverted, but I am... Comes with that is the fact that I sift through all the people I meet and choose who I really wanna be friends with.

Facebook is a problematic area for me. People who meet you and you interact with expect that after 5 conversations; or even 5 sentences directed to them -- that they can add you into their FB list. I've been cleaning up my contacts list time and again. Every office you work at, you're bound to add at least 20 people. At the end of the year -- or when I leave that office, I clean this up and just retain 20 - 50% of the people I added. The rest are just noise that I can probably remove from my life and go on and things won't change, no adverse effect.

You practically coerced me to friend you. So I did, if that's what it takes to keep you quiet. I don't wanna be reminded time and again that I haven't friended you yet; or worse, that your friend request to me is pending -- when the truth is I rejected it (BTW, I unfollowed you and hid your posts already, I'm actually contemplating unfriending you).

Being the introvert that I am, I am not always switched on. There's a bunch of people I switch on for. Unfortunately, you're not one of them. I don't like your humor. It is cheap and it degrades other people. There's prolly a bunch of people awed and amazed with how your humor is always at the expense of other people. Your witty retorts are not enough for my sarcasm. Your egocentric-narcissist-better-than-thou rants may be funny to about 70% of the human population, but I think I can come up with a quip funnier and more substantial than yours at half the time you conjured that last one up. I don't have time for small-talk, let alone leisurely okrayan, if you must. Aaaannnddd... I hate the music you play. It's so redundant, it's so comedy bar, so... trannytown, dragville. I have a lot of gay friends and they don't listen to stereotypical gay music, their brains are a little bigger perhaps than yours that they can listen to music that doesn't involve Whitney Houston or Dreamgirls.

Just to make this sting a little less, the problem is not you. I am a Type A, hedonist, narcissistic, no-nonsense, leftist, whiny, down-with-the-boys, anti-consumerism riot girl. And you are just about everything that annoys me. So please get out of my way as I have better things to do than to look at that flamboyant, know-it-all, right-wing, queen-supreme-wannabe, social climbing, poseur duckfaced mug of yours.

You're killing my zen. And around 10 other people's zen too.

Wedding Planning: The Reception Venue

Paco Park. The Park rental is around 8,000 for affairs from 6am to 6pm, and around 10,000 for affairs from 6pm to 6am.

Their office is at Rizal Park, along TM Kalaw cor. Taft Ave., Manila. It's a green building, it's called National Parks Development Committee/Council.

Their reservation books/calendar open every August. For example, for a wedding for December 2013, you can have it reserved as early as August 2012 (If you are like me who doesn't want to settle for a different date or venue just because someone else got the date/venue earlier than you). To reserve a date, you'll need to pay 20% of the total venue rental, the rest you can pay 1 month prior the wedding.

The person who will assist you is Ms. Cathy Guadalupe. You can reach her at 302-7079/408-7062, office hours is 8-12; 1-5.

Wedding Planning: The Caterer, the Mock up and the Menu

The caterer we chose is k by Cunanan (https://www.facebook.com/kbycunanancatering).
We had the mock up a few days ago. In the mock up, we finalized the food to be served, based on our food tasting. We also agreed on what needs to be done decor-wise. And of course, the costing.

Our final menu is:

Cocktail hour
Skewered cherry tomatoes, mozarella cubes and parsley
Hoisin chicken wrap
Smoked tanigue in crackers with horseradish

Beverage
Dalandan juice

***

Soup
Cheese and broccoli
Pumpkin soup

Salad
Insalata with stawberry vinegrette

Main course
Mixed seafood pasta
Red snapper with mango salsa and coconut sauce (for guests)
Honey nut prawns (for VIP(presedential+couple))
Barbecue beef ribs with pasley butter corn and baby potatoes
Chicken with leeks in teriyaki glaze
Carrot rice/steamed rice

Desserts
Lemon creme brulee
Mixed fruit compote
Mango panna cotta
Kiwi panna cotta
Picatostes de tsokolate
Strawberry and banana crepe

Beverage
Raspberry iced tea
Tarragon tea and brewed coffee

This is sort of what the table will look like:

Flower arrangements will be in blue hydrangeas, pink/peach roses and yellow chyrsanthemums on glass jars, bottles and logs.

The total package for 140 guests, 10 kids, and 6 crew meals cost us roughly PhP125,000.

Guest meals cost = PhP740
Kiddie and Crew meals = PhP350
Plus, there's a service charge and of course, the fucked up VAT

While the service might seem pricey for some, (we actually got the cheapest package from them) I say splurge on it since it is the only thing that the guests remembers, the food and the table setting. :) Plus, k by Cunanan doesn't just cater, they DESIGN the reception. From the flowers, the set up, the tables, the table numbers, the place cards, etc. They do it - IN STYLE!

If you're planning to take k by Cunanan as your caterer too, I suggest you make sure that Kar de Castro-Reyes deals with you. She's marvelous and so fierce! :) Kar's cellphone number is 09178199466. Their HQ is in Ayala Heights, QC (#15 Emilio Jacinto St., Ayala Heights).

Wedding Planning: The Engagement Photoshoot

This is a teaser coz I won't really show you all of the photos. They will be launched wedding day.

Save the Date :)

Location: UP Diliman Film Center
Photographers: Box Out Photo/Rein Jacela
Concept: by MOI

We got their Blue Box Package, it costs PhP25,000.

Inclusions: 2 professional photographers, 1 lights man, 1 guestbook, 1 wedding album (Plus, CINEMATIC photography skills).

Rein is a friend from TELUS, Box Out is a group he is with friends April and Louie. I KNOW Rein shoots good photos, so while getting MangoRed or JasonMagbanua is surely a dream, I don't wanna spend PhP100,000 for photos alone, when I know someone who can deliver the same effect minus the cost.

To contact Box Out, you may text April/Louie at 09228399183/09228225100.

Overdue on RH*

I said I don’t want to blog politics anymore. But I feel like this one is inevitable. I am merely speaking as a woman, an educated woman who cares for her body and the future of her soon-to-be-family, who is aware of the dangers of giving birth and how mothers die giving birth when it could’ve been avoided to start with, the peril of sexually transmitted diseases spreading, the degrading economic conditions and how poverty is at all time high. Yes you might judge me for my agnosticism, or my past and current political affiliations for my biases, and that I am a rebel without a cause bratting my way into this debate

I am not as articulate as I used to, I realized; I have not read 60-page readings on the subject at hand to back me up. However, I cannot quite create a coherent wordplay to express my disdain on the Catholic Church for spoon-feeding, if not brainwashing their followers into a state of sublime naïveté on the matter. Again, I am not an expert; I will not debate and challenge friars, fanatics and pompous asses. This is just my two cents, free-flowing.

The Bible did not fall from the heaven, inscribed by lightning, landed on earth to be our sole guide in everything. If anything, it is a history book, a literary piece, a constitution of sorts if you will; and just like any constitution, it may be subject to amendments once it’s proven to be untimely. Jesus, is anything, is an icon, a revolutionary. I am not an atheist, though. I do believe in some form of Higher Power or Supreme Being. But the dogma of Catholicism is too much. Believe me, I studied in a “Catholic School” and was even dubbed Best in Christian Living. But if there’s one thing that I understood well in the Old Book, it is that human beings have freewill and I am merely practicing it. That has been my principle. Freedom. Tolerance. Freewill. I am free to to know, to understand, to analyze, to challenge theories and create my own ones if I found those existing to be insufficient and incapable of satisfying all my questions. The world, the society we live in, the technology we posses exists because of people who ask, who challenge and are not satisfied with what is just being handed to them. I feel the deepest of contempt to the blind followers.

Sure, the natural family planning method worked back circa 15 AD to 1940s, when the earth still needed inhabitants. But now, people are fighting for the most basic resources to survive. I think earth doesn’t need more inhabitants, I’m definite we’re nearing the threshold of earth’s capacity population-wise. The people are suffering because of this: low quality education, high poverty rate, rotten health care and social welfare programs, mass hunger. Awareness is the key to responsibility. If the Church continues to instill the idea of ‘sex is taboo’, people will never learn.

Sex is good, it is primal. The result of which is an infant (Juno, 2007). But if the parents cannot provide a good life to the kid, if the parents cannot even provide nourishment to the baby because they have seven more that they also need to feed, if the children resort to begging in the streets, if the mother will have to die giving birth because of lack of options, leaving the father raising a kid by himself, if the children will have to literally fight for a chance to quality education and health care. Wouldn’t it be nicer if the couple had an option firsthand on how they’ll go about with their sexual affairs and were clear with the size of the family that they want? As such all the needs will be provided to these children. Don’t get me wrong, I am all about family, and that it should provide the children the proper building blocks of life, values and principles for the next generation who will inherit our country and our world.

The RH Bill is not about legalizing abortion. It must be seen and understood in it’s complexity, how it has the capacity to solve the grassroots problem that escalates into the economic crisis we’re experiencing. It is about giving better options, to provide better life that will produce better people that will create a better country and a better world.

I’ve heard this on the news, unsure of the verbatim, but in essence: Catholics are not to be bound by the RH Bill.

My reply: Filipinos are not bound by Catholicism neither. We are all only bound by our own decisions based on freewill.

But then again, that’s just me. An opinion, not an absolute truth. After all, no one controls the monopoly of truth… or wisdom. Unless you're a tyrannical fascist with the worst case of Megalomania.


* I wrote this last October 4, 2010.

Food Tasting: k by Cunanan

Headed to Ayala Heights (QC) with Mike, Mama, Mommy and Xavier for the food tasting and coordinating last August 26, 2011.

Kar Reyes from k by Cunanan entertained us when we did the reservation/ book last February at Megamall in a Bridal Fair. To be able to book your date, you must pay the reservation fee which is PhP10,000 :)I just emailed Kar to coordinate when the initial food tasting will be. A final mock up food tasting will take place about 3 or 2 months before the wedding, so we agreed to set it around November or December 2011.

The package we got from Cunanan is for PhP740 per head (+10% service charge and +12% VAT), which is roughly around  PhP135,000 for our 150 guestlist.

The package includes:

• 3 hors d' oeuvres
• 2 soup choices
• Salad
• Pasta
• Fish (seafood upgrade)
• Chicken
• Pork or beef
• Rice (carrot and steamed)
• 5 Desserts
• Bottomless raspberry iced tea

Plus, linens, dinnerware, silverware, glassware, tiffany chairs for ALL guests, cocktail tables for cocktail hour, floral and votive centerpieces for ALL tables, platform with backdrop and sofa for photo op with the couple, table numbers/names, place cards and menu cards for the presidential tables and bottle of wine for the toast.We opted out of the cake - as they charge extra 10k for it - and I know I can get a cheaper deal somewhere else.

For the rate we're paying I think it's pretty dope :) (Keep on reading, you'll see the outcome of our wedding in the end. And please do leave a comment)

Ayala Heights in QC

My mama and husband's mommy

Husband's nephew Xavier

I wasn't able to take a photo of the hors d'oeuvres. They sampled us with Crackers with smoked tanigue and horseradish. Weren't able to take a photo of the 2 soup samples - Brocolli and Cheese; and Roasted Corn.

Insalata caprese, orange, walnuts, strawberry vinaigrette

To see our final menu, click THIS link.

Honey Nut Prawns

If you wanna see how our reception ended up looking like, click HERE.

Japanese rolled chicken, cheese and leeks, teriyaki glaze

If you wanna see how the food looked like in our guests' plates, see it HERE.

Mixed seafood pasta, chopped fresh tomatoes, pesto drizzle

For our post-wedding mileage, click HERE.

Roast beef ribs, mashed potato cakes

To see pretty much anything Wedding related, click THIS.

Picatostes with tsokolate and Strawberry Panna Cotta

We were a little disappointed because we could've used more options with the menu, but they said these were their "best-sellers". We're thinking of requesting a different set of menu for the final mock up just to have a comparison.

But it was nice. Fine dining for 5 - free ;p


While the service might seem pricey for some, (we actually got the cheapest package from them) I say splurge on it since it is the only thing that the guests remembers, the food and the table setting. :) Plus, k by Cunanan doesn't just cater, they DESIGN the reception. From the flowers, the set up, the tables, the table numbers, the place cards, etc. They do it - IN STYLE!

If you're planning to take k by Cunanan as your caterer too, I suggest you make sure that Kar de Castro-Reyes deals with you. She's marvelous and so fierce! :) Kar's cellphone number is 09178199466. Their HQ is in Ayala Heights, QC (#15 Emilio Jacinto St., Ayala Heights).

BPY

 BPY. The shades that I like and will be used are boxed/ highlighted.

Blue 

Pink

Yellow

Writing

I am writing something. I'd probably publish this here in my blog as the "About Us" section. Right now, it's still in the works.