We are pretty horrible with keeping the blog updated. I think we have a good excuse – our very own April is getting married next week. It’s a destination wedding so not only is there a lot of wedding prep, but there’s a lot of travel prep as well! More of my wedding recaps and hopefully April’s in the next coming weeks. For now, stay chic!
We know…
November 3rd, 2011 by ginetA Sweet Adventure: Wedding Day Recap – Portraits
October 20th, 2011 by ginetWe had a short photo session at the church. Here’s a couple with our sponsors:
We, along with our bridesmaids and groomsmen, headed to the Legion of Honor.
Our lovely bridesmaids:
Our dashing groomsmen, groom, and me:
The awesome and totally unplanned veil in action shots:
And just newlyweds:
The last image we mimicked from a few wedding photos I’ve seen while perusing the web. Other than that, we just went with our photographer Daniel’s suggestions.
Did/do you have a few must-have poses and shots??
All photos courtesty of Daniel Galang Photography.
A Sweet Adventure: Wedding Day Recap – Ceremony
September 27th, 2011 by ginetBesides the super late start, the ceremony went off without a hitch! (Ok beginning super late is quite the hitch, but I’ll move on..) All in all, there were just over 30 people that walked down the aisle starting with Justin and his parents.
The bearers stole the show:
That is, til Isabelle appeared (the only one of the three flowergirls to walk down the aisle):
Then it was my turn to walk down with my parents on hand:
I held my rosary with my bouquet as my “something old” and “something blue”. The candles were lit by our sponsors Omid and Estella:
Justin’s cousin Stephanie did the reading:
After the Gospel reading and homily was an affirmation of support by our parents, grandparents, sponsors, and bridal party. I originally wanted our principal sponsors to be more involved in the ceremony than just walk down the aisle. I found the affirmation by browsing the web. During the rehearsal, Pastor Harold suggested we include the parents, grandparents, and bridal party. I really felt the love and support in hearing everyone we have chosen to be part of our wedding affirm. We proceeded with our consent, vows, exchange of rings and coins, and lit the unity candle.
The rest of our secondary sponsors did their thing:
Justin and I then made an offering to the Blessed Virgin Mary with “Ave Maria” playing in the background. After, we officially signed the marriage license, were pronounced husband and wife, and sealed the deal with our well-rehearsed first kiss!
Cheers all around!
A Sweet Adventure: Wedding Day Recap – Getting Ready
September 20th, 2011 by ginetI finally received the disc of my professional wedding day photos and am ready to share! I’ll start my wedding day recaps with getting ready. I woke up around 5am. My bridesmaids ordered fruit and my family brought bread and peanut butter for breakfast (I made a sandwich for those getting their hair done). Justin’s cousin/one of our veil sponsors Christina did my and my bridesmaids makeup. My hairstylist Crystal got Starbucks for me (very sweet!). She was able to style my hair perfectly the way I wanted! Of course, the guys got ready with ease. I just wish I gave them a tutorial on how to fold the pocket squares the night before.
Here’s the start of admiring my bouquet!
I’m glad there were images of my mom helping me get ready. There’s a heartfelt symbology to it that I really wanted captured!
I loved seeing everyone get all dolled up. It’s a great feeling to see your vision (the dresses, shoes, accessories) transform into reality in front of you!
Did you elect to get ready with your ‘maids? Did you find it stressful or fun?
*All photos by Daniel Galang Photography.
A Sweet Adventure: Perspective
September 16th, 2011 by ginetIt’s been nearly three months from my wedding day and I was reminded by my brother-in-law’s blog post what weddings should be all about. In his blog, he writes about a conversation he had explaining wearing the white One band we gave out as favors:
“It was a giveaway for all the guests in my brother’s wedding. Has something to do with U2 and stuff, which is my sister-in-laws favorite band I guess. And something about charity. AIDS in Africa? Poverty? I dunno, I forget. Anyway, seeing my brother get married was one of the proudest and happiest days of my life. And I wear it in hopes that if I were to ever feel down or out, I can look at it, remember that day, and feel happy again… It’s my happy place. It makes me happy… My brother makes me happy.”
I don’t believe that my wedding day was all about me or me and Justin. The acutal getting married part – yes, obviously – but I believe a wedding is all about family and friends. Bringing a community of people who you love and love you in one space is such a beautiful and powerful thing. It is more beautiful than the pink and cream fluffy flowers (indeed one of my favorite décor details at my wedding), Chiavari chairs and black candelabras I just refused to have a wedding without, and stationery that we spent countless hours on.
A lot of the decisions we made for the wedding were based on wanting our guests to have fun and feel important. I made welcome bags with goodies for our guests that stayed in the blocked hotel. They received a pleasant surprise when I knocked on their doors. We made sure to select the right DJ to not only make sure the program flows well, but keep heads bobbing during dinner and the dance floor packed. We chose individually-sized Bundt cakes for guests to take home if they chose (some guests later told me, “Clever idea!”). I included as many photos as I could with guests in the montage because I wanted them to feel a part of the wedding (I mean, don’t you feel even just a little special when there’s a photo with you in a slideshow??). And most importantly, the open bar. If you are surrounded by people who rightly know how to have a good time and are just as happy for you to get married as you are, alcohol can definitely enhance the fun and happiness.
I’m not going to lie and say the day was perfect and ran smoothly. It started out sort of rough with the ceremony delayed for probably close to 45 minutes (I still to this day don’t know the exact time). Our cable car transportation broke down while on its way to bringing the guys to the church and my hairstylist didn’t even start on my hair until just over 30 minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start. Most brides would freak out, but I didn’t allow myself to stress out and frankly didn’t care anymore. I would have been perfectly fine taking a taxi to the church so long as I got married. I took it positively as I walked down the aisle, thinking the church is packed because everyone that showed up late ended up showing up on time! Our family, friends, Justin, and I never allowed the early setback to ruin our day because well, we indeed got married.
It truly melts my heart when I see family and friends sporting that white One band, making comments and getting excited about seeing photos and videos of the day, the groomsmen rocking their BluBlocker shades (or even their ties!) we gave as their gifts, and bridesmaids saying they plan to wear their dress again all after our wedding. It’s a reminder that all those details seem so minor and petty in the grander scheme of things. Our wedding was one of the “proudest and happiest days” of my and Justin’s lives mainly because our family and friends felt that way too.
A Sweet Adventure: Cards
August 25th, 2011 by ginetIt’s been a while since I’ve posted. How’s married life you ask? Wonderful 
Ok well, it hasn’t changed much since we already live together but even then it was wonderful so I’m sticking to my answer. Anyway, we got a lot of cards from our wedding:
But my favorite one is probably this one from a family friend:
Not only is it personalized with “g <3 j”, but it’s made with paper from my wedding invitation! Super cute and creative!
Fairytales Do Come True: Engagement Photos
August 22nd, 2011 by aprilYou may remember Ginet’s engagement photo session with Daniel Galang. A few months ago, the misters and I took our engagement photos also! I hate being in front of a camera, so it was super nervewracking for me. Luckily, Daniel made it easy for us to get comfortable.
I really wanted to have a “themed” shoot (see here, here, and here), so I figured with our “modern fairytale theme” doing a Cinderella theme would be perfect! I planned our outfits (with Ginet’s help), so that the misters wore a military style button up and I wore a blue dress to mimic Cinderella:
I originally planned to bring props: a pumpkin, a clock, a castle, a glass slipper, etc.. but oh my gosh, it’s so difficult finding things when you really need it!!! I spent a whole day driving around looking for these things.. but with no luck. It was my bad for waiting until the last minute, so I have no one to blame but myself. Anyway. I went back and forth trying to figure out if we should just do the “themed” shoot without the props and in the end, we just decided to. We already had the outfits, so I hoped that the outfits would be enough to mimic the feel we were going for. Here’s a few of my favorites from the day:
Even without the props, I love how our pictures turned out. Thank you so much to Daniel Galang for such great photos!
You can see more pictures from our session by visiting his blog: Our Engagement Session with Daniel Galang!
Fairytales Do Come True: First Things First
August 12th, 2011 by april..okay, well maybe second.
I guess you could say that the first decision we made about our wedding was that we were having a destination wedding. So what was the second one? It was an easy one for me us: hire a really great photographer even if that meant flying them into Cancun and paying for room and board. I. love. pictures. so there was no doubt in my mind that the biggest splurge for the wedding would be to hire a really great photographer.
Enter Daniel Galang Photography.
Does the name ring a bell? Considering he has shot many of the weddings we have coordinated: Karen and Christian, Joje and Andre, not to mention, my BPIC (business-partner-in-crime) Ginet and Justin, I’m sure you know exactly who I’m talking about! He is AWESOME. I love that his photos are so clean and crisp. I love the color in his photos, but I love love love the composition and how he sets up his shots. A-MAZ-ING. I swear, I think every one of his shots are breathtaking, but here are a few that I especially love:
And the one that made me fall in L-O-V-E with his work:
Amazing right?
Is anyone else so in love with their photographer that they are willing to pay travel fees on top of their photography fees?
All pictures from www.danielgalangphotography.com
Fairytales Do Come True: Our STDates
August 12th, 2011 by aprilWe all know I had pretty big expectations on our wedding stationery. Our save-the-dates are the first thing our guests receive that give them a sneak peak into what they might expect at our wedding, so it was very important (to me) that they were awesome and clever.
What did I end up coming up with as our theme? A modern take on a fairytale.
And what did we end up sending out as our save-the-dates? A bookmark in a “book.” I know, not as cute and clever as I really hoped for. And the execution of it all? Bleh..
During the whole time of designing them, printing them, and assembling them, I was pretty gung-ho with this idea. I think it was the whole rush of wanting to get something out to people as soon as possible. I was pressured by my (wonderful) mom to have our save-the-dates out ASAP because she we wanted everyone to have ~1 year notice of our wedding date and the fact that it was a destination wedding.
However, after we sent them out, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Looking at them after, I could count the things that I am disappointed in, but mainly I just don’t think I designed them very well. My biggest heartbreak (a little dramatic?) disappointment is that they just aren’t as clever as I hoped our save-the-dates would be.
The one saving grace to it all is that we did get something out quickly and before Christmas (2010), so our guests did have this information available to them for almost a year by the time our wedding comes along.
Let’s get down to the details:
They were sent in an ecru linen #10 envelope which were lined with a light gray envelope liner. Super light gray that you could barely even tell they were lined (disappointment #1). Being that we were trying to send them quickly, we didn’t bother making any pretty labels. They were just plain white mailing labels printed in the same font that was used as in the save-the-dates (disappointment #2).
I didn’t want to just send a bookmark in an envelope, so I designed it so that it was placed in a “book.” I designed the front of the book to mimic a real book cover. Uhh, but that didn’t work out very well (disappointment #3). We personalized it by naming our book “the adventures of the misters name and my name.” When they open the book, they are presented with our “official” save-the-date bookmark.
Some details that were added were a little magnet on the back so that our guests can put it on their fridge/magnetic boards, a ribbon tassle, and on the inside of the book cover, copyright information of our “publishing house.”
On the back cover, there is a library pocket with a library book card. Under Author, it lists our names and under Title, ARE GETTING MARRIED.
Here’s a closer look at the design and information we included. Both the library card and bookmark include the Disneyland castle (disappointment #4). Looking at them now with the designs of the castle, I think it makes it look cheesy. As much as I really wanted to include our story (he proposed to me at a castle), I wish I would have just stuck to the little things like how I used the phrase “are starting their happily ever after.”
Anyway. Like I said earlier, at least they were sent early and our guests were well aware of our upcoming destination wedding. Our save-the-dates did their job, so I can’t complain too much. AND another bonus: they only cost 1 forever stamp to send!
Was anyone else disappointed with their wedding stationery after they sent them out?
PS. All personal photos. Sorry for blurring out info for privacy!
Fairytales Do Come True: Ins.paper.ation
August 8th, 2011 by aprilFYI: We are roughly 3 months away from our big day. YAY! Most of the planning is done and now I just have to execute. The biggest issue is knowing exactly how much I need to execute since I’m still waiting to find out how many people are actually going. There is a lot that I want to keep a secret until after the wedding, but I figured I could start letting you all in on some of our planning. So here goes…
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If you personally know me, you would know that I L.O.V.E paper and crafting. I fell in love with paper and crafts back in high school after they opened a scrapbooking store in my hometown (Making Memories at what-was-at-the-time-the-brand-new Westview Shopping Center). I could literally spend hours there. Even though I don’t have time to craft as often as I’d like now, I can still spend hours at a local scrapbooking store just browsing. I love it!
Anyway, it goes without saying that the biggest DIY I would undertake for our wedding was our save-the-dates and our invitations. Since “themes” are all the rage in the wedding world these days, I knew our save-the-dates and invitations would have to carry one. I mean, they just have to. (It’s called wedding-peer-pressure.)
After seeing Minhee and Truman’s school-themed wedding invitation suite on Martha Stewart, I knew I wanted something different in a wedding invitation suite:
Gorgeous right? I love the cohesive design and that it’s letterpressed! But what do I love the most about it? It’s just so-damn CLEVER. I WE had to have something clever too, dammit!
My jealousy increased ten-fold when I stumbled across Amber and Jeff’s school themed wedding.
Their save-the-dates were not only adorable, but they were useful!
And the invitation suite? SWOOOON! (I love that the RSVP is an “Attendance Request”!)
Even their website matched their paper goods!
(Source for all Amber and Jeff photos)
How can you not love themed wedding stationery and a cohesive design? I started to think how I could make this work for our wedding. It was easy to say that I could copy Amber and Jeff’s wedding stationery since the misters and I have similar backgrounds in our education aaaannnndddd we did meet because the misters was in the same class as my brother.
BUT (there’s always a “but” isn’t there?!?) it just didn’t seem right. A school themed wedding would be cute, but it didn’t reflect the romance of our story. I wanted to incorporate our story into our stationery somehow and still be clever. Was it possible?
You’ll have to stick around to see what I came up with!
What did you want your invitation suite to say about you?
