Monthly Archives: April 2011

17 days

Posted on by

My second day here in Manila and it’s already getting hectic. My day was full, what with 4 hours in the dentist’s and then meeting up Mang Rey Casedo.

Yey 1: i’ve no braces anymore! We still have some post ortho processes though. Am not sure if there were any changes but Kat said there were and that my dentist did a good job so i’ll take her word for it. Because yes, I’ve probably forgotten already how my teeth looked before.

Yey 2: we have our entourage barongs already! They were quite heavy to carry though. Glad with the detail that Mang Rey did to highlight the fathers. Otosan’s and Papa’s barongs have additional embroideries on the neck and cuffs.

Yey 3: will be meeting up with our emcee tomorrow. We won’t be having Issa Litton anymore however. She will be shooting her new show and the first shooting incidentally falls on April 30. 🙂 We’ll have Ingrid Nieto, Mellow947’s Afternoon Cruise DJ. I hope we’ll click. Let’s see tomorrow.

Yey 4: 4th fitting with Richie is moved to Thursday instead of tomorrow. Why yey? Because then it will be after my other 4:30 appointment tomorrow, not before. 😀

Yey 5: Finally finished the Reception Program draft!

Yey 6: Patched it up with MPO. yey!

Yey 7: Saw a teaser of our spring pre-nup by Gali Montalbo. lovely!

I’m fully booked till Thursday. The next three weeks is definitely gonna be pretty exciting. I so look forward to Hubby’s arrival so he can also share my excitement in person.

rustic-travel themed invites

Posted on by

♫…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!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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. 🙂

bacon with hourenso (spinach)

Posted on by

Now this combo is reaaally good. I got addicted with this on my previous assignment here in Japan; ordering a serving or two in some popular family restaurants here. But it was only now that I finally worked on making this combo at home.

It’s quite easy to prepare though.

  1. Boil water and sprinkle some salt and pepper. You can also put the Japanese soup flavoring “hondashi” for that slightly Japanese taste.
  2. Once boiling, put the spinach and wait for about 2 minutes to let it cook.
  3. Drain.
  4. Sauté the bacon with olive oil until lightly brown or until natural juice comes out.
  5. Add in the hourenso.
  6. Sprinkle salt and pepper to taste.

Tada!

 

ï»ż

bouquet/garter games, anyone?

Posted on by

I have mixed feelings with the traditional bouquet and garter games. When I was still single, I always grunted whenever this part of the reception is around. I try to wriggle myself out of it, if I can. It’s like, “MUST I be here??”. But then come the games, I find myself enjoying it.

There were also times when the couple modified this part and asked married couples to join in on the game instead of singles. It’s fun to have this, for a change, and it’s fun to see married couples enjoying the game. But then some part of me was thinking, “ah, I wonder who would have been the couple if it were singles in this game”.

There were also times when the games were obviously scripted. That there was some pre-arranged couple who should emerge as winners. This one is nice especially when the couple is really game with it and that their being the winners would help the party be more lively (e.g. they’re the crowd’s favorite and that everyone wants them to be together as a couple or want them to get hitched already). But then again, it would be nice also to have some element of surprise; to let good ol’ fate to decide who should have the bouquet and the garter.

See? Mixed feelings. What’s your thoughts?

corporate greetings and some progress

Posted on by

Hubby advised me last week that we will be receiving a card from his company (our mother cum affiliate company in my previous workplace – gosh i miss work) yesterday. Indeed, I woke up just in time to answer the postman’s doorbell ring. Had to wait for Hubby till I can open it though because it’s supposedly a congratulatory card for our wedding.

My name was nowhere in it though. 😛

Isn’t it just a bit weird? This is supposedly a wedding card, and they even supposedly send this to the actual wedding date but since our wedding is in the Philippines, Hubby advised to have it sent home. But where’s my name??

Anyways, it’s the thought that counts. And the CEO of the company himself is the signatory (although it probably was processed and done by HR). We’re thankful as it is that their company has this kind of thoughtfulness. My previous company doesn’t practice this stuff, although we do receive some “amount” as congratulatory token.

Although I really am not bothered that my name isn’t in the card, I playfully hounded Hubby about it. To make me feel “better” we ate the Godiva chocolates that he gave me for my birthday. But actually, it’s our dessert for the night. It’s been aeons since we saw a yogurt in the supermarkets. Lack or nada yogurt supply is one of the mundane effect of the March 11 Tohoku earthquake.

Isn’t Hubby just sweet? 😀

Godiva chocolates is really good. Even if you eat the whole bunch in one sitting, your throat won’t hurt at all, even for me who’s prone with tonsilitis. It’s one of those once you pop, you can’t stop – and this coming from somebody who really is not too keen on eating chocolates.

As oh, there’s been considerable progress lately, thankfully:

  • misalette draft already approved by officiating priest, with all readings the one we preferred. yey! Answered prayer. 🙂 thanks as well to Ivy of Lipa Chancery and to Erika (Detalye) for talking it out with Fr. Dong
  • already purchased our gifts for the principal sponsors. We were so happy that we can customize the labels – for free!! Japanese customer service is just simply awesome. I’m excited with our labels as well. 🙂
  • our unity coins were also already delivered. Thanks to Kat for receiving them. And since i’m w@w tag holder, i got a discount.

Hope there’ll be more considerable progress soon.

colette mare

Posted on by

I realized that I am starting to panic because of many apparent pending items for our wedding preps. And since we still haven’t done our grocery shopping, I can’t course all excess energies through cooking. I found myself eating sinful food though – french fries, salty snacks, carbonated drinks – food that I have carefully avoided, so that I can fit my wedding gown. Blame it on stress.

In any case, today was one productive day. Finally found the perfect gift for the principal sponsors in Colette Mare, yey! I just hope they’ll like it though and not be too concerned on the radiation bluff. Come on….

Also, was able to order our Unity Coins/Arrhae via W@W. yey!

And and, we stayed almost an hour in Watanabe Furniture Shop, our friendly neighborhood furniture shop, to order two more bookshelves (even Watanabe-san himself was very surprised that we’re ordering two more since he knows we already have three bookshelves in our library. and to think he still haven’t seen our other two bookshelves in the dining area hehehe) and our bed. yey!

So having had all those accomplishments, we gifted ourselves with movie tickets to Tangled 3D in Colette Mare (definitely the most expensive movie tix i’ve had at 2000yen). Man that mall has a really good cinema place! Really really nice. I think everyone who watched Tangled were on a date. It was in Japanese by the way, even the songs. Yet that didn’t stop me from crying. hehehe.

Anyways, another long day tomorrow! More to do. And I hope I can take rein on this almost-panicky-feeling.