Nanay's birthday celeb last Sunday was a huge success. We had nachos & salsa, salad, paella, 2 kinds of Itallianis pasta, lechon de leche, barbeque, conti's choco overload cake, coke and magic sing! It was an informal gathering of family and some friends. Si leah nagwala sa magic sing, sumakit ulo ni miguel, hehehe. :) Kaya lang it was my sis who took photos with her camera (cause I was busy packing our things) so I couldn't yet post the pictures.

Parang despedida na din. I think we won't have another chance to get together before we leave.

While I'm always thrilled at the prospect of gift-giving, it's also been a challenge to think of unique gift ideas that I know will be appreciated. My mom is celebrating her birthday on Sunday, and as always, we sisters are preparing a little something to celebrate. In the past, we would usually go out to have family dinner. It was lea's idea to hold it at home this time, and it's only practical that way since the prices of gasoline are soaring, not a good time to drive up to Tagaytay.

It took us only a short time to decide the menu, each one will bring a dish. I volunteered to handle the dessert, the easiest and safest, lol :) I know the sisters are thinking what gift to give her. Clothes, shoes, bags, perfume have always been a favorite and she has a lot of those already. I'd probably suggest that we give her one of these medical alert bracelets, since, unfortunately she has high cholesterol and is on maintenance medicine. And she travels out of the country quite often this year so it would be good to keep her medical condition close by.

This one is nice. I hope the sisters would find this a good idea as I can't afford to give her one myself. I'm broke, remember? (must I remind myself of that everytime?!) lol. :) Anyway, I'm sure it's gonna be a fabulous family get together on Sunday. Will post pictures soon.

As promised, here are photos from my sister's wedding on Feb 23 held at the Lakeshore Promenade in Mexico, Pampanga. It was definitely an eventful day, as most of the guests shed tears during the exchange of vows ( I did, too!)...

**

It was Miguel's first time to sport a formal outfit and much to our delight, he didn't throw tantrums despite the heat of the afternoon. He slept during the ceremony and woke up in time for picture-taking :) Below photos courtesy of our personal cams and their official photog, Paul Vincent Photography.

**at the villa during preps

**you don't know how hard it was to take this shot of the boys together!

**the boys in their reception outfit, courtesy of tita lala :)

**the coolest bride I've seen

**to the newlyweds, Moks & Leah, congratulations... a blessed life together!

The youngest sister is getting married on the 23rd. And it's gonna be a garden wedding at this beautiful place somewhere north. We are all excited. I'm excited. I'm looking forward to this event as this will be Miguel's first ever appearance in formal outfit!

Well, he's actually not part of the entourage, at least not officially. But we've decided that the boys--Miguel & Enzo, should be in barong as well for photo ops, and I'm sure they will find their way into walking down that aisle somehow...and since we're not planning to stop them anyway, might as well dress them up properly! :)

Stay tuned for photos...

Late as this may be, let me share with you some photos taken during the recent holidays.

Christmas was spent in Bulacan and true to the family tradition, everyone, including Miguel, woke up on Christmas Eve for the Noche Buena feast. We had a hard time waking him up and he wasn’t in the best of moods when finally he opened his eyes, but later on joined the celebration and even ate tita leah’s homemade mashed potatoes, yum!

After eating, everyone gathered around the tree to open gifts. Miguel was more interested in tearing wrappers than playing with the toys he received.

We went back to bed around 130am and woke up at 7 to go to church. Here’s our very first family Christmas photo–the only one we were able to take:

On Dec 30, we went home to Pampanga to spend the new year with my in-laws. We feasted on Ninong Chef Ian’s rib-eye steak, mashed potatoes and vegetable salad complete with red wine–para na din kaming nag-dine sa Le Souffle hehe :)

Miguel received some more gifts from lolos, lolas and cousins. It was indeed a happy occasion.

After a year-long preparation, the day arrived... everything beautiful, everybody happy :)


more wedding photos by mimi&karl here

we did have coordinators on our wedding! in fact they were so good we only needed to meet with them once-- and on the night before the wedding pa, pictorial pa ang inuna..hehehe :)

special thanks to the following people who shared their talent to make our wedding extra special: Kuya Nitos & Ate Apple for singing "Cherish The Treasure" (and for playing the piano), Mama Rene & Angel Strings for the beautiful orchestra-like serenade during the processional & bridal march, Kuya Wel and Karen for taking time out of their busy sked to sing on our wedding-- thank you guys, mwah! :)

the candle & the bubble that saved the day! :)

We had a small entourage for our wedding--brothers, sisters & bestfriends handled multiple tasks as secondary sponsors; nieces & nephews served as flower girls and bearers. Days before the wedding, moms talked to kids about walking down the aisle-- Ate Apple told Geli stories of princesses in gorgeous gowns since she wanted to wear supergirl's costume instead of her gown; Lala had been practicing Luis with his "pillow-walk" with very little success and Pei just didn't want to attend my wedding! Of the four little entous, I could only rely on Tintin to carry on with her task properly. I stopped worrying; i let go. These are kids anyway and they will be cute no matter what!

But the day just never ran out of surprises. Pei was most behaved when he walked down the aisle followed by Luis who, apparently, was convinced to do the pillow-walk after mom told him to race with kuya pei so he could get to the lighted candle at the altar first! Geli was so engrossed blowing bubbles that she didn't mind walking down the aisle at all (hehehe!).

Here are bits & pieces of our wedding preps and some highlights of our Big Day! I still prefer to document this part of my life though this update comes in late as it would be good to stroll down memory lane someday...

Quaint, county church...
When we decided we were not holding the wedding in Manila, there was no place better than this solemn chapel in Clark. Big enough to accommodate our (planned) 150 guests, this church perfectly fits my idea of an American county chapel with minimal interior design that complements a plain facade situated in an environment exuding perfect calm...




Prenup with Mimi & Karl
Yeah, we were nervous. We're not used to being photographed, certainly not by professional photographers...but we so wanted to do this as this was like a practice session to prepare us when the big day comes. It definitely felt awkward at first but we ended up enjoying the activity so much that it even lasted for almost 5 hours hehehe :) Here are some of my fave shots:












Quest for the pretty gown...
It started when I met with Veluz on December 14, 2004 (see, I very well remember the first time we met…her text with the direction to her house in QC was still saved on my phone, hehehe). Armed with very little knowledge about wedding preps, I went to meet with Veluz on that fateful December afternoon after a meeting with the account executive of Fontana (yup, I went straight to Veluz’ house in QC after my meeting at Clark in Pampanga)..thanks to my ever reliable Citi Atlas map, I made two wrong turns before I finally found her house! I was nervous of meeting her or any professional designer for that matter cause I really had no idea what design I want at that time so I was thinking to myself how will I carry on with the discussion if I didn’t know what I want in the first place? But to my great delight, when she started telling me stories of her pas t clients, visions of the design I want suddenly came to my mind and I was able to somehow describe to her what i prefer (though very vaguely!).

She took out a readily available gown design which she said she made months ago and patiently explained to me how it would look when finished. I felt instantly comfortable with her and although the price she quoted me was somehow beyond the budget we set, I seriously considered her. Went on my way home satisfied and almost half-convinced that I should get Veluz to do my gown. I was set to meet another gown designer on the second week of January 2005. But before that date I did my research, browsed past topics at W@W regarding this particular designer and searched for photos of his work. I could only read good feedback about him but I couldn’t help but compare his work with Veluz’—the difference is obvious. And so I decided to cancel the meeting and confirmed my booking with Ms. V. I was happy with my decision.

Days passed, I’ve seen more and more of Veluz’ work at W@W and there was never a gown she made that didn’t impress me, I felt confident & relieved. On our next meeting, she made sketches for my entourage’ gowns and she helped me choose a good color to combine with my motif which is wine/burnt red, and so after showing me lots of sample fabric I settled on burnt red/orange/yellow—happy color combination! My W@Wie sisters really had a lot to share and everytime I browsed through the messages, new ideas would come to mind. Read on several bridal mags, browsed through the internet, shared posts with the ever reliable W@Wies until I saw another gown design that I really, really love—this one with lace trimmings in front and on the shoulders. And so during my measurement taking with V, I showed her the picture of the gown I liked (or at least a part of it). Got this from the insert in one of the US bridal mags (yup, only the insert and not the main page!). Since the photo doesn’t show the gown in full view, I couldn’t visualize how the lower part of the gown looks. Veluz made her own version of the gown with the lace trimmings in front that continue to the back down to the lower part of the skirt and I just so loved it we immediately settled for that design.

Another one of my dilemmas is the color of the fabric to use. Since I have morena skin, Veluz said pure white would look good on me, contrary to what I thought because my mind is set on using ecru/off-white fabric for my gown since I thought white would make me look even darker…but Veluz wouldn’t hear any of it. Thus, on my first fitting (using katya which is actually off-white in color), Veluz said the color looks boring (Nanay agreed!) and she even prepared white lace fabric and attached it to the mock-up gown to show me that white looks better, she couldn’t be more right—and so white, it is!! On the same meeting, it seems to both of us that bustier type of gown looks better on me rather than the one with lace cap on the shoulders and so we settled on white, bustier type gown with lace trimmings—whew!

I love my gown! :)

The perfect bloom...

Calla Lily! I had set my mind on having calla lily as the official flower for my wedding and so when I began searching for ideas on reception set-up, church decoration and bridal bouquet, I had nothing but calla lilies in mind. I wanted the church to be decorated with pure white calla lilies adorned with green leaves; i wanted my table centerpieces to be pure white calla lilies and candles, and my bouquet should be majestic red calla lilies. When I met with several florists, I had emphasized two strong points -- a.) pure white calla lilies for church & reception and b.) no mums anywhere even on the bridal car (except for the red-orange daisy in my MOH's bouquet which I specifically requested, whew!)

I had two florists for my wedding, one in charge of the reception and another one in charge of the church and the bouquets. My floral requirement was "almost" perfectly met-- the church looked serenely beautiful in pure white callas which was even made picturesque when the yellow chandeliers were lit; the reception looked elegantly gorgeous in tall & short calla lily vases and votive candles. It was almost perfect except for my bouquet which turned out to be pure red tulips instead of calla lilies. Much to my disappointment, the majestic red calla liliesI ordered for my bouquet were not delivered and my supplier had no choice but to offer an alternative. I know my bouquet was simply elegant and I just considered that little glitch an unavoidable part of any event, and having red tulips for my bouquet was a stand-out considering I was surrounded by calla lilies! :)