The Challenge

Preparing for our wedding presented a real challenge for us, thus the title of this page – Mission Impossible. Since Vic and I are both in Chicago, and we’re having a Philippine wedding, it is difficult for us to check out samples or canvass suppliers. So to lessen the burden of the things we had to do back home, we bought what we could from here: among the items we’ve brought with us home are: the invites, thank you cards, the rings, wedding bells and the misalette.

The Suppliers

Church
Booking the Church and the Reception were the most important of all the things we had to do for the wedding, as most churches and hotels get booked months or even years in advance. Though Vic and I have been engaged since January 1999, we have not really gotten into the preparations until March 2000. Our wedding date, December 15 was non-negotiable so we had to find a church that is still open on this date. We were in luck! Our first choice, San Agustin Church has two remaining open slots, 10AM and 11AM. We immediately booked them both for our wedding. I would highly recommend booking 2 hours for a wedding, specially for churches that are normally fully booked. This gives one enough time to have a complete mass and still have some extra time for a full photo session afterwards. In our case, it also allowed us to wait for some members of the wedding party who were caught in traffic.

Reception
I have always wanted a garden wedding. Since actually having the wedding in the garden is prohibited by Filipino churches, I was content to just have a garden reception instead. Unfortunately, our first choice, Coconut Palace, was already booked for December 15. We then looked for venues near the church since most of our guests would be commuting. We found Sitio Victoria and gave our down payment to reserve the date. Four months later, a newly built place caught my mother’s attention. It was only a block away from San Agustin, brand new and had a choice of a garden or an indoor reception, Villa Immaculada. We then canceled our reservation with Sitio Victoria and booked at Villa Immaculada. At this time, I was also already having second thoughts about a garden wedding because we are having a lunch reception. Dreading the heat of the sun and the possibility of rain, we moved the reception indoors.

Photo and Video
Of all the things we have to do for the wedding, these two are the most important. We wanted highly creative, professional and unique groups of people who would help us capture this memorable event. Pre-Nuptial Pictures – these are pictures taken of Vic and myself before the wedding. Our photographer, Rey Mondez truly captured us at our best moments – highly recommended. We displayed these pictures during the reception.

Audio Visual Presentation – a 10 minute video presentation of our love story and a montage of our pictures through the years. Shot and edited by Jason Magbanua – highly recommended. We also showed this video to our guests during the reception.

In addition to the above people (Rey and Jason), we also booked Glisaz to cover the wedding itself. It did turn out that we have spent the most on these two things. We have never regretted this decision – as we have lots of memories to keep us company through the years.

Personalizing our Wedding
Who does not want a unique wedding? We definitely wanted to have a wedding that our family and friends will remember. With a lot of the new “gimiks” already being introduced in the Philippines, we took advantage of everything that was available to us at the time. We personalized our misalette, choosing the readings that we felt are most appropriate for us – though we didn’t make our own vows (for lack of time!), we still felt that our ceremony was ours and ours alone.

Unity Candles are the norm here in the US, but in the Philippines, it is something that is still not done by everybody. Instead of buying a standard unity candle here, we went with a popular candle maker in the Philippines who really personalizes their clients’ unity candles. It is a 12 foot candle that has a hollow center (thus, it’s name “hurricane candle”) – a gel candle is placed in the middle to illuminate the etchings that have been carved on the outside. Ronald, of Balay Kandila, designed our candle, taking the inspiration from the heart and curly patterns found on our invitation. The candle is blue (our motif), laced with rice beads and swarovski crystals. A picture of Vic and myself completes the whole candle design. What we love most about our candle is that we can light it every year on our anniversary and it will last us a lifetime.

For the recession, we have also veered away from the traditional rice or petal confetti with the help of Mariel and Shiela of Wings of Dreams. During our church exit, we had our guests release a cloud of butterflies to add a touch of wonder and whimsy to our wedding. Our guests loved it – WE loved it…

Photos with our Suppliers

A pose with Jason Magbanua, Rey Mondez and Perfect 10.
[From left: Jason, Reiza, Ems, Marie & Vic, Oliver, Albert, Minnie, Rachelle, Vanni
Second row: Rey Mondez]


With Andrew Que.
[From left: Andrew, Vic, Ninang Y, Marie]


With Prady of The Fringe and Jontie of Galatea.
[From left: Prady, Marie, Jontie]

Our Thanks to…

… my mother, Quinnet V. Montanez, for making all these possible and for putting up with me through the last few months before the wedding :) … our family, who kept out of our way and did not impose any of their own wants and demands.

… all the vendors mentioned above: Rey Mondez, Jason Magbanua, Francis, Edong and the Glisaz video crew, Mariel and Shiela of Wings of Dreams, Ronald of Balay Kandila, you have made our wedding unique and memorable.

… Jontie of Galatea, for agreeing to make my gown in two weeks – I don’t know what I would have done without you.

… Prady of the Fringe, for making me the most beautiful girl in the world that day (at least I felt so).

… Tamayo’s for preparing a wonderful course for us and our guests – the food was superb!

… Tamayo’s again for covering our reception and church with a carpet of beautiful flowers.

… Perfect 10, for making this day worry-free for Vic and myself – I’m sure the day was less than perfect, but to us – it WAS perfect.

… all the brides at the WeddingAtWorks e-group, without you, I wouldn’t have known these vendors even exist and for keeping me company and solving all my last minute problems

All in all, we are very happy and proud of our wedding. It is everything we had dreamed it to be and more… Thanks to all the people who helped us made this possible… Vic and Marie