The Search for the Church

Abet and I had our hearts set on getting married in Caleruega in Batulao, Batangas. It was the church of our dreams. In fact, we made a down payment last year because the weekend slots for 2011 were getting filled up, and we wanted to make sure to reserve our wedding date—a date we decided on back in 2007. However, late last year, we decided to be practical and have our wedding in Manila instead to save on out-of-town fees that most suppliers charge for Tagaytay weddings. To be honest, it broke my heart, and sayang ang deposit. But what the hey, we wanted to be practical.

So, early this year, we started looking for churches in Manila. We had two requirements: (1) the church needs to be air-conditioned, because Abet will just melt in the Manila heat if it isn’t, and (2) it needs to be small, because we only have around 100 guests and I don’t like vacant pews and a pangag look—I want the church to be filled up.

Looking for the perfect church wasn’t as easy as we thought because of one major reason: our preferred date is a Sunday, and most churches do not allow Sunday weddings. We had to cross out our top 2 choices: Archbishop’s Palace and Magallanes Church. *sigh*

Now, I refuse to move our wedding date. It is our fifth anniversary as a couple. October 16 is a very special, very memorable date. The last three October 16’s were beautiful celebrations of love, and we’ll celebrate it yet again this year. We celebrate the 16th of each month, we've done it the last 40 months, and 16 has always been our number. (Happy 40th month, love!) It doesn’t make sense to me to change our anniversary date.

So on to our search for a small, air-conditioned church in Manila that allows Sunday weddings. We narrowed it down to a handful (not that we had much choice, really): St. John Bosco in Pasong Tamo, St. Pancratius in Paco Park, Pope Pius in UN, and St. Ignatius in Camp Aguinaldo. We started with our ocular last weekend, and here's the church we decided on:

The Transfiguration Chapel

pic from Riandrew

Yup, we decided to push through with our Caleruega wedding! I'm so happy!

This is really where we want to get married. I even think that Abet wants this even more than I do, he was the one who suggested Caleruega in the first place. If we get married in another church, we'll be settling, knowing that we have our hearts set on something else. I'll just keep on justifying to myself over and over and over that we made the best choice. In short, lolokohin ko lang ang sarili ko.

Marrying Abet will be one of my biggest dreams come true, and it will still be the happiest day of my life at that point if we get hitched in Las Piñas City Hall. But if it is possible to make another one of our mutual dreams come true, why not?

Of course, getting married in Caleruega comes at a premium, and I'm willing to sacrifice for it. I'm willing to give up all my other wants, but not the church (and the groom, of course!). I probably won't be getting my dream suppliers for the cake, the invitations, and the hair and make-up artist among other things, but that's okay. Yes, I already have a list of who I want. I could probably even give up K by Cunanan, the caterer I'm in love with, and probably have our reception at Sonya's Garden instead. We'll see about the reception. I will focus on getting my top 3 wants: the church, the photographers, and the rings, in that order.

I'm very pleased with this recent turn of events. Boy, am I glad that I didn't have the heart to cancel our reservation before, I kept putting it off. I'll be a Tagaytay bride after all, a Caleruega bride.

Mario wedding cakes

Check out these lovely whimsical Super Mario Bros. wedding cakes!

From CakeWrecks.com

I wouldn't mind having a cute Mario cake for my wedding. However, I'm afraid Abet might want to suggest something crazy such as a Star Wars cake. No way, not even if it's as pretty as this Millennium Falcon cake:

Or this Star Destroyer, perhaps:

Also from CakeWrecks

Yes, Abet, I know what these are. No, we're not getting one.

I guess we'll be sticking to a traditional cake.

--=-=--

Yes, m'dears, I'm already thinking about my wedding cake. I take cake very, very seriously. :) In fact, we've already shortlisted our suppliers to two--my dream cake supplier which is a tad pricey, and the less expensive option that's so yummy and classic that it wouldn't be at all painful for me to compromise.

Ah, so many decisions. Good thing I really don't have to make any yet at this point.

I do want me some cake, though.

Money, money, money...

must be funny in a rich man's world.

I just realized that I'll be thinking about money everyday for the rest of my life starting now. :-/

Abet has decided to stay here for his MA instead of studying in Japan, the pros of staying here outweigh the cons by a ton. This change of plans brings us back to our original plan: get married next October on our 5th anniversary. Our original date was October 16, 2011 (we decided on this just after being together for a year), but Abet had decided to study in Japan and he wouldn't be home on that date. We were to push the wedding to April 2012. Now we're back to the original plan.

Which means we'll get married in 21 months.

Which means that we have only have 21 more months to save up.

Which is too little time, really.

We actually started saving together in 2008, depositing an equal amount monthly. Yes, we went where angels fear to tread: the joint savings account. We do have some money stashed away (in BDO in MoA, to be exact), but we counted our money and made a wedding budget earlier today, and we realized that we don't have enough. We won't have enough if we put in the same amount we've been putting in all these months. No, wait. We'll have enough for the wedding we want, but that's it. No money for the 1 month advance, 2 months deposit on rent, no money to buy a refrigerator and a dining set and 400 thread count sheets (¡Que horror!), and no money for a honeymoon (an even bigger ¡Que horror!). We'll have to amp up our savings.

My goodness.

I've never really thought about money as obsessively before. I make some, save some, pay my credit card bills, and spend the rest. The only thing I majorly saved up for and spent was travel. Now, I have the wedding to think about. I'll probably obsess about this--what we can and can't afford, what nice-to-have's to let go of, what to prioritize with our budget. After the wedding, there will be the rent and bills and groceries. Then we'll have to buy a car (I don't want to be a pregnant woman a-commuting). Then we'll have a baby. And then another baby. (And maybe still another baby.) Then the babies will grow up and go to school and go to college. Of course one of our ultimate dreams is to have a house of our very own sooner than later, so we'll also have to work on that.

It won't stop.

I wish I did some major splurging yesterday before I realized all these.

Non-matching bridesmaids

My wedding is still light-years away. However, that doesn't stop me from fantasizing about how mine will be like. Didn't we girls do that when we were seven?

Anyway, this early, I already have a nice picture of what I want for my wedding day. I've already decided on the groom, the church, the rings--and I have dream suppliers for the cake, caterer, photographer and videographer. Doing research this early gives us and idea of how much we need to budget for the big day, and how we could come up with that amount when the time to tie the knot comes.

I love browsing wedding websites to get ideas on making my wedding beautiful and intimate and uniquely "us." One of the things I've always been fascinted with are bridesmaids in non-matching gowns. They look so pretty in photographs.

It's nice when the same fabric is cut in different styles:

But this one in different fabrics, styles, and shades in the same color is even better:

I like it best when the dresses are in the different colors of the wedding motif. These two pictures below have the colors that I have in mind for my wedding:


Now tell me, is this not the sweetest?

However, who has bridesmaids of the same height and body type?

On a local note, here's a picture from Stephanie Coyiuto's recent wedding which I read about in The Philippine Star last Sunday. Pretty, no?

*Pic above taken by Lito Sy, grabbed from heart-2-heart-online.com. All the rest are from The Knot.*