Rustic-travel themed wedding guest giveaways

Hubby and I wanted guests wedding favors that covered both the rustic and travel aspects of our theme. And well, katsa (rustic) bags (can you get any more “travel-ly” than bags??) certainly did fit the bill!

But we want it personalized.

With the help of a co-w@wie Anna, who designed our cartoons for us just in the nick of time, we had our cartoons silkscreen printed on the katsa bags.

Credits!

  • Cartoon design by Anna Bonnevie
  • Giveaways tag design by Lene Dee-Dragon
  • Printing coordination, twine wrap and tag fringe edge ideas by Erika of Detalye

And oh. I wanted to use our cartoons as a stamp on our postcard thank you cards that we’ll be sending our guests. Customizedesigns did give us freebie stickers but the number of sticker cartoons we have is obviously much less than the number of guests we need to thank for. I tried to edit our cartoons to put some stamp border on it using Photoscape but my computer just freezes over whenever I try to attempt to edit it. After almost a day’s attempt, I had an output. But far from satisfying. I emailed Anna what she used to obtain the same stamp border as our cartoons for our giveaways. And I should have expected – Photoshop is the answer. But what I didn’t expect was the attachment that came with the reply. Anna revised our cartoons and gave me four options for our stamps.

Hubby was so surprised when I just suddenly exclaimed, “wow, Anna is such a nice person!!” when I read Anna’s email. True, Anna is one of those persons I have encountered that would make you say, “People are intrinsically good”.

Thankful for the blessing! 🙂

Katsa bag raw photo courtesy of Dino Lara.

Review: Customized Designs (misalette)

Renee was such a breeze to work with. Totally not stressful at all. She’s based in North of Metro Manila and pickup point for the misalettes is in malls in Ortigas area. Since I’m in Alabang, I opted for courier delivery. Totally hassle-free.

The only one catch though was that the supposedly orange font color on our misalette cover wasn’t really orange but more on the reddish tint.

One good thing however was that since i’m a w@wie, she offered me a freebie. However, I already have the three freebies she offered to me and I don’t want things to be redundant. So I asked Renee if she can make us sticker stamps with our cartoons made by a fellow w@wie Anna. Tada!

Just used six of them last week and posted them on our Yokohama postcard thank you cards. Lovely.

Supplier: Renee Rose M. Hernando-Ferido of Customized Designs

Rating: 4/5

Contact Details: +63922.8530470, +63916.2532095, customizedesigns09@yahoo.com

On Dino’s blog, at last

During our wedding preps, in the same way that I have consistently mentioned Dino here in our blog, I probably couldn’t count already the number of times that I stalked Dino’s blog. And with every visit, as I admire the pictures of other couples, I dream and yearn of the one day when finally we’ll have our own.

And today, we finally saw our share of pictures.

 

Happiness.

Review: Mitzi (Dance Instructor)

I was ready not to incorporate the First Dance tradition, concerned as I was that Atsushi might be very conscious about it, considering that this was literally his first dance, ever. But Hubby knows this is part of tradition hence he was bent on training his body for it – by doing some nightly exercises. 😀 Thank you Hubby! As for me, it’s been almost a decade since I last danced. With that, we really do need a dance instructor to choreograph our dance for us.

Mitzi was recommended by Erika (of Detalye).  And i’d say easily Mitzi is one of the BEST suppliers we had. She’s one bundle of positive energy from the moment we met her up to when we had to say goodbye after our last practice. Totally she was one supplier you can hang around with to help remove your stress. She was the one who went to our hotel rooms for the practices (we had two sessions the week before our wedding). She even brought with her a CD with a couple or so of our songs in it! Girlscout! By the way, her thoughtfulness worked for us because Hubby and I was only relying on youtube for the our first dance song, Grow Old With Me (Mary Chapin Carpenter’s version)

Mitzi was really patient with me and Atsushi. She was very forgiving with our missteps yet was quick to point out what needs to be improved. She was also quick with her compliments, especially with how Atsushi was very serious in mastering the steps. On our last practice (the Wednesday before our Saturday wedding), Mitzi told us to try to practice by ourselves in the next couple of days. Hubby and I did try but the hotel room we transferred to was just so crowded what with all the luggages hence difficult for us to practice. We had, however, a good “ballroom” as we practiced our steps (sans the hands) in NAIA I arrivals area as we waited for the arrivals of Atsushi’s family. Hehe! 😀

Our dance wasn’t so bad, I think.

despite the bustle, I still have quite a train on my back. Kudos to Hubby for not tripping over it

Thank you Mitzi!

Supplier: Mitzi

Rating: 5/5

Contact details: +639196278077

Thanks to Abe Umali for the pictures taken during our dance.

Review: Detalye Weddings and Events

Was browsing my roaming phone earlier and came across food trip pictures that I should have had featured on my goodfood blog. But I ran out of time till I cannot make an accurate review anymore. Hence, before things get hectic, even when I still don’t have pictures from Dino Lara, I have to make a go on my review, putting in as much pictures as I have at the moment.

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I figure half of why I felt so calm the morning of our wedding day was that I learned to let go; that I did my best with what needs to be done with the time given me; that for the wedding day itself, I am letting God do the rest.

The other half is that I know we’ve chosen really good suppliers and that I trust they will also do their share to help us have the wedding we’ve dreamt of. I think this confidence stems as well with the thought that even when I wasn’t there to remind our suppliers (especially those whom I have had no contact with for some time already) of what we wanted for the wedding, I am assured that our coordinators will be there to make things work.

My confidence was justified – Detalye Weddings and Events is one efficient group of coordinators.

I couldn’t count anymore the number of times that I’ve met with the couple Erika and EJ; a nice couple, although I really look diminutive with how tall the two are haha. I booked their partial coordination package albeit it was a revised one already because when I booked them, I was already able to book most of my major suppliers.

Back when I was still researching for escort cards, I fell in love with the idea of us having airplane origami escort cards. The escort cards are actually part of Detalye’s scope but thinking it would be too laborious to work on the origami considering there’ll be a 100 guests, I didn’t bring up my wish the next time Erika and I met. But lo, Erika mentioned she read my blog and since EJ is luckily into origami, they’re gonna make us airplane origami. Can-you-just-imagine how happy I felt? haha!

Half the number of the origami planes were in orange whilst the other half is in lime green. True to their name, Detalye was really OC with the details – for couples, they gave an orange and a lime green for each. Love that small detail.

Now I have these hypersensitive nose. I get really bad sinusitis when I get exposed to dust and minute particles. Suffice it to say that I get sick whenever I go to Divisoria (a pity, really, since there are a lot of good finds in Divi!). Erika and her team though were kind enough to buy us the materials for our invites and our napkin holder – which hubby and I DIYed – and for it, I am really grateful.

Oh, since I booked them on the spot when we met, they gave me a freebie – supposedly a hair accessory for the bride. But since my couturier Richie Torres is gonna provide one for me already, I requested Erika if they can provide chopsticks headpieces for our little girls instead. Erika went beyond the chopsticks idea – she accessorized the chopsticks with neutral and orange wooden flowers and green berries. It left me totally green-eyed with our little girls. I want one as well!! haha.

Now, I was really having a hard time looking for a match with long handle. So much so that 2 days before the wedding, Hubby and I decided to just buy an orange and a green lighter in Ace Hardware. Completely unadorned! Of course Erika knew about the purchase and that we’re settling with it as we really had no time anymore.

Come wedding day, Erika told me they were able to scour matches with long handles. Great! But when I saw how the matchboxes were wrapped in lime green and orange and that it was literally covered with stamps,stamps that has our initials and wedding date as that, OMG!! Well, you can imagine how a bride can be really giddy. Really happy and thankful. I promise to post a picture of it ASAP – whichever comes first, Dino’s pictures or us making some order out of the chaos that is now the library cum luggage room.

Except for during the actual ceremony, Erika seemed to be right beside me almost all the time; calming me down, giving me water, even assisting me when I need to go to the toilet (yeah, I had to go once!). Erika was even coaching me before my walk to be mindful of the carpet edge as it’s a usual stumbling block for the brides (I tried to feel the carpet edge with my feet because I really don’t want to look down as I walk down the aisle and it was successful!) When I sufferred migraine from right after the wedding, Michelle (on the car en route to Ville Sommet), Erika (on the chalet), EJ (during reception) was ever ready with a pain reliever for me.

One other thing. It was already at the back of my mind but I really wasn’t able to confirm with Dylan if the flower beds he was providing us for the rings and arrhae already comes with a pouch. Come wedding day, Detalye came to the rescue by bringing an orange organza pouch. Girlscout! 😀

And oh, did I mention already how calm and collected their team is? Not panicky at all. No running around.

There were just a few hitches though, among of which was that the Bestman and MOH weren’t given their gifts. Somehow it was given to the parents (we already had separate gifts for the parents) and it took us a couple or so days before we knew it was with them and that we had to collect it back. In the end though, Bestman and MOH got their gifts. All ended well.

There’s one thing I realized with the qualities a coordinator should have aside from being organized and efficient – they should be trustworthy. They will be handling the payments on the day, making purchases and receiving your gifts (all of our guests really held true to our request – those who gave gifts really gave cash gifts). Hence, your coordinator should be one who is trustworthy in that even when you don’t re-check the calculation anymore, you know they did it right.

And Detalye is one trustworthy group of coordinators.

If our wedding had been a success, it was partly because our prayers and all that we worked hard for bore fruit. And of course it was also partly because we had a very efficient and organized coordinator who handled things smoothly and efficiently.

Thank you so much Erika, EJ, Michelle and the rest of your team! 🙂

Supplier: Detalye Weddings and Events

Rating: 4.75/5

Contact details: info@detalye.com.ph, erika@detalye.com.ph, +63917.8937452

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Oh there’s more to be thankful for with Detalye!

  • They took care of the script with our emcee
  • They took care of booking the vans for hire that our families will be using during their 4-day stay in Manila-Tagaytay
  • They even had an itinerary ready for the drivers!
  • that and more besides.

ribbon obi

Finally, I had pictures of how the ribbon obi of our little girls looked like. I had no idea the altar had our colors as well. Even without the flowers! haha.

Cathe with Jane (our secondary sponsor, cord)

By the way, I thought Cathe was mostly around me before the ceremony. It seems though that Cathe had been quite busy during our wedding day. Here’s Cathe inspecting our church flowers. Cute haha. I can’t help but wonder how she’d be when it’s her turn to wear a white gown. 😀

 All photos courtesy of Jonathan Dante Olya-on (our secondary sponsor, cord), Jane’s hubby.