We're Now Married!

It's now been about a week and a day since we said our "I do's." Yup, we're now married! After two years of being engaged, a year of preparations, we have finally tied the knot.

Until now, I still feel the exhiliration of having a dream come true. During the wedding, despite the glitches that came up, I felt a sense of calm, as if I was floating and in cloud nine. I just can't believe that I am now officially and more importantly, in the eyes of God, Mrs. Layah Cabardo, Mr. Laser Cabardo's missus. Hmmm the name change would really take some getting used to...not to mention the tons of paperwork and ID's I have to process. But still it brings a sense of happiness whenever there are instances when I say stuff like "I'm waiting for my husband", or 'This is his wife, Layah." Hehehe.

We are still in 'honeymoon' now, just a few more days to go before we go back to work. So many things left to do, including cleaning and rearranging the house (you can just imagine the havoc all the preps and the opening of gifts caused) and doing our supplier ratings (our utang to the w@w community).

Until here for now (doing this while hubby is still sleeping hehe). Will post pics soon!

A Week to Go!

It’s a week to go before our wedding and here I am still stuck in the office.;) Oh well it’s my last day today here before we take our leaves. Starting tomorrow we can focus our energies on the wedding preps.
While all the major preparations are more or less okay already (except the missalette, which is my “assignment” for so long already but I haven’t started on yet), it is still overwhelming on how you still have to take care of such small details which collectively takes a lot of time and effort.
In this last leg of our preparations, I was, and still am, so touched with all the efforts that Laser has given to ensure that we have everything ready. With me in Germany in January to the first week of February, he was the one who took care of everything from the invitations, hotel and honeymoon reservations, coordinating with suppliers, and a lot more wedding tasks. He told me he had a difficult time trying to sleep because he was worried of all the things that have to be done, mentally listing down the tasks to do.
Alone he created our RSVP cards which looked so nicely done that you wouldn’t think that it is not part of the invitation that we had professionally printed out. I know he spent around three nights trying to lay it out perfectly, printing, and manually cutting each card. And that is aside from the time he spent scouting around malls looking for a paper which can match the invites.
To think he has done all these on top of his work and managing his team. I know he goes home late from work tired…yet he still musters energy to do wedding tasks and fuss about it. He does not even get to rest during weekends because then he has to meet with suppliers, visit my family, and do other wedding and non-wedding tasks (oh, and on top of his on-call client support).
As always, I feel so lucky and blessed to have him in my life. Every chance that I have, I thank God for giving me such a wonderful, understanding, caring, patient and so much more! person to share my whole life with. Now that I think about it, I wish that February 18 is much more nearer now than a week to go…

Almost a Month to Go!

As usual, it took me a long time to update our blog, what with the holidays, family gettogethers and the wedding preps cramming. I don't think that Laser and I had a complete eight-hour sleep at all during those super haggard three weeks. Anyway, here’s what we have accomplished since then:

• submitted and finalized our invitations with Printrade. hopefully, we can get it before January ends so we can distribute it in time
• had a pre-wedding dinner for the wedding entourage and for those helping out in the wedding. we had the idea of having a dinner in lieu of going to each ninang and ninong separately for the traditional visit. this way, they also get to meet each other beforehand, and get introduced to our coordinators too! details on the wedding tasks and coordination were also ironed out during the dinner.
• shootings for our AVPs! grabe, ang hirap pala maging artista! a lot of preparations are required pala talaga for AVPs…including conceptualization, gathering and scanning of pictures and listening to tons of possible AVP music (wala pa actual selection dun)…aside from thinking of the exact words to say on the day of the shooting itself. will not give details anymore so that it will be a surprise.
• finalization of wedding reception details, contract signing, food tasting with The Legend Villas. we're very happy with our final selection of menu. sarap!
• third and fourth fitting of my wedding gown. hay, the gown is so gorgeous…sympre reflection nung nagsusuot hahaha. galing talaga ni veluz! approved also the shoe design of nikko.
• as we also provided for the male entourage’s (including the fathers) barongs, we chose and finalized the designs. they also had their measurement taking with our barong supplier, Eric of Stefany’s Lumban Embroidery. he was such a sport even if he had to attend the pre-wedding dinner also in order to be able to complete the measurement- taking and other details.
• finished the layout for our Save-the-Date card (simple lang, di ba? we didnt want to spend much for it); we distributed some of it during our pre-wedding dinner.
• completed and submitted church requirements. the wedding banns are now in process with our respective churches. it is really easy to deal with Inday of NSDG…sya pa tatawag sayo (kahit cellphone pa!) in case of she needs clarifications with the requirements.
• met with Bernie again for the song list. was planning to combine recorded music with the strings/soloist in the reception, thinking that for the strings to play the whole time would be too much for them already. pero hindi! violent reaction si Bernie, he was adamant about it…he said that the wedding will be more beautiful if they play the whole time in the reception, and that I should not worry of them needing a rest/take long breaks (sanay na daw sila). he basically erased all the recorded songs listed…and so nagkautang tuloy ako sa kanya ng additional songs for the recessional and the reception itself.
• selection of Laser’s pina suksok barong design (yes, finally he has decided bet a barong and suit); ready for additional embroidery
• purchased HK airline tickets for our honeymoon!
• got registered at Rustan’s Bridal Registry. I wouldn’t be in Manila for the actual selection, si Laser na bahala! But we went around for some sort of pre-selection pero kulang pa.

Seemed to have accomplished a lot pero madami pa ring kulang! There is still the music selection for the AVP & for the reception, the drafting, approval and printing of the missalette, other honeymoon reservations needed, souvenirs, find an abanico supplier (and design them)…and many more small details!!!

But you know, even with all the things that need to be done, as the big day goes nearer, you can really feel your excitement grow. After all, it's not always that you know the exact day when one of your dreams will come true!

Our Pre-Cana Seminar

I've been meaning for weeks to continue with the wedding updates but somehow never got around to do it. I am tempted not to skip on the details, but I am thinking that it will ingrained more in my memory if I write about it. Medyo napahaba nga lang hehe.

So now I would like to tell you about our Pre-Canonical Seminar:

We were thinking of going to a Discovery Weekend, but with the schedule very tight, we decided on just attending the whole Saturday Pre-Cana Seminar held at NSDG every end of the month. Luckily, the seminar for the last weekend of October was still open and Inday at NSDG convinced us (rather Laser, who finds her very easy to talk with kasi nga Bisaya din ;)) to attend it.

We were a few minutes late that day, but it was ok as they were just about to finish with the couple introductions (there were about 17 couples and I even saw one highschool classmate with his fiance!), where each one has to introduce himself and why he/she wants to marry his/her partner. However, as Laser had to go back to the car since he forgot his mobile there, I gave our introductions together with a simple answer to the question. The moderator moved on to the next couple then, but when Laser returned, he was still asked the same question. I was expecting that he might get rattled or what, but when he answered the question so matter of factly, clear and strong, I was so pleasantly surprised that I found tears prickling my eyes.:)

The speaker was really good. He’s with the Couples for Christ and he spent the next hour and a half going through the ins and outs of marriage life. He gave good and practical examples and managed to keep the talk very lively and interesting.

Afterwards he turned us over to the next speaker, who was slated to talk about Family Planning. Inday and other NSDG volunteers came also to give us the morning snack...which are still hot Jollibee cheeseburgers and softdrinks! Naubos nga namin kagad, kasi we didnt have breakfast (& not to mention that I really missed Jollibee food). I really appreciated that the NSDG people were very patient and even hurried out to buy bottled mineral water for those who requested for it (sana lang the others werent very choosy on the drinks and should have been more considerate...I mean, the 300 seminar fee for each couple barely covers the snacks, certificates and other expenses na nga eh).

The lady speaker started off by pinning a chart on the board, which basically shows an illustration on the similarities between the woman's monthly cycle and the planting season (you know, wet and dry seasons). She started off interestingly enough by saying something about us being able to plan our children and 'choose' the sex of the child by using this Church-recommended method (which of course I forgot the exact name, only that it was named after the couple who researched on it).

So naturally, we were expecting that she will be giving us the details on the ins and outs of this method right? Unfortunately, she just gave a very rough overview on it and spent the next hour telling us about horrifying stories of couples/women who used artificial methods to their own detriment. I guess it was to scare us from using it...of course she raised valid points on it... but really, there must be a better approach to do that than telling what your neighbor, cousin or kapatid has done ('at alam nyo ba, yung pinsan ko hindi nagkaanak kasi...'...'may taga-dito, dinala dun sa clinic malapit dito...'). It felt like we were having chismisan at the local sari-sari store!

After that somewhat hilarious talk, we were given an hour break to have lunch. Laser and I decided to go to Rockwell, and had lunch at KFC (miss ko na yung chicken!). We even managed to squeeze in a few minutes of shopping and I almost got to buy a white sandals on sale from Bass, kaso wala nung size ko (but it was blessing on disguise coz I found out later that an officemate of mine has exactly the same style!).

When we came back, we learned that for the afternoon session, we will be answering a questionnaire individually (no copying!). It's like multiple choice questions on different topics related to marriage, like on sex, on in-laws, on having and raising children, and so on. Each couple will then be paired off to a Couples of Christ member-moderator who will compare your answers and give you advice, pointers etc.

As there were quite many couples and only around 5 of them, while waiting for our turn, Laser and I had fun playing Blobby Valley on his phone. After about an hour of waiting, a new lady moderator entered the room, and luckily she approached us first. She went through our questionnaires and just compared and discussed questions in which each of us had a different answer on. After about 20 minutes, we were finished and just spent the next 15 minutes just chatting with her while eating the siopao and softdrinks, which was the afternoon merienda.

Her verdict? We are compatible and she gave her best wishes to us in our marriage! She said kasi that the questionnaire basically is a gauge on whether a couple is compatible or not, and when they are not, they are advised to reconsider the wedding.

For us, the last activity served to confirm how we know each other very well...it was somewhat funny...we both knew what or how the other one thinks or will answer a certain question that sometimes the questions were answered in anticipation of the other's view. It is heartening to learn how our being open to each other from things mundane to deep core views and beliefs and our willingness to work out and talk over our differences showed in this activity.

All in all, while there are points for improvement (esp. on the second talk!), the seminar was an enlightening and interesting experience. I commend NSDG for its efforts to give a balanced and practical pre-canonical seminar to prepare couples for the road ahead of them. The last activity was also very good, because it becomes personal already and gives couples a venue to express and discuss their beliefs and views on critical issues they might/will face in the future. The seminar certificate was given immediately after, so no more hassle on having to go back and claim it.

More kwentos on the next days!

Updates! Finally!

It's been a quite awhile since I last gave an update in our wedding preps. The two weeks I was in Manila was really hectic that i didnt have the time to take a breather to write about it. & of course, for the past weeks since I've come back here in Frankfurt, things have been kind of toxic at work, that i have to drag myself to cook dinner at home (rather, the hotel) and not fall asleep.

With this, I’ll do a rundown of some of our accomplishments. So as not to wear your patience, I’ll break it down and start off with our Canonical Interview:

We really prepared a lot for our interview, having heard the feedback that Fr. Vic, the parish priest at NSDG, will be asking questions such as The Ten Commandments, Beatitudes, and on other Catholic beliefs, prayers, and practices. Parang preparing talaga for final exams, Laser and I quizzed each other questions, from simple Catechism-type questions to explaining doctrine such as the meaning of the sacraments of Marriage and Confirmation.

At NSDG, we were the 6th couple in line. We each answered a questionnaire, which basically underlines Catholic beliefs in marriage. When we were called to Fr. Vic’s office, of course, medyo kinabahan na ako. I mean, what if we don’t pass or something? I half jokingly told Van (our coordinator) one time that she also be prepared in case we will need to shift the plan to a civil wedding hehe.

Fr. Vic was in his desk when we entered his office. He looked over the questionnaire cover, and started of with the question, “Talaga Laser ang pangalan mo? May Laser na pala nun?” Alrighty… so for the next few minutes we discussed Laser’s name (how about my name? isn’t that unique enough for him? hehe na-KSP yata ako) and the difficulties with having his baptismal name different from that in the birth certificate. He then proceeded with asking us why we want to get married at NSDG and how we heard about. I thought, ‘oh no, that’s his opening na to the questions’…I felt my heart beat fast everytime I see him shuffling our questionnaires. Then the conversation shifted, and somehow, he and Laser found out that they were both Bisaya. So of course, typically, they launched to having a lively conversation in Bisaya (I was like, okay, medyo OP na ata ako)…and after that, he signed off the papers already. Ayos!

So now, Laser is thinking of getting him to officiate our wedding…talaga naman, nagbonding ba?

Our review didn’t go to waste though, at least now we both have a deeper understanding and appreciation of the doctrines, and oh, along with small details like who our new Archbishop is, and the names of the 10 Apostles! That is, we should still remember those details, I mean, it’s still somewhere there right….arrgghh…that’s the problem with cramming, you easily forget after awhile, pretty much like those formulas for getting stress or friction or whatever…haha no wonder palpakers ako sa mga E.S. (Eng’g Science) subjects ko nun!

But then I’m digressing…so anyway, that’s it for now, couldn’t help not retelling the details, it’s just what makes the experience more memorable and worth sharing..:) More updates next time!

The Guest List

It is only now that I have come to experience what they were saying about the guest list...that as the big day nears, there will be more and more people that you would like to invite. True enough, our guest list seems to be ballooning each day, from our target of 100, we are now at 130, and it looks like it will get to 150 and perhaps even more.

So we are in a sort of panicky mode. While we can shoulder the cost for the additional guests, the problem is, we are not all that sure that our reception venue, The Legend Villas, will be able to accommodate an additional 30 or 50 guests. From what I remember, the capacity of the ballroom is 100 to 120, and although Gladys, our A.E. at The Legend Villas, seemed to have mentioned that while it can accommodate up to 150, it would be a tight fit, and we certainly do not like the ballroom to be like bursting at its seams.

Hence, when I come back to Manila (less than three weeks to go!!!), meeting with Gladys is one of our first wedding-related activities. Thank goodness that Van, our coordinator, will be able come with us, so she will be able to help us out in the negotiations. I am hoping that the new ballroom of The Legend Villas is now completed, and that it has a bigger capacity. It would be too late and too expensive to find another bigger venue.

I just find it funny that we are having this problem now, when originally we had this idea of getting married, just the two of us, in Tagaytay. Less expense, less hassle, really romantic (imagine the solemnity and quietness in the church in Caleruega...just him, me, and God...). After some time, I was jolted back from dreamland and came to realize that it has always been my wish for Papa to lead me to the altar, with Mama looking very beautiful in her dress. And so from just the two of us, we said that we will also have our immediate family to be there, so let's say around 14-16 people in all. But of course, Laser just had to announce during one of our big family parties that we are engaged! Hehehe, so after that (and after other similar incidents), we arrived at the supposedly 'final' 100 guests limit.

Of course, the best thing to do is for Laser and I to sit down together and really trim down the guest list. While we would like to share our happy day with almost everyone we know, unfortunately, this is not just possible and we would just have to ask people to understand. We would really like to keep it as an intimate affair, with only our family and closest friends in attendance.

It's not easy but it's something we have to do.

Shopping For My New Car!!!

...I wish!!! Hanggang pose lang ako hahaha. If you think I looked a bit lost in the crowd, it is because the place is practically simply swimming with people going berserk with all the latest shiny new cars on exhibit. For sure, IAA (if I'm not mistaken, it's the International Automobile Association) Fazcination Auto exhibition in Frankfurt is not for the easily-tired feet, with around eight Megamall-sized (each, take note) halls to navigate.

Actually, I'm not exactly a car fanatic. I don't think I would pay the hefty 15 euro entrance fee if it didnt happen that my company is one of the exhibitors...needless to say, I got a free ticket.:)

But for a car fanatic, the exhibit would simply be heaven....just imagine all car makers (from Alfa Romeo to Porsche and BMW, to Honda...I didnt even know there is a car maker called Ssangyong...now I know because they gave away such a humongous paperbag hehe), including the parts suppliers and other car-related chuvas, from all over the world, exhibiting their newest models and technology, all within your reach (or should I say, your stamina to walk around all the halls).

Gosh, I don't think we were really able to go through all exhibit in the more than three hours we were there. I mean, Mercedes Benz alone has one building all for itself....I cant begin to imagine how much they spent just designing (and filling-up) the place.

Suffice it to say, it was an interesting one-in-a-lifetime experience (I also have bagfuls of bags as souvernirs hahaha...no wonder my arms ache now from carrying all these). But tired as I was at the end of the IAA tour, after a late lunch, I still had the energy to do one of my most fave things to do...shopping!!! I mean, I do deserve a break after a high-pressured tiring workweek, don't I?

Just a little break from the wedding updates...not so much to blog about on it kasi.

Getting an OTD

We now have an OTD coordinator!

After much thought, we decided to get a wedding coordination service. Initially, we really had no plans of getting one, as I had my friend Vicky, who I have no doubt can pull it off. However, as the months went by, I realized that since I only get to be in Manila for two or three weeks at a time, and with Vicky based in Cebu, it seems impossible for us to meet before the wedding, what more find a common time with my other friends who will be helping Vicky out. With a thousand more details to see through, we were getting overwhelmed. Also, Laser is left to do all the legwork and follow-ups in Manila, and it is getting more difficult for me to coordinate everything from here. Email, text, chat and calls can only do so much, what with the time difference and with both of us swamped with work. Definitely it is time to call for reinforcements.

The first screening I did is to make a shortlist of candidates, based on w@w feedbacks, and personal recommendation from friends. And then I emailed them to send me their packages. Out of the six, half answered back. I was quite disappointed that the coordinator I was silently rooting for did not answer back (and I made sure I got the email addresses right!). We came to two theories for those who didn’t answer back: (1) they still don’t get how the Internet has evolved to be a valuable tool for business and communication (esp. in this case, for brides overseas!); or (2) maybe they simply have many clients already and so has this somewhat snotty attitude of not caring for email inquiries. Well, whatever their reason is, it got them kicked off our list.;)

And so we got three coordinators to choose from...and Laser set out to meet with them. We finally decided on getting You’re Invited Wedding and Events Specialists, Van Manuel’s team. Laser felt more comfortable with her and we can see all her efforts with her prompt response to calls/email/text. One thing I really liked about her is that even if we were already considering a some sort of a ‘halfway done’ coordination service, which would of course mean more profit for her, she still said that she will make a recommendation of the best package for us after she meets with Laser.

It turned out that we only need the OTD service, as we have accomplished a lot already. As of looking for and booking of the other suppliers and the following-up with the existing ones (appointments and such), they will still be helping out with these…and much more.

Of course, the ‘final exam’ would be on our big day…which I’m relying on Van and her team not just to pass, but to prevail with flying colors.