charivari

first, recommend to me:
1. a movie
2. a book
3. a musical artist, song, or album

then ask me three questions, no more, no less.
ask me anything you want.

then go to your journal, copy and paste this same post allowing your friends to ask you anything; say that you stole it from me.

(i stole this from pazette, tin and anne!)




more wedding updates:

invites

we finally finished our invites! and when i say "we", that means that i did all the work and rey approved the finished products. we'll start distributing the invites tomorrow. we should be able to distribute them in a week.

marriage license

rey finally got our license from my friend ellen. ellen's hubby was the one who secured it for us. when i was chatting with him a few days ago and he learned that rey hasn't given me our license yet, he said that he gave me an option to back out of the wedding by putting in a different name! the funniest thing was that when rey finally gave me our license, he said that there was a mistake - he thought that he was getting married to catherine zeta-jones so why did the license reflect someone else's name?!

production meeting with mandarin and balay kandila

kate of mandarin, ronald and tish of balay kandila and i had a meeting last friday to discuss the technical requirements of the set-up for our venues. the meeting went well and i'm really so excited to see how balay kandila will dress up the place!

i also got to discuss with kate the menu for the kids table (but my niece just requested for vanilla ice cream so i'll have to e-mail kate about this again) and the menu for our cocktails. rey and i still have to decide how we'll go about our open bar.

imported flowers

a few months back, rey's friend volunteered to give my bouquet as a gift. rey got to talk to her again yesterday and she's also volunteered to take charge of the 6 peruvian roses that we need for our centerpieces!

honeymoon

we finally got a booking at santiburi resort in koh samui! we already asked 2 travel agencies to help us but they weren't able to get us a booking for january 3 to 8. i decided to contact the resort directly. after 4 e-mails and 2 overseas calls, they finally gave us a room! we are so excited!

reception earrings by matus

from pretty



to sexy!




at the time i got the dangling earrings that matus made for me, i really found them so pretty. but last week, when i was rummaging through my drawer, i found a set of jewelry that i haven't used for months. the diamonds in the ring and pendant set were sparkly and nice and it was a shame to keep them in a drawer. i decided to use these stones to add length to my reception earrings. i asked matus if they can do it for me and they agreed.

this morning, i was surprised to get a text message from matus telling me that i can already pick up my earrings. i agreed to meet them after i finish my work at the office.

when i saw my earrings, i immediately fell in love with them again. they looked so sexy!

i'm so excited to wear them!

***********

what's with me and my wedding suppliers? yesterday, rey and i exchanged stories and ideas with ronald and tisha of balay kandila for 4 hours. now i spent 2 hours with alaine of matus! i wonder how much time i'll spend with ronald (balay kandila), elfren (sound syndrome) and kate (mandarin) tomorrow . . .

i love our centerpiece!

moving forward

we have been discussing the physical arrangements of our venue with balay kandila for months. a few months back, we already agreed on how to hide the wall treatments at the fontaine room that rey hated - we'll drape curtains on the wall treatments and adorn it with hanging paper cranes, glass bubbles and paper cranes inside glass bubbles. ronald already showed us the samples of his glass bubbles a few months back. i also had a good idea on how the stage will be decorated - we'll have hanging lanterns for our backdrop and we'll have balay kandila's pillar vases on the lower corners. for the cake table, we'll place the cakes on top of ice columns. but ronald and i were stumped on the centerpieces. we just know that he'll have to use the burgundy charger plates that i delivered to him a few months back (rey and i are tired of the mirrors.)
ronald scheduled us for a mock-up yesterday, at 10 am. despite the fact that we were out late the night before (we attended feli's wake) and that i didn't get much sleep because i had a major headache and an irritating cough, we decided to push through with the meeting.
rey and i were 2 hours late so we had to wait for ronald to finish his meeting with his other clients. we used the time to poke around his workshop - rey and i enjoyed watching his workers make and decorate metal backdrops and candles. they were so friendly and they patiently explained what they were doing. we also made a quick tour of ronald's office and we saw how organized it was - they had a huge calendar which shows the weddings and projects that they have to attend to (their december calendar is really full!) and they have labeled envelopes for each of their clients. we were impressed.
rey and i also had fun playing with the transparent fishing pole which ronald is planning to use for our cake table.
when we saw the mock-up of our centerpiece at their little showroom, we were amazed. it was so beautiful!!! it looked really elegant and it had a little christmas-feel to it because of the bed of cypress. rey and i enjoyed playing with the little glass grapes on it. it was already perfect. BUT when we got to discuss the centerpiece with ronald, we still found ways of making it more perfect - we decided to use single long-stemmed roses instead of the generic local variety that ronald used for the mock-up (they really ask their clients to provide the flowers) and we will be placing real burgundy-colored grapes on top of the glass grapes in between the silver candle and the bud vase. and when i mentioned that i had a roll of thick burgundy ribbons at home, ronald said that he can use it instead of the foil that he used for our burgundy candle.
after discussing the centerpiece, ronald also showed us the fabric that he will use to hide the wall treatments at the fontaine room. rey loved the fabric!
we also discussed ways of incorporating paper cranes inside their pillar vases. we had fun brainstorming on how we can keep the paper cranes from getting soggy as they will be floating inside huge vases with the long-stemmed burgundy roses.
tisha, ronald's wife, joined us after we finished discussing the details and showed rey some albums of their work. we gushed over some of the pictures and ronald and tisha shared stories on how they began, how ronald slept in his car during the w@w 5 and how some cramming customers and not-so-alternative-venues gave them so much stress. we also got to talk about our wedding details and how i got crazy getting 3 photographers when we only have 58 guests.
we were so engrossed that when we left, we realized that we were in balay kandila's office for almost 4 hours!
as soon as we left balay kandila, my headache and cough returned but i still went to makati as i had to finish revising a contract for one of the firm's partners. i was able to sleep in the car but i felt that all my energy evaporated with the heat. i just made myself feel better by looking at the pictures of our centerpieces.
at the end of the day, i was tired and sick and looked awful but none of that mattered. i was on a high!

******

other details of our meeting with balay kandila -

rey was so set on not spending so much on flowers for our wedding but after seeing the mock-up of the centerpieces, he volunteered to find "perfect" long-stemmed roses.

when i was telling rey that i wanted a cream puff tower for our cake table, he said that we should think about it first as it would only be an added expense. but when i told this to ronald, ronald casually mentioned that he was just about to ask us if the cream puffs can be assembled into cubes. rey immediately told him that we will be having cream puffs and that he will try to ask dulcinea to make cream puff cubes.

i was horrified when rey asked ronald if he can install a static electricity ball on our table so we have something to amuse ourselves with during the wedding dinner.


rey and our hanging paper crane inside balay kandila's showroom

farewell to ash

ash has been fatherlily's gift to me for graduating first in my high school class. we got her from the store on the day that mt. pinatubo erupted. she was so little but full of life. she would lick my hand everytime i was near her. she was our little bundle of joy.

ash was with me throughout my college and law school days. she'd cuddle next to me everytime i was sick or every time i was feeling low. she'd sit on fatherlily's lap everytime he picked me up from school. she slept at my feet when i was working on my thesis. she only stopped sleeping in my room when she decided to sleep with my mom a few years ago. at that time, motherlily's kidneys had failed and her dialysis left her weak. for the past few weeks, she had been sleeping next door with nanay lilia, who has been living alone.

i've always felt bad about leaving ash behind when rey and i get married. but ash was 13 and her eyesight had deteriorated over the past few years. we didn't think that she could handle the change. in fact, her health had already deteriorated a year ago. she only regained her energy when porkchop joined us last november.

but now, i wouldn't be leaving ash behind. she has, instead left us. earlier this afternoon, she died in her sleep.

i miss ash.

more wedding updates

lapit na ng wedding namin and we're so excited! here's a list what kept us busy these past few days:

1. scheduled meetings with our principal sponsors

we were supposed to have dinner with ninong s and his wife last thursday (november 11). unfortunately, ninong s got sick. but since our mind was already set on eating sitio's delicious crispy pata, rey and i decided to push through with the dinner. we invited kat, our best girl (let's just say that if i had an entourage, she'll be the maid of honor,) to join us. as usual, kat was able to join us even if i just gave her a call 2 hours before dinner. after dinner we went to san mig to meet with ojai, rey's best man. we were able to give them an idea of our reception program.

on saturday morning (november 13), we met with ninong l and his wife, ninang k, at the rockwell club for breakfast. rey used to be ninang k's chief political officer and so i was expecting the meeting to be a bit formal. but to my surprise (and relief!) ninang k was so kikay and so much fun to be with. we exchanged so many stories, had a lot of laughs and got a lot of chismis from ninong l. we started talking at 9:45 am and we finished at 12:15! i'm looking forward to seeing them at our wedding.

we'll be meeting with ninong a this afternoon. i hope the meeting goes well.

2. sent our pics to manila bulletin for our wedding announcement

i took advantage of another w@w freebie - wedding announcement at the wedding supplement of the manila bulletin. they called me up on thursday, asking for a pic. when i asked rey what pic he wanted me to send, he said that he loved the pic that i posted at our website. so, i sent the pic to bulletin. however, bulletin wanted a colored pic so i sent them the colored version. the announcement will be published first week of december.

3. finalized design for invites

we've finalized the design for our invites months ago. unfortunately, my computer crashed and when we retrieved my files, we found out that our pretty divider has been replaced by the letter "k". we've been searching for a file of the divider for weeks but couldn't find it. so we just searched the net for a replacement. after weeks of searching, we found a divider that we both liked. with the help of rey's cousin, rasec, we were able to change the color of the divider using adobe photoshop. we've printed all the invites for local distribution. i just need to fold 10 more paper cranes to complete them! yey!

4. start working on our cd sleeves

i've asked rey to help me on this and he appears to have no talent with d-i-y stuff. all he needed to do was stick double-sided tape on one side of each sleeve - he managed to stick the tape on the wrong side, on his hand, on his leg and on my leg. and to think that he's so strict with the quality of our invites and cd sleeves! i guess i'll just ask fatherlily to help me.

5. watched unbelievables. ay, the incredibles pala!

after how many weeks, we finally got to watch a movie at the cinemas. after our meeting with ninang a and ninong l, rey and i watched the incredibles (which rey mistakenly called the unbelievables). we enjoyed watching the movie (it was entertaining) specially since he was hugging me the whole time (i love greenbelt 3 cinemas!!!). we then had dinner at cafe bola which had cheap but decent food, then i had tea at coffee bean and tea leaf. we also passed by the new abenson's shop and let ourselves be mesmerized by the giant tvs. we plan to get ourselves a home theatre system with a giant flat-screen tv (after we pay for the wedding and a car.) hay, ang sarap mangarap!

less than 2 months to go before THE DAY!

i'm not yet in a state panic but i can see physical signs of stress - pimples on my chin, sleeping late and waking up early and a chronic pain on my right shoulder.

so like any o-c person, i made this list.

ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS:

marriage license - rey to pick up license from elen on monday
officiating priest/officer – care of rey
us - rey and i already had our warts removed last october. ang sakit!!! rey bikes in the morning and works out in the afternoon. i have been on a no-rice diet for 2 weeks. i have not seen any results but dowa and dio said that i look like i lost weight.

OTHER REQUIREMENTS:

reception

venue - mandarin - we had our food tasting and we will have a meeting with our ae, balay kandila and sound syndrome on november 26, at 3 pm. kate (our ae) will be sending us our final menu and a summary of what was discussed during the food tasting.
menu - kate still has to check if she can throw in the mango sago for free.
liquor - bought the red wine jacob's creek). still looking for asti and white grape sparkling wine. duty free? hmmm.
physical arrangements - balay kandila to show mock-up on november 16 at 10 am. fatherlily to supervise folding of cranes. i'm thinking of asking kat and pia to help fatherlily.
sound system - sound syndrome - waiting for the final quotation from sound syndrome.
program - done, with rey for review and comments. rey to choose songs.
hosts - renan or miscen

entertainment

musicians - will need to finalize song list with mia.
other music - buy 6 blank cds and get cds from len. get sissel cd from grace.
audio-visual presentation (avp) - still toying with the idea of flashing our pictures thru a projector during cocktails. I already started working on it using the DVD writer that rey gave me.

guests

guest list - done. but rey has been revising the supposedly final guest list every week!
entourage list - done.
principal sponsors - we will have dinner with sp and annette on november 11, afv probably on november 16 (after lunch). rey has yet to schedule a meeting with cong. lokin.
seating arrangements - discuss with rey

attire

gowns - first fitting done. i just have to remind my designer that i do not want any embroidery on my gown. i have to bug my sister, suzanne, who recently gave birth to have her measurements taken and to have ding design her gown. i also have to ask ding the cost of the 3 additional gowns.
accessories - done . thinking of having reception earrings extended.
rings - done. we still need to decide on the engraving, though. need to find a nice box! bazaars?
hair and make-up - eddie bruan - paid downpayment.
shoes - still have to buy those ballet flats! slippers and reception shoes already with me.
groom's attire - rey does not want to have his measurements taken until december.
father of the bride's attire - got the fabric! papa will have it sewn by his favorite tailor by december.

stationery

invites - still have to find a nice horizontal divider. should be ready by november 15! i still need to fold about 30 cranes! decide on packaging of cocktail invites
envelopes - done.
table numbers - still thinking if we want this.
guest sheets - December 15?
menu and program cards - wait for final menu. decide if we want program cards.

extras

photographer and videographer - eddieboy escudero, john aguas, carlo villonco, jaso nmagbanua - i just need to give them final instructions sometime in november.
cake - bizu and chocolate cake from polly's. ronald has to draw the design.
flowers - boy mahusay.
souvenirs - just gave mervin the go signal to mass produce the cds. we'll have to assemble the cd sleeves before the end of november and have them all wrapped in rey's house.
gifts for parents - still looking!
hotel accommodations - decide on getting junior suite or club suite.
honeymoon - c/o rey

celebrating 10 years in 4 days

our anniversary is our yearly reason to be extravagant. it's the time when we go to 5-star hotels and dine at their best restaurants. but since we're paying for everything for our december wedding, spending thousands of money was not in our itinerary. and so, we decided to have an inexpensive 3-day celebration of our anniversary.




day 1 - 05 november 2004

we wanted to schedule our food tasting on november 7, the exact date of anniversary. but if we insisted on it, our ae would have been forced to work over the weekend. since we didn't want to get bad karma, we decided to schedule our food tasting at 6:30 pm on november 5, the friday right before our anniversary.

since our food tasting was scheduled a few months ago, i already informed everyone in our office that i would be working only until 2 pm on november 5. on the last few working days of october, a client requested me to attend a meeting on which was supposed to end at 2. at 6 pm, rey called to inform me that he was already in mandarin. at 6:15 pm, i was still at the meeting and there was no sign that the meeting would end in the next few minutes. desperate, i requested the partner-in-charge to let me off the hook. since he knew of our food tasting, he let me go (and did all the work himself! i love V&A!!!) i was already in trafalgar, which is just a street away from mandarin. BUT, i needed to go back to the office to return the office laptop and to get cash from the vault. when i got out of trafalgar, i knew i needed to walk if i needed to reach mandarin on time - i couldn't see the end of the line of cars. and so with a lap top and a folder of documents, i walked to our office in perea street. it took me 15 minutes to get there.

i brought the laptop and my files up to my room and got some cash. i met carlo villonco at world topps (which was just in front of my office) to give him our downpayment and to sign our contract. our meeting didn't last 5 minutes (but he had to wait for me for an hour!)

at 6:40, i was on my way back to mandarin. traffic along paseo was bad as usual so i decided to walk again. i thought it would be easier since i was no longer carrying the laptop. i was mistaken. when i got to the underpass at the corner of ayala and paseo, i learned that it was temporarily closed. so, i used the underpass near makati ave. as usual, my sense of direction failed me and instead of just going straight to makati avenue, i walked back towards paseo. feeling intelligent, i took a short cut through the park.

and then it rained. it only rained for 3 minutes but it was enough for me to get drenched. in the middle of the rain, rey gave me a call. i couldn't understand what he was saying so i just told him that i'd see him in a few minutes. i continued walking. when i got to mandarin, i wanted to kiss the doorman! but i'm sure he didn't want a kiss from a drowned pig with hair plastered all over her face.

after attempting to look presentable ("attempt" being the operative word), i finally got to meet rey at 7 pm. at that time, he was already with our ae, kate. on the table was our first dish, the suckling pig combination. it looked and tasted so good! after we took our first bite, the waiters served our dishes one by one. everything was delicious (except for the prawn balls and milk rolls which rey loved. he so loved them that he even ate our ae's portion!) but i guess all the cholesterol on the peking duck attacked my brain cells and made me stupid - i remember giving cryptic answers when our ae was asking about the physical arrangements for the wedding and i totally forgot to take down notes!

it's a good thing that our ae promised to send us a copy of the notes that she made. she also requested a meeting with balay kandila and sound sydrome.

after the meal, rey and i kept on talking about how good tin hau food is. he said that the only dish that he didn't like was the chinese style tenderloin which i really liked! the solution was simple - we'll treat the tenderloin and the prawn balls the way we treated the suckling pig and the peking duck. he gets to eat my portion of the suckling pig and the prawn balls and i get to eat his portion of the deking duck and the tenderloin!

we laughed our way to merk's greenbelt where rey ordered his favorite mushroom and garlic. the band, forte, wasn't at their best so after their first set, we decided to go home.

it was a good start.




day 2 - 06 november 2004

we got to taste our remaining wine bottles on saturday night when we celebrated the birthday of pia, rey's former officemate. rey loved the terra vega 2003 cabernet sauvignon which tasted bolder than the sol de chile 2003 cabernet sauvignon. i didn't like both wines. i found them to coarse.

at 12 pm, we decided to leave pia's party so we can celebrate our anniversary. we got to kiss at the stroke of midnight.




day 3 - 07 november 2004

on the day of our anniversary, it was difficult for us to decide where to eat. we ended up eating breakfast in rey's house (i loved the rolls that rey bought from bizu! it was perfect with spam.) for lunch, we decided to try the new roastbeef pizza of pizzahut. after our meal, we decided to treat ourselves to some cheap thrills and went to quiapo to buy some dvds!

going to quiapo on a sunday was a crazy idea. there were people everywhere! and for each 3 persons, there was 1 vendor. quiapo also gave a new definition for street market - people literally sold vegetables on the street. it was a challenge going to hidalgo street but we managed it. after getting the information that i needed, we walked towards the place where we got our dvds.

on the way to the otherside of quiapo, we passed by the handicraft stalls and saw lovely bags being sold at unbelievably low prices! we wiped out their inventory (hey, they only had 4.) we also passed by a small grocery where we bought drinks.

then we got to the place where rey gets his dvds. there were as much dvds in that place as there are people in quiapo! and everything was so cheap that we ended up buying 20 dvds.

happy with our purchases we decided to have dinner.

we wanted to have dinner at a place where we frequented when we were a new couple. we didn't want to eat in dencio's libis (where we had our first date) as we don;t like the food there. we couldn't go to season's (where we had our first date as a couple) as it was already closed. we then thought of eating at tong yang where i ate a whole specie of shrimps several years ago. the last time we ate there was a couple of days before aya and cindy left for new zealand. (aya will be standing with rey when i march down the aisle in december.) i was still in law school then.

tong yang is a hot pot restaurant. customers get to pick ingredients from a long table and cook them in a hot pot and a grill in the middle of the table. rey was in charge of the soup and the meat while i took care of the seafood. there were no shrimps (they probably hid all their shrimp when they saw us coming) but there were prawns. we cooked everything by ourselves. the prawns turned out raw and all the nutrition was boiled out from the veggies but we still enjoyed our meal. we went home really happy. rey dropped me off at my house at 10:30 pm.

it was a good end for our weeklong celebration.

however, i, who never had any problems sleeping, was still awake at 2am. i decided to wake up rey and bug him to come over the house. it was not a good decision as we had a little fight.




day 4 - 08 november 2004

the next day, i woke up with a huge headache and major back pains. i called in sick and stayed at home. rey came over to play nurse and brought some of the dvds that we bought. we watched the flying daggers which featured beautiful actors but a lousy storyline. we loved the cinematography, though.

for dinner, we ordered pizza from shakey's. this time, we decided to get our favorite - garlic and cheese with anchovies, mushrooms, onions, italian sausage and extra cheese. it was delicious!

while having dinner, we watched reruns of will and grace and queer eye for a straight guy on etc. we laughed so hard on the former and critized everyone and everything on the latter. we had so much fun!

we really enjoyed the unplanned 4th day that we were both sad when rey had to leave. and so we reminded ourselves that in less than 2 months, we would be living together.

as rey walked out of our house, i realized that our 4-day celebration was a little window to our 10 years together - lots of laughter and fun, a few tears, some adventure and loads of good food leading to some quiet time at home with a dvd player and a tv.

we have a wedding website!!!

yup. rey and i now have a wedding website.

it's not much (as your talking to an html ignoramus) but just the thought of being able to create one makes me giddy! never in my life have i imagined that i can someday create a website (of course, i haven't heard of freeweb's idiot-free website maker then.)

parenthetically, why is it called "idiot-free" when i'm quite certain that their site is full of webpages made by html-idiots like me?