Happy 2nd!

Exactly two years back on this day, we’ve submitted our papers to the Minami Ward office to register our marriage – making us (A&M) officially tied together in the eyes of the Japanese government. The Japanese civil marriage is almost like an anti-climax what with nary even a one-minute exchange of vows; just submission of the required papers albeit the papers were quite hard to procure. Hence Hubs promised he’ll give me a very memorable wedding to make up for it. True enough, come April 30, we did have a great and truly memorable wedding which was even featured in the May 2012 issue of Martha Stewart Wedding Philippines magazine much to my giggling delight.

Last year, our anniversary saw us frolicking around Vienna, Cesky Krumlov and Prague.

This year, our anniversary saw us giggling over our pretty newborn child, Yui.

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Thank you Lord for the blessings, for the love, the respect, the companionship, among others. Guide us, bless us, as we continue counting the years of our happy married life.

on my wonder years and Kaloka

Looking back to our “growing years”, boring is certainly not a word in Elna’s (aka Kaloka) vocabulary; where there’s fun and excitement Elna was sure in the thick of it. And when I say “growing years”, I mean almost the whole span of it for Elna has been my longest running classmate ever – we were classmates since 1st grade and got accelerated together in 5th grade (accelerated being we jumped to the next higher grade within the same year, hence graduating elementary a year ahead from our real batchmates). We were both quite active in academic and extra-curricular activities back then and as Math Quizzers in high school, together with Rezza and our Math mentor Sir Iroy, Elna and I also went to trips to different towns to compete (and win! Hehe) against other students with our Math prowess. Those girls and our Math mentor surely made Math easy and very interesting despite the fact that we had to spend even some of our weekends with Math. Had I pushed with my plans months before graduation to pursue accountancy, Elna and I would have been classmates all the way to college since we also went to the same university. But I found out about Chemical Engineering and pursued the course and so struggled with Math from thereon hahaha (thankfully, struggled just enough to keep my scholarships).

Ever the fun and interesting person that she is, Elna has been maintaining a blog for the last couple of years or so where her posts on fashion are among my favorites. I remember in grade school how we waited with big-eyed excitement as Elna sketches pretty girls in pretty dresses.

Do visit her in her new address — thekaloka.com. I especially liked her recent post on marriage.

Elna also did a touching feature on us when our wedding got featured in the Martha Stewart Weddings Philippines magazine. Thanks for that El! πŸ™‚

Here’s to more years of friendship! πŸ™‚ albeit separated by continents. πŸ™‚

Cheers!

our wedding is on Martha Stewart Weddings Philippines!

I remember it was a busy day in late November. My mind was still bent on figuring out the depressuring calculation for the LNG service at supercritical phase when the lights were turned off for lunch break. Mind wholly preoccupied, I was like a zombie when I opened my gmail and logged in. Then I saw Martha Stewart on my inbox. And thought that it was a spam mail. I almost tagged it as spam mail. And then the zombie me decided to open it. Of course from thereon I wasn’t zombie mode anymore! Suffice it to say that every part of me was tingling with excitement! πŸ˜‰

Back when I was still doing the preps, I had dreams of our wedding being featured on a bridal magazine (mostly I dreamed of MSW haha) or bridal websites like Bridalbook. But after the wedding, I decided not to submit our photos in bridal magazines or websites. Was thinking that posting photos of our wedding on our blog was enough. Hence MSW emailing out of the blue was much sweeter and thrilling. πŸ™‚

Liezl, the section Editor was really sweet with her email saying MSW is interested in featuring our wedding in their March issue and that they were wondering if we were willing to be featured. Of course we are willing! πŸ™‚ it’s a dream come true! She then replied how they loved our sweet details especially our little girls in kimono. Knowing how they probably encounter many ΓΌber sweet and cute wedding details everyday in their work, my heart glowed with pride when I read how the MSW team loved our wedding details.

Leizl then advised me that I’d later be contacted by their writer who’ll be covering our story. True enough, a couple days later, sweet Mimi emailed me introducing herself before getting on with the interview. Because we are based overseas, our interview was by email. Mimi gave us quite a set of questions and well, me being more expressive in writing, our answers were quite lengthy. πŸ˜€

The feature was really a great blessing and a bride’s dream come true, especially now that it came out just when we are celebrating our one year wedding anniversary. But there was one boon with the feature aside from it being a venue to reminisce – it provided us a venue for Atsushi to express some more what he felt during our wedding. Because of the nature of the questions, it made us reveal some more what we felt, hence hubs expressed what he felt then. And even for that alone, I am already very thankful for the feature. Yes, I was kilig to the bones with Atsushi’s answers. πŸ™‚

March rolled by however and MSW still wasn’t out. If truth be told, I was already having doubts that our feature pushed through, afraid they changed mind. I was already convincing myself (and I really am convinced!) that the special moment Atsushi and I had when we were answering the questions was a blessing enough already and of course the thought that we were considered to be featured out of the many weddings last year.

April rolled by and still nothing. My friends Kat and Rey were already checking the magazine racks everyday – haha, thanks guys!! And finally, all the waiting and checking bore fruit yesterday.

I thought we’ll just be designated half a page or one whole page at most. Was so amazed we got four whole pages!! πŸ™‚

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The cover in this issue.

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What better way to reminisce your wedding day on your anniversary than seeing your wedding featured in print – and in a Martha Stewart magazine at that?! Thank you Martha Stewart Weddings Philipines! πŸ™‚

Can’t wait to see the actual print next week!! πŸ™‚
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And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true. – Over the Rainbow, Wizard of Oz