What I Learned About Weddings

Planning for my wedding has taught me a number of life / wedding hacks. I believe it made me become more practical, patient and wise. I was also able to know myself deeper than expected and my soon to be husband(that time). We gained experiences that brought us even more closer to each other and had been a big part of our relationship. Some say, wedding planning can make or break a couple's relationship. Its true that there will come a time during the planning where the couple will go through an argument but never let it break you. Always think of what it can teach your relationship and what you can gain from it. Cj always remind me that whatever happen, what matters most is our love for each other. And that is the major reason why I stayed as a 'BrideChilla'.💍

This post will consists of some wedding hacks I learned, my wedding planning details, some side stories on how we come up with our simple yet elegant wedding. ❤️ 

I got this photo in the internet cause my folder is in my parent's house.
I wasn't able to take a picture of it.

BE ORGANIZED

This is number one on my list. As a bride to be, always be organized. You will encounter a lot of paperworks, email exchange and signing of contract during this time. So if you aren't good with this, I suggest getting yourself a folder with tabs where you can organize your files. Excel will also be a big help especially in terms of budgeting. You can name the tabs as Marriage License papers, Contracts from Different Suppliers, To Do List, Wedding Planning Timeline, Moodboards, etc. You can add more categories as you prefer. I always bring my Wedding Folder with me everytime we go to Oculars, Supplier Meetings and Wedding Expo.

Marriage License

• Requirements for Marriage License (Cenomar, Birth Certificate)
• Seminar Certificate ( You may go directly to your municipal office to inquire about the seminars they provide for couples)
• You will be needing this documents until after the wedding. Most esp for the ladies who will choose to change their surname after the wedding. 

Contracts from Different Suppliers

• I sub-categorize this one according to my suppliers. Make sure to review the contract before signing it. Securing it can help you review it if there are some misunderstandings between you and your suppliers. 

To Do List

• You can find a lot of to do lists for bride to be's online. I did the same but I also considered the fiance's idea, so we come up with our own. 
• What we did was we list down all the things we need and prioritize which one needs to be accomplished first. 

Wedding Timeline

• After we're done with the To Do List, that's the time we plotted it in months. We list down what we need to accomplished on a certain month and make sure we were able to crossed it out. This is really helpful for us especially we were both busy with our work and only have limited time to meet suppliers and do oculars. 

Moodboard

• If you're the OC and detailed kind of bride, Pinterest is your bestfriend and moodboards are your thing. I made sure I printed out inspiration pictures of what I want my wedding to be. Every details, from the invitations, motiff, entourage gowns, flowers and ceremony & reception set up, I kept it and showed it to my suppliers. This is very helpful for suppliers because they can know how you visualize your wedding and how they can work on it. 

*got these photos from Pinterest and some from Magazines

MAXIMIZE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA LINK

• Sign up in Bridal Expos
• Save the Pinterest App
• Join Bride To Be groups. 

I for one became a part of a private group for Bride To Be's which is known as w@wies, or the Weddings At Work. It's not easy to be part of this group as an admin is sorting every member's request. I learned a lot in this group, esp DIYs, Venue Hunting, Program Ideas and a lot more. 

• Do not hesitate to do Crowdsourcing. You'll never know who among your 900++ friends in facebook can give you your best supplier. 

PLAN TOGETHER

Always have a sit down meeting with your fiance. Ask for his opinions cause this isn't just your wedding. It is also his. Include your parents also, because their opinions, suggestions and knowledge matters most at this moment. Compromise when it needs. I really wanted to get married in a place where Taal Volcano is overlooking but it will be over the budget and not practical, so we opted for an intimate wedding on a place where both me and Cj agreed. 

OCULAR VISIT

I highly suggest this because thru this we found the perfect place for our wedding. We've been hearing about The Forest Barn soon after our engagement, but we didn't consider it at first because of the location. We had an ocular at a place called Hacienda Solange. Initially, Cj wanted to take advantage of the discount that we can get while I argue with him and tell him I don't think it's the right place for us but considering our budget, we ended up paying for a Php 10k reservation. Days after that, I saw pictures of The Forest Barn then Cj's parents also visited the place and told us to come and see it. So we went. The feeling was magical. When I saw the aisle, it was really love at first sight. Cj loved the place too. So I ended up asking Cj if we can just forget about the previous reservation and choose this place then we will just make adjustment on some details. I'm so glad we did a better decision!

There was an ongoing event when we had our ocular

Cozy Comfort Room

Papa and Cj checking out the aisle

UNLEASHED YOUR INNER CREATIVITY

Most brides do DIYs now. One thing I also wanted to do even if I do not have the creativity blood in me. Hahaha. So I found a link on how to DIY wedding candles. I got my inspiration from Pinterest and bought some materials in Divisoria. I only spent around Php 1500.00 for our wedding candles including the igniter. If you'll buy customized wedding candles online, you'll spend around Php 5,000.00! So imagine how much I got to saved plus I was able to do some work of love for my soon to be husband.

My inspiration from Pinterest

Raw Materials

Finished Product. Made these just 2 weeks before our wedding!

I've been seeing in Pinterest that Program Fan is a trend during wedding. Instead of buying fans which costs around Php 10-20/each, we opted to do a DIY Program Fan. I ask a friend of mine, JL Aspacio, to do the layout design of our program fan, and I am happy that he said yes! I bought a good quality paper in National Bookstore and Tongue Depressors in Bambang then I printed out JL's layout. We had a great finished product and it was really useful during our ceremony. I'll be posting official wedding photos soon so you can also see high quality photos of these details!

I also ask another good friend of mine, Hannah Daguro, who loves calligraphy, if she can do the addresses for our invitation and she also said yes! Look at her work of art! We loved it!

PREPARE FOR MARRIAGE

The last and most important part. Your wedding is a one day event only. What's most important are the days after that. All the glamour will fade, make sure to be with the person whose gonna choose you no matter what you look like the morning after.

I made sure to read some books about Marriage, also we set an appointment with our Pastor for our marriage counseling before the wedding. Being hands on in planning your wedding is really beneficiary to couples in a lot of ways. Cj always remind me to look forward not just on our wedding day but most specially on our marriage. 

Love, Dys ♥