Category Archives: A&M’s request for the wedding

rustic-travel themed invites

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♫…brown paper packages tied up with strings,these are a few of my favorite things…♫

Yep, our invites indeed are one of my favorite things (among many others in our wedding details). Ever since I saw a passport invite months before we decided to get married, I was bent on having our invites passport-style. But when I actually got started with the wedding preparation, I learned that a LOT of couples already adopted this idea. We’d only be one in hundreds. How to make our invites a bit different from the others?

Lene certainly had more ideas in mind. In her words, “who said we’re just sticking to passports?” I-just-love-her. See, what she had in mind were for us to have:

  • main passport invites, with the front and back cover text and logo gold embossed
  • a postcard for the RSVPs and dress code
  • a train ticket for our gifts preference (we’ll be based in Japan whilst the wedding is in the Philippines hence we had to specifically request our guests to not to follow Filipino tradition on gift giving – which is actually buying house items for the couple)
  • a hotel stationery wherein a
  • location map is attached

Lene also tossed the idea of wrapping our invites with brown craft paper for the rustic touch and Erika (Detalye) tossed the idea of sealing it with  logo sticker.

I love each and every part of our invites because of the detail in each. Take for one our train pass. Our inspiration was from Yokohama’s old subway train pass (nowadays, it has the pink PASMO mascot in the background). 

It has some orange logo in the background. And you know what Lene did?

I was beside her when she was doing this bit. We were just talking about some normal topic, totally non-invites related and then wham, she reduced our logo into minis and had it as background for our train ticket. Imagine my giddiness when I realized what she was doing. Lene is just simply awesome, isn’t she? 🙂

To complete our invites, we wrapped it in laminated craft paper and tied it up with a string. Erika’s team (Detalye) was kind enough to buy the strings for me in Divisoria. For somebody who gets sick e-v-e-r-y-t-i-m-e she goes to Divisoria, this favor is really something. Dust and aerosols and any minute particles really doesn’t sit well with my nose (that includes tatami and the dust and mites housed in the tatami which means I shouldn’t stay a lot in out tatami room 🙁  Or better yet, clean the tatami room thoroughly hehe.)

There was one hitch though that really got me pressured. I can’t ask the printer to set up our invites for me because if they fold the paper and tie it up already, I would have to untie it and unfold it again so as to write the RSVPs and addressees. This could result to a much-wrinkled wrap. Shoganai ne, I have to do the wrapping myself. And for one who has untrained hands, this really put a lot of pressure on me.

But nothing is too strong for prayer and determination. True, before I started folding and tying, I had to pray for it. And I had to say this is for Atsushi and our loved ones.  Suffice it to say that each invite was a labor of love. 🙂  And they turned out not so bad after all.

Requested my ex-colleague/friend Russell Olaguer to take some shots of our photos. They turned out really nice, as expected! Together with Douglas Cataylo, Russell also covered our first prenup. I am so excited for our 2nd prenup tomorrow or sunday, granting good weather conditions with Russell and Gali Montalbo!

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Ugh, I can’t delete the first two pics about the train pass in this slideshow. Anyways the map was in full lime green print (not in the pictures, it was the one folded in the hotel stationery), giving balanced exposure of both our wedding colors. Sorry, I had to mosaic the names though, for privacy purposes.

Oh, by the way, do visit Lene’s FB page for her miniatures and be amazed more with her talent.  Please do visit as well Lene’s portfolio. We are thankful as well to Crowne Print through Erika (Detalye) for their very good output/prints of our invite. Really nice work. 🙂

wedding culture differences

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It was only this evening, on a talk with Hubbie, did I realize three glaring differences between the wedding etiquettes in Japan and here in Philippines. One particular etiquette may be SOP in one country but could be perceived as presumptuous on the other country.

Here goes what, in no particular order of gravity.

1. cash gifts

In Japan, it’s automatic that when one gets invited to the wedding, he/she would be setting aside some money for their cash gift. A previous Japanese seatmate at work mentioned before that usually, minimum amount for the gift is 30,000yen. “Why so expensive?!”, I exclaimed. He says 10,000yen is deemed too small and 20,000yen or any even digit number is considered bad luck. So the cheapest sensible amount is 30,000yen. 40,000 is considered bad luck also so the next reasonable amount is 50,000yen, then 70,000yen, so on and so forth. I had another Japanese friend who cannot attend his friend’s wedding hence he bought flowers for the newlywed but still, prepared his cash gift. Buying a bedsheet or a rice cooker for the couple wasn’t considered at all.

In Philippines, it’s been a custom to set aside some of our time to shop some house items for the couple as our gift. And hence those who didn’t opt for the bridal registry would then find themselves showered with 3 rice cookers, 4 flat irons, plates, pans, glasswares, und so weiter. Although it’s still considered a delicate matter, the Philippine wedding setting has already been somewhat mimicking lately the culture on cash gifts. However, because of the ingrained attitude we Filipinos have to go and shop for house items for the newly-weds, couples are opting to include in their invites their preference for cash gifts. I must tell you though: finding the nice and appropriate way of including this request in our invite is VERY difficult since some guests may perceive this as very presumptuous indeed. But I had to include this request on our invites owing primarily to the fact that our wedding is here in Philippines yet we will be settling down in Japan. To have the material gifts we received here be shipped to Japan would probably cost much more that their actual cost. So I hope, I hope all our guests would understand this.

2. Attire

In Japan, it’s automatic, everyone would come to the wedding attired in their formal wear. They need not be informed beforehand. I have one concern though: they consider black suits as a formal wear. But I don’t want anything black on our wedding. Hence we may have to specifically state on our invites that we’re requesting for no black suits. Barong tagalog is requested especially for male guests who will be part of the wedding entourage.

In Philippines, your invites have to be specific. You need to specify if attire is strictly formal or if casual wear is acceptable.

3. An adult affair

In Japan, again, it’s understood that parents will not be bringing their small babies to the wedding event.

In Philippines, you have to really specify that it is an adult affair and that the couple has to politely request parents not to bring their infants to the wedding. Of course, the kids who are part of the entourage are still coming with us to the reception; they’re old enough anyway. I’m talking of infants. This one is particularly difficult on me now. And I can only hope we can settle this matter without feelings getting hurt.