pretty prenup :)

not everyone who has a dslr can be called a photographer. 

and not all photographers can be called artists.

surely, one of the most important things we were looking for in booking our wedding photographer was that he had to have an artistic eye. mind you, not all suppliers who call themselves "wedding photographers" have that. some just have the fancy tools, a bit of training, and a bit of exposure. we wanted someone with a different aesthetic. someone who could shoot great photos with minimal post-processing AND deliver great after-event products, ie. a stylishly designed wedding album.

bryan and i are blessed to have found all these qualities in j. he's an artist, period. exactly what we needed. for people like us who notice the littlest details and who actually take time to analyze photos, colors, concepts, and most of all composition, j was spot on! :) not to mention he's also a graphic artist. not all photographers understand colors and layouts and have a vision for the end-product like a graphic artist. (biased talaga ako, haha!)

to top all of that, he's surprisingly quite a good director! :P we're not exactly the posy-slash-camera-vain type of people, and i think he did more than his fair share to make us look good on cam! :P so thank you j, for that wonderful experience, for the great photos, and the great company. we're definitely looking forward to having you and your team cover our big day. i can't be more excited! :)

these are RAW photos by the way. who posts RAW photos these days?! i'm happy and you know it :)

photos by J Lucas Reyes
hair and makeup by me (thanks to years of performing/ dancing and saturday night outs when i was still single hahaha)
long dress by Veejay Floresca

ps: saving the best photos for our big day :)

DIY: the number 21

look what i found at TODS megamall today! i was about to paint them white when i decide to take some photos against my colorful striped chair first. :) i'll be using these numbers for our engagement shoot... which i haven't scheduled by the way. oops! 

DIY: entourage board

i've been meaning to post a bunch of stuff for a while now, but as usual workgetsintheway. stuff like our trip to divi and the 80-peso black silk ties we got, to hairpieces and our bazaar loot for the Christmas season. too many stuff going on indeed!

anyhow yesterday i was lucky enough to have been able to work from home after ten million years of not being able to, hehe. (mental note: i should really start workingfromhome again) and i came up with the idea of putting together a sort of mood board for the entourage because i couldn't quite figure out what neutral shades to use (brown? beige? black?) for the *ahem* more senior people in the entourage. :P i just had to see for myself if everything would blend together and match. after all, B wants a black tie affair. no room for being baduy! :P so anyways here it is :) if any of you brides-to-be would like a blank one that you can use, just send me a message! :)

ps. i showed this to B, and he was like, i can't see the difference (in the neutral shades). sabi ko, BASTA, may difference yan! my mom's is a medium beige, mother of groom is taupe, principal sponsors will be light beige. and principal sponsors ties will be charcoal grey. does this make sense?!? haha. anyhoo, i definitely enjoyed coloring this one :P

(click to view larger image)

drool-worthy: elie saab haute couture

lebanese born elie saab is definitely one of my favorite red carpet designers. his distinct soft, flowy and ultra-feminine gowns make for gorgeous entourage pieces. need i say more?! love love love! :) click on the photos to zoom in to the details!

(Photos from eliesaab.com)

trial makeup: irene sy-go

ima try to keep this post short...! :) so yesterday i had my trial hair and makeup session with the fabulous irene sy-go! my dashing fiance (ive a new adjective for you :P) and i were going to attend a friend's wedding so i thought why not have my trial makeup already. at least i could get feedback and see how long the makeup would last and what not. i booked irene for traditional makeup since i don't think airbrush will make that much of a difference for me :P hehe. i was so happy when she pulled out the first bottle of mac foundation-- it's the same shade i use-- which made me extra extra happy knowing i was using the right shade for myself haha! i absolutely loved the coral+pink lipstick she put on me too, i could swear i almost cried when she made her last stroke of it to complete my look! :) too bad it's not so obvious in the photos anymore as i put on a bit of lipgloss on the way to the reception. anyways, we'll make minor tweeks with the hair and makeup on my wedding day but more or less i think this is how i will look! exciting!!! :D

goodbye eyebags!!! :P

supplier shortlist: wedding videographers

i must admit, i've been watching wedding videos for over a year before i even got engaged! i don't recall exactly how it started, but i'm guessing it was from friends, officemates, and former schoolmates who were getting married left and right and posting their videos on the net. i loved watching these highly emotional "mini chick flicks" if i may call them that, thanks to an (over)abundance of highly skilled, highly talented videographers in the country today. it was the ultimate guilty pleasure *whee!*

but now that i have every right to indulge in what mighty B would call absolute wedding madness <insert evil laugh muwahahahaha...!>, i'm quite proud to share with you some of the best wedding videographers we've found, carefully handpicked by us :) while we could only afford to book 1 video supplier for our wedding (DUH!), all of these suppliers are nothing short of amazing and have their own unique qualities. i reckon this might be a lame attempt at describing what their work is like, but i'll still try! i just hope i do them justice :) time for me to shush up and just let the videos do the talking...

so read on, watch, fall in love, and if you're a bride, hopefully take your pick. they're so beautiful i can almost cry! *sigh!* :)

threelogy
why not begin with the one i've stalked for the longest! threelogy's best videos, as far as i'm concerned, have three major components: a destination wedding, lots of lovely details, and great musicality. among all the videographers i've seen i really think their edge is their impeccable timing to music. myself and B, both being very detail-oriented, have this penchant for shots that progress just as the music does. lots of detail shots + perfect timing with music = goosebumps!

Jun and Vanesa from Bong Sare on Vimeo.
other must-see videos: punta fuego and shangri-la boracay

cinemaworks
john de guzman of cinemaworks is definitely one of my best finds. i came across his name from a local forum and when i checked out his site i found this set of videos which he made for this year's w@w supplier of the year awards. i was shocked at how good he was! cinemaworks is perhaps the most consistent videographer we've seen, consistent in that their videos keep getting better every time! not to mention, i love love love the colors they use, and they also do amazingly well with non-SDE videos. super plus for the final edit! :)

Don and Aileen Save the date from John de Guzman on Vimeo.

bob nicolas
if you want to remember all of the mixed emotions during your wedding day (not just from you but from everyone else who was there!), get bob nicolas! he's best at capturing raw emotions and telling these lovely boy-meets-girl stories in his SDE's. but i think he seriously up'd his game when i saw this video. OMG. can you say hollywood film?! :O

read the rest of the video's story here.

mayad studios
for couples who want to look and feel like they're in a commercial, mayad is definitely for you! their videos have this dreamy feel to them and look uber high tech (think action film slow-mo's and all these other funky editing tricks i don't know of!). you know, the kind that makes you go, WTF!?! genius. nuff said! 

marie and noah from Mayad Studios on Vimeo.

mg digital
one of the most beautiful weddings and wedding videos i've seen is actually from an officemate, and their video was done by MG. gorgeous setting + gorgeous details, perfect shots + perfect timing... i mean, seriously, i have no words left to say! so to cap off this blog post, i bring you the same day edit of ian and janna, masterfully shot and edited by MG Digital videos. one of the reasons why i got hooked to watching these things in the first place. oh what love! 

Ian & Janna from Mervin Gobaco on Vimeo.

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supplier shortlist: wedding photographers

if you've read my previous posts you might well be aware by now that this whole wedding blogging thing has its limits. :P i can't exactly tell you who our wedding suppliers will be (to avoid setting any expectations). besides, i think it will kill all the drama and suspense leading up to zee wedding day. i've therefore decided that i'll be writing suppliers reviews instead, and in the process hopefully help other brides decide on who to get.

so without further ado, here is my first attempt at writing what will now hopefully be a regular Supplier Shortlist. :)

* * *

if my wedding gown was my non-negotiable, among B's top priorities include the photographer and videographer. this was his absolute no-scrimp-zone. even if it meant spending a whopping *toot*k, he was willing to spend for it arguing that photos/videos are the only thing that will remain after the wedding shmedding. aside from your love for each other and the wedding bands to remind you of course. *hee* in any case, here are three of our picks for wedding photographers, in no particular order. there's a bajillion other talented photographers our there i know, so we narrowed it down to these three. i leave it up to you to ponder on who we officially booked for our big day! :)

john mateos ong
who doesn't like john mateos ong? JMO was one of bryan's top picks before we started planning. he is the pioneer of imagine nation and i honestly believe he is the modern wedding photographer who set the standards for wedding photography as it is today. much like what jason magbanua is to wedding videography. but that's just my opinion. check out the works of imagine nation and you'll know what i mean :) i seriously don't think anyone can go wrong with getting him!

nelwin uy
i love the fact that nelwin uy's branding color of choice is this warm kind of mango yellow. very easy and pleasing to the eyes, just like his photos and his lighting. i am a big fan of natural tones and (no offense to anyone) i find blue/ purple undertones and impossibly high contrast lighting a tad bit tacky for my taste especially when overdone. i don't think you'd want to look back at your photos 50 years from now and have to wonder how your wedding reeaally looked like back then. nelwin does none of this fake looking stuff. good enough for me!

j lucas reyes
i first came across j's work from a friend's wedding and again while browsing through cecilio abad's website which featured this photoshoot. so when i finally came  to browsing his website, i... just... drooled. i can almost call him the master of natural lighting and natural skin tones. no fuss, but as straightforward as what you see with your own two eyes. if you frequent stylemepretty.com and think those wedding shots are ohsogorgeous, you're sure to love JLR's work!

if the shoe fits!

according to capital b, i have three shopping phases: shoes, bags, and clothes. and they have a cyclical pattern such that when i'm done satisfying my appetite for shoes, i go on looking for a matching bag... and then new outfits to match... and then shoes again...and so on. you get the picture. :P

and i guess it's true for online-window-shopping as well. or maybe this whole wedding planning thing. once i'm done obsessing with the venue, i go on obsessing with the gown or gownsssss, then flowers, then table settings, then hairstyles, then this, then that, then the venue again, and the gowns...must...not...miss...any...details!!! :P HAHAHA! i can almost imagine B's eyes rolling after an overdose of all the girly things i need to tell him or "ask his opinion about". *hee* it's fun being a girl. and an engaged girl at that. hehe.

anyways, onto the real topic. i've been looking for shoes for quite sometime now and haven't really found anything that made me order it in an instant. and i don't intend to buy my wedding shoes here either. it's always hard to find good comfy shoes around here! bah. so hopefully i can get mine shipped from the US or have my folks bring it home. or maybe we have time (and the budget?) for a quick sidetrip to Hong Kong?!? wishful thinking. in any case, here are some shoes which i think could make it to the wedding day. i've been meaning to get good old comfy nine wests, but i've been seeing a lot of badgley mischka shoes in wedding blogs and whatnot. i wonder if they're comfy enough for a whole day affiar? cute though!

 

(Photos from zappos.com)

prototyping with veejay

okay enough drooling over vera wang. although im tempted to write about her fall 2011 collection, i think i finally need to move on, haha! because today, i officially had my first fitting. *hee!* and in all honesty, kinabahan ako, for whatever reason i don't know. half excited, and half still in disbelief that i am getting married, and that yes, i was about to fit the prototype of the wedding gown of my dreams. woohoo!

my designer of choice is no secret, so i'm now taking all the freedom in the world to write this entry without fear of retaliation (hehe) from no less than capital B for spilling even more deets about our wedding. if we were a corporation (in fact, we almost are!), we probably would have signed a non-disclosure agreement stating that i am not by all means, allowed to tell the world who our suppliers will be, in order to avoid setting unrealistic expectations blah blah blah... the works. anyway i think i've said a mouthful for an intro already, so yes, moving on to my story...

when i got engaged, the first (natural) thing i did was to scour the internet for wedding gowns. admit it or not, that's probably the first thing any newly engaged girl will do in the name of wedding planning. i got engaged on a saturday night, so i spent the following sunday afternoon looking through blogs and photos, etc. and very first email i sent was to this young designer whose work i've seen through a friend's wedding. that designer happens to be veejay floresca.

three weeks later, we met. we talked. he sketched. and i never looked back, haha! after that i just didn't bother looking for another designer-- not for me, not for my entourage, nor for bryan. so yes, veejay's doing the whole shebang! :P

so why veejay? he's young, uber talented, and i love his design aesthetic. aside from being so easy to work with, i probably really chose him because i knew he was OC and no less than a perfectionist (such as myself). now i am reeeeeaaaaalllyyy looking forward to seeing how my gown will turn out. and the entourage. and my lovee's suit, which hopefully will make him as gorgeous as brad pitt in meet joe black! HAHAHA :D

unfortunately, i have no photos to share today. besides, zee dress must be kept secret until the day of the wedding itself... a la royal wedding. but for now, i can say i am a happy bride to bee :)

drool-worthy: vera wang white

back in january vera wang released WHITE-- her drop dead gorgeous yet budget-friendly wedding gown line via davidsbrial.com and i just instantly fell in love with them and this whole idea of having a vera wang gown for only 1000 USD. that just totally freaked me out :D imagine a PhP 40-50k gown that had vera wang's signature style all over it!!!?!? i would sooo want to wear it ten million times! well one of those dresses that won my heart was this pink organza dress with flange (is that what you call it?) skirt that kinda formed a huge rose at the bottom. ahk. *loveatfirstsight*

(Photo from davidsbridal.com)

fortunately (or unfortunately) one of my friends/ officemates who was also getting married had some troubles with her designer, and decided to have this dress shipped by her parents from the US. lucky lucky lucky! here are some photos of the same dress in ivory. be prepared to drool! :)

ah wait, but there's more! yesterday i checked davidsbridal and there are new stuff from vera wang! aside from bridal gowns, her white collection now carries bridesmaid dresses and other accessories as well. but we'll get to the bridesmaid dresses later. take a good look at these new gowns first. sigh!

(Photos from davidsbridal.com)

zooming into the first dress you will find that the bodice is made of this beautiful corded lace. aside from textured skirts, i am absolutely in love with lace. if i was any bit taller i just might have chosen to have an all-lace fitted gown. gorgeous and red-carpety. but im not tall, so scrap that idea :P

now onto the bridesmaid dresses. short and sweeeeet. although i would not want to have these for my wedding, they sure make for lovely cocktail dresses. i want! :)

(Photos from davidsbridal.com)

experimenting invites

since my left brain called in sick today, little miss right brain decided to show up and show off a little bit. i spent the afternoon doodling on photoshop when i came across the invite studies i made for my brother's wedding last year. note that i'm only posting a study-- meaning it didn't quite make it to the printer but i think it can still be used for other weddings :) i've also added a few which i came up with just now. send me a message if you like any of them and i might just give you an offer! :)

i particularly like the pattern on the first set so i resurrected it as a wedding invite sample for ours. we're not using it of course since capital B refuses to use any flourishes for the invite. we will have very plain ones for sure as i've always wanted ours to just be simple and straightforward. the second one is our version of it in teal. it actually looks better this way don't you think?

sharing some other stuff i did today... if you notice, i'm partial to bordered invites right now.

ps. if you like them, we can talk about printing and prices and whatnot. after all, our little baby cevadesigns is currently expanding and looking for new opportunities and design projects to keep our right brains in check ;)

fast fwd to a condo life...

let's take a break from wedding planning shall we?
or should i say... let's just fast forward to renovating the condo?!? :P

since capital B and i are already done booking ALL our suppliers, and i feel like i've scoured the internet (and the w@w archives!) for every last bit of advice and other insider information on who's who and what's cool in the wedding industry, i've decided to take a *quick* break from all this wedding shmedding stuff. so i've moved on (at least for now) to checking out home furniture and other household stuff instead... *evil laugh* 

am i fast or am i fast? :P i'd like to think i'm just bored and in bad need of some amusement. and as b and i are self professed design freaks i'd like to share some stuff we've seen around. :)

let's start with one of my favorites. there's just so much to see in mydesignfolder.com i'd like to copy and paste all their entries here! HAHA! but of course, i've got to pick. one of their recent posts featured a designer's condo and his bar table separating the kitchen from the dining is definitely something i'd want for my own! or B's condo that is :P definitely something we're keeping an eye on. here's how it looks. 

(Photo from mydesignfolder.com)

i'm also loving the stainless steel appliances with the wood finished cabinetry. the backsplash is a little too dark for our taste though. i'd like to have mosaic tiles for ours. :) ahh... anything to make the kitchen a more enticing work environment for me! now to learn how to cook... :P

next up is the ever so colorful heima store which unfortunately was closed when we tried visiting them in LRI plaza. im also loving their other website heiminteriors.com which features their design works obviously incorporating the products that you can find in their store. heima's aesthetic is very close to that of cevadesigns, or at least what we envision for the company. :P who knows one day we can work with them. and hopefully someday we can churn out colorful and functional home stuff as well. PRETTY SOON I HOPE! :D

(Photo from heiminteriors.com)

lastly, although i'm not surprised we have an ikea reseller around, i found this link today that some of you might be interested in: ikeaph.multiply.com.

ok that's it, enough daydreaming for now! :) let's see if tomorrow will lead me back to snooping around wedding blogs and whatnot.

countdown!

i was bored and so i decided to add this! :) heehee!

priorities & venue hunting

one of the first few things we did when we started our wedding preps was to list down all the suppliers we needed (venue, food, photo, video, etc.) based on my brother's wedding worksheet from the previous year, and individually rank them based on priority. luckily, bryan and i had the same top three priorities-- church, venue, and food. but everything else after that was a mismatch! :P

so in an effort to secure ourselves the date he wanted (ah, yes agreeing to "the date" is a different story altogether :P) we set off in early january to search for the perfect church and reception venue. we went around manila looking for an old/ historic church, not too big, not too small, should have a beautiful altar, with decent parking, and lastly, it had to be airconditioned! (these were bryan's requirements btw :P) it took quite a few weekend trips around manila and makati before we finally decided on Manila Cathedral and Manila Peninsula's The Conservatory. but before that, i wanted to share with you some of the venues we also considered. venue-hunting photos are posted here c/o bryan.

Chapel of San Beda (Abbey of Our Lady of Montserrat)
the san beda chapel to me feels like home. i grew up hearing the 7am sto. nino mass here with all my cousins and titos/ titas from my mom's side. after mass we would buy puto and kutsinta outside, and head off to mcdonald's in greenhills to have breakfast. good old days. i remember the latin songs, the smell of incense, and the smell of newly cut grass in the morning. i just love this church. too bad they do not hold weddings here anymore.

National Shrine of the Sacred Heart
gorgeous, gorgeous altar ;) unfortunately when we did an ocular, we saw that there wasn't enough parking space and the entrance didn't feel so grand. i dunno, i just didn't get that "this is it" feeling i guess...

Diamond Hotel
when we pencil booked Manila Cathedral, this was one of the other venue options that was close enough to the church, big enough for 200-250 guests, and it was airconditioned! i think walking around intramuros at 12noon looking for other venues made us realize we definitely weren't going to have a reception inside intramuros! so diamond became an option. we both loved that the pool area/ fountain was right outside the ballroom and had a good view of manila bay. but as with the other venues, i was a bit hesitant. i somehow knew i did not want to have a ballroom wedding reception. heehee.

so after weekends and weekends of going around in circles and debating over this and that, not to mention being fickle about my priorities, we finally made a choice. and here's a sneak peak of how they both look like, and perhaps why we chose them in the first place.

(Photo from The Peninsula Manila website)

i love it, yay :)

on themes and motifs

let me begin by saying...
NO we don't have a theme. and NO coral and teal is not the color motif of my entourage. HAHA! there i said it. but im totally digging the coral + teal color combination right now :) i think it's a good palette for a socal-ish drop dead gorgeous wedding <insert perfect lighting here and some freshly-picked garden flowers>. sigh!

unfortunately mr. im-too-macho-for-pink fiance is not too keen on having any shade of pink in our wedding. his picture of what that day might look like is a meet joe black inspired affair-- a lake, a well-lit gazeebo, black coat and tie, a skinny girl with a flimsy outfit (hehe)-- borderline morbid i must say. but in fairness, very high class, timeless and elegant indeed.

*swoon* hehehe oops i meant this next picture...

(white tiffany chairs FTW!)

so as couples must do, we ended up with a compromise. i've always wanted to have the color teal/ turquoise-- "shades of the sea" if i must say, as a reflection of our love for the beach. at one point i even thought of having a water/waves-inspired wedding, with matching wedding cake with an actual water fountain or some such thing, a waterfall backdrop, and a waterfall projector (oops! that was our little secret right there :P ) crazy!!! good thing we did not go with any of that. it was a wedding, not a children's party after all.

i still can't tell you what ours will look like, but for sure there will be a little bit of coral here, some teal there, and it will definitely be a classic, timeless, and elegant black suit affair. :)

ps. i love you mr. im-too-macho-for-pink fiance!!! hahaha... another one for you :P

save the date: 01212012!

What better way to jumpstart this blog than with our save the date! This is my first official DIY project and thankfully it passed Bryan's strict standards... :P

Save the date's are usually given around 6 months before the wedding, although it can also serve as a back-up plan in case your invitation supplier runs late on their delivery. It is normally not a required element, but having one is ideal especially if you're having an out of town wedding. Of course, that's assuming you distribute them way ahead of time, otherwise that would just defeat the purpose.

So anyway, we originally didn't plan to give out any of these since our wedding is only going to be within Manila, but when we started talking about how to go about visiting our prospective ninongs and ninangs, we decided why not give them a save the date so they won't forget! Here's how it turned out...

For those of you who want to experiment on a DIY invitation, you can start with a DIY save the date to dry run your materials and your home printer. Note when choosing specialty paper for printing: make sure the paper is labeled for inkjet printers (if inkjet is what you intend to use) or laser (if you have a laser printer). Having the right paper for your printer will make a huge difference in print quality ;)

Hope you all like it! And for our relatives and friends abroad... this post is for you! SAVE THE DATE! 01212012! :)

PS. we love the brathy signature, don't u? :D

FINALLY!

Hello and welcome to mental poopiness on the web! :P~*