Before starting off (part of) our wedding day stories, Atsushi and I want to thank our friends and family who had set aside some of their time, travelled to Tagaytay from Manila and even flew in from Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Davao, to be with us in our wedding day. We can’t thank you enough. Honto ni arigatou Gozaimashita. 🙂

To our friends now in different parts of the globe (US, Canada, Singapore, Japan, Korea, Indonesia) who wanted to be with us yet can’t, thank you still for being supportive and for helping us during the preps. We would always remember the help you gave us. 🙂

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I was pretty emotional the couple or so weeks before our wedding. When hubby arrived though on the 23rd, I had to set aside being emotional and focused more on what’s left to be done. End result, it was hubby who was more like the bride (feeling anxious, worried etc) while I was behaving more like another coordinator – I had to keep focused on what’s next to be done. We were not just organizing a wedding but was organizing as well a vacation for my family and friends (who was here from Davao) and hubby’s family and friend (who came from Japan).

So yes, the day before the wedding was very hectic, not because we had to tie some loose end details of the wedding but that because we had to fetch up our families from different airports and have fittings for the entourage (they’re out of town/country so that was the only time we can have the fitting). I had to make sure as well that our other guests whom we’re not picking up at the airport gets to their respective hotels safely. I wasn’t feeling so bride-y at all but more like a tour guide. So in turn, groom-hubby had to feel for the both of us.

In any case, because I really cannot attend to the preps anymore, I was really very thankful for Detalye’s efficiency. And creativeness!!! Anyways, will post a separate blog about Detalye once I receive our photos from Dino Lara’s team (so looking forward to it!!). Suffice it to say that i’m another satisfied Detalye bride. Oh yes there are hitches here and there, but it definitely wouldn’t mar my excellent rating on them.

By the way, as we still don’t have with us photos from Dino Lara, we are thankful to our friends who were fast in uploading our pictures in Facebook. This one was among my favorites.

Anyways, I digress.

Come wedding eve, after having had tucked all Tagaytay newcomers in their beds, I was able to sleep early. I slept for seven hours – to which both Erika and my HMUA Irene Sy-Go commented that this is most unusual since a lot of brides doesn’t get that much sleep the night before the wedding. I do agree considering I have had bouts of insomnia during preps.

Was up early (7am is early for me, yes) on the wedding day. Had some quiet breakfast inside the house while my family ate in the gardens of Yellow Coco. I was yet to make my vows and that was the only time I had hence I willed myself to make use of it.

When Dhonna called in from US, we were already in Ville Sommet’s Chalet and Irene was doing Mama’s makeup and Rica (hairstylist) on Kat’s hair. At that time and up till after lunch, I was feeling so calm. No butterflies in the stomach whatsoever at all. In fact, I actually didn’t feel anything at all. Except that I kept looking at the sky and praying that it wouldn’t rain until after the reception (to which my prayers were answered by the way). I felt so calm I was actually wondering if the calmness I was feeling is at all normal for a bride.

Halfway through the makeup though, I already felt some hammering on my chest. It was so loud I was thinking Irene might hear it. Rica kept on cracking jokes to calm me down. It helped actually. The nervousness was gone once pictorials started though. Our wedding was at 6pm hence we had our “first look” before the ceremony.

Hubby is really shy when posing in front of the camera but I am very thankful that Atsushi played along with what our camera guys asked from him during our wedding day. And yes, he kissed me a lot of times. Yey! 😀

My nervousness came back when we were getting prepared for me to walk down the aisle. I can hear “Ikaw” being sang as my entourage walked and I was almost teary-eyed as I remembered how I sang “Ikaw” in a number of weddings already and that I can’t believe this time, it is MY wedding.

Okay, I willed myself not to cry during our wedding. But blogging about our wedding now, made me cry. It was a good thing I am blogging this while Hubby is home ’cause then hubby can hug me as I cry myself silly. That “it’s my turn this time” thingy cracked me up. 😛

So, my nerves was really all in knots just right before the walk, whilst “Two Words” was being played. Good thing Richie was there to encourage me.

Jumping on to the reception. I suffered a terrible migraine from right after the ceremony until well into dawn. Hence am really thankful my pain didn’t show during the entire reception, not even during our short number. I just couldn’t eat K’s good food though. I can only eat enough to satisfy my hunger but not too much else I’d throw up again.

As we look back, Atsushi and I were really happy that our prayers for a beautiful wedding was answered. To have our guests tell us it was a beautiful and successful wedding infused with a lot of details makes me realize all the more that all the hard work was worth it. Even Taal cooperated; answered prayer.  😀  Even the insect kept to our colors haha!

We wanted a small wedding. My original dream wedding was actually in a beautiful island in Cebu/Bohol with only 50 guests. But of course, come actual dream wedding planning for Tagaytay wedding, it has to be bigger. All those who confirmed their attendance showed up hence all the airplane origami escort cards that EJ (of Detalye) made were brought home by the guests. Happy. We had a total of 74 guests. Ninety nine percent of the guests stayed until the reception ended. The 1% went home after Jason’s SDE was shown, which was actually just roughly 15minutes before reception program ended. Happy.

Anyways, I’ll have my ratings (and share my kilig!! with suppliers’ outputs) in another post. Most, if not all, of our suppliers were commendable actually. Except for one. I am still thinking if even the negative review is worth posting here in our blog. I really don’t want to think about the group anymore – the group which had given me a heartache ever since we got in contact with them. It makes me think though, we probably got the “pirated” one – considering how out of tune they were. Yes, their performance was one that would make you say, “Is this really XXX?” I wish they recorded how they performed that night. That way, they can assess how badly they performed.

Hmmm, in restrospect though, I find myself really upset whenever I performed really bad. So probably, since they themselves are professionals, they must be terribly embarrassed and tortured about the bad performance. So I think it’s decided. I will not be mentioning them again on this blog, bad review or otherwise. For both sides’ sakes.

For now though, am sharing Jason Magbanua’s same-day-edit (SDE) for us.

Segue: A lot have asked us why an evening wedding? Trust that considerable thought has been spent on it and that a lot of factors has been considered. And in truth, part of the reason why we finally settled for the 6pm wedding (it has to be April 30 in Caleruega) was so that we can have Jason Magbanua personally cover our wedding. Of course, our decision was correct.

Jason is simply brilliant. He had the music we picked run continuously and then seamlessly inserted the part of my vows where I sang. End result: hubby’s family and some other guests (even Kat who has been my roomie for a number of years) and some suppliers asked if I sang the entire song. Haha! In turn, since Atsushi’s vows were not included (Hubby had two versions of his vows. He read the scratch paper version. I loved the stationery version), Jason must have had decided to have Atsushi’s face on focus for a long time. End result: people has been teasing hubby that it was his promotional video to launch his new career as an actor – LOL.

More than that, there were a lot of other aspects in our SDE that I loved – among others, the sequence of Mayumi hanging her head followed by Kawauchi-san raising his; the timing of the piano’s rythmn to the lighting of the lamps.

Anyways, the song is Angela Aki’s version of Kiss from a Rose. Hubby and I used to play this while chatting in Skype – him on guitar, me on vocals. We love this version much more than Seal’s. Angela Aki didn’t just translate the song to Japanese, by the way. She made an altogether different lyrics. Good thing hubby found an mp3 of this song and hence was able to give it to Jason, 2 days before our wedding. And yes, we were practicing it before with only Youtube’s help.

Enjoy! Hubby and I can’t get enough of our video haha. I hope the same goes for you. 🙂

(By the way, Jason gave us the video in .vob format and we had to convert it just so we can upload it here. End result: resolution and quality was sacrificed during the conversion process.)

And oh, I also tagged Lene-Dee Dragon. She was the one who designed our giveaway tags which was focused towards the end of the video. The idea of having the fringes was Erika’s (Detalye) brainchild, on the other hand. When I saw it, I couldn’t help but gush about it. Kilig! 😀