Yes, that is true. Not that I don’t want to blog anymore, but I have been blogging here and there in the past year, with a different pen name here and a different one there… it turned out to be so messed up! The crazy me…

And so, a month ago probably, I decided to compile all my crazy blogs into one good personal blog. Yeah! One that is so me and where I can talk (or write) about anything and everything under the sun, not just about weddings. A blog where I can discuss about my everyday adventures.  Maybe it is because I have noticed that many bridal blogs eventually die when the blogger finally ties the knot, because the blog is about the wedding planning.

I want my personal blog to live forever (immortal blog? what, feed it with ambrosia or something Greek goddess-y?) or… something that I can continue working on even when my life’s focus is no longer about wedding but about being a wife, or being a homemaker, or being pregnant, or being a mummy, or being a grandma, etc. (Grandma! Really planning to live forever, aren’t we? Lol!)

So there, my beloved fans. Thank you very much for visiting this blog of mine, and I invite you to visit my “new” and main personal blog, (to which this blog is gradually dissolving to…) which is now entitled “Ako: The Adventures of Marikoy“. Do update your bookmarks. And sorry again, for the inconvenience this may cause you, if any.

It has been a month since my last post and what has happened since then???

Oh boy! Wedding stuff first….

I was able to make those little cards that we will include in the invitations when we send them out. These little cards have the RSVP details in them, as well as the attire and the wedsite URL. They have been printed out, accented with those little silver things present on the corners of our invites (I cut them out from silver doilies, okay), and now all of those cards are ready. Now if I can only finished all the invitations already…

Next, the wedding dress. Somehow, I was able to complete the embroidery on the front of the bodice. I know, if it’s just for the sake of budget wedding, I’d keep it simple and simple. But the artist in me cannot resist to make it as a masterpiece…on a budget. I want the finished product to be something I can be super proud of, which will satisfy the fashion designer in me and wow the guests and all Facebook friends. So there.

Third, I was able to do all my bridesmaids’ wrist corsages. They are all in a clean shoe box now, standing by and waiting for the wedding. Ah, that’s the advantage of artificial flowers.

Fourth, the reception program is about 35% done. You might ask, why only 25%? My dear, be reminded that I am a fussy bridezilla. Therefore, the program is not the ordinary “Processional March – Invocation – Welcome Remarks – etc…” kind of a program. It is a program that starts with “Once upon a time…” and the whole script goes on, as if the MC is narrating a fairytale, instead of just announcing the next number of the program, blah, blah, blah. Instead of singers just singing any love song, they would be singing songs with messages that tell certain parts of out story. Something like how the songs are in plays, you know.

Fifth, the save-the-dates have been sent out. Many of our guests seemed to be amazed about this save-the-date thing. It’s not a popular trend in our culture, so many are really impressed that we emailed them our save-the-dates.

Sixth, the guest list has been updated.

Seventh, what else? I can’t think of anything else wedding related, so I’ll just go down to admission of one unfortunate event… I lost my job. It was just so crazy. This company I was working for seemed to be a big company, with lots of big time clients, etc. Then one day, three people just came into our office with all the documents, etc., proving that they are the new receivers of the company and that they’re now looking for people who’d like to buy the company because the financial status has gone bad and the owners are selling the company. Waaahhh!!! What was that?! After one week and two days, the receivers called a meeting and told us, one hour before the office’s closing time that day, that that very day is our last day of work. The company was losing money too quickly, so they had no choice but to close the company and start liquidating. Thank goodness, I’m aiming for a budget wedding. But still, I wish I had planned to elope instead of having a reception. Unfortunately, certain vendors have already been booked and down payment has been paid, and there’s no refund in case of cancellation. After thinking, thinking and thinking, we have come to a conclusion that it is better to go on with the plans (anyway, our savings can manage the expected expenses, without us going to debt) than say goodbye to the down payment without getting anything in return. We are thinking positive and hopeful that I’ll be back to work again very very soon (super hopefully!!!) so that things will be better. But still, I’m thinking of cutting down the guest list, maybe not invite my high school classmates and some friends from my previous workplace.

Well, that’s the summary of the past month that I have been missing in action here in my blog. Thanks for your patience with my procrastination, and hope to be posting a little more regularly after this.

Happy Mother’s Day!!! Mwah!

Of course you now know I’m not the super traditional bride. It would therefore not be a surprise to you that I will not be having the ordinary 1-2-3 numbers for my reception tables, although I admit, going for an alternative for table numbers is getting to be a trend nowadays.

As I had been toying around the various possibilities of fairytale themes, I first thought of naming the tables after places in fairy tales, both classical ones and modern ones. There would be Cair Paravel for the bride and groom table, then for the guests

Rivendell,

(photo source)

Andalasia,

Atlantica,

(photo source)

Genovia,

Florin,

Frell,

(photo source)

Agrabah,

(photo source)

Maldonia,

Pixie Hollow,

Anvard,

Gondor,

Ivory Tower,

(photo source)

and

The Shire.

This afternoon, however, while trying to layout the names on MS Word, I felt like there was something not so right in the picture. I guess it just felt cheesy and I was imagining certain friends giggling at the names of our tables. So I thought and thought and thought….

Until I came up with another idea. Instead of names, we’ll have letters as our table labels. Not the ordinary A-B-C to Z letters, of course.

While on the train on the way home from work, I started making a list of things that have a meaning to Prince Charming and me, such as our favorite things, our memorable places, etc. I listed them under each letter, depending on what letter each word started with. For example, for letter B, there was basketball, billiards, blue, B____ (his middle name), B____ (my hometown), etc. For P, there’s pineapple, Prince Charming, pizza, pool, etc. C has carbonara, chess, cars, chat, etc.

Now, for our tables, the letters won’t start with A, then B, then C, up to the whichever letter of the alphabet the number of tables would end with. We’re just gonna choose the letters which has the most number of memorable items. Then, on one side of the cardboard label would be the letter, while on its back would be something like

The B’s in our lives….

Basketball – one of our favorite sports
Billiards – our earlier unofficial dates were spent playing this
B______ – Prince Charming’s middle name
B______ – Sophia’s hometown, where we met
Blue – our favorite color

I thought this would be a more meaningful way of labeling our tables. It’s creative, original (I claim it to be an original idea, as the idea just entered my mind simple as that, I didn’t find it in other people’s weddings or blogs or magazines) and also, it shares some trivia to our guests.

Good Friday had been a good day for me.  Although I’m not really one who celebrates that holiday (I prefer to celebrate the Easter Sunday, rather than the Good Friday… rather celebrate resurrection than death), since it was a non-working holiday and had no plans to go anywhere but just at home, I took it as an opportunity to work on the invitations.

Yeah, I had been working full blast on the invitations yesterday.  Since I have only six and a half months to go before the big day, I thought I should get it done as soon as possible.  As you may have seen in some of my previous posts, my invites are handcrafted ones I’m making myself…and they are really requiring such craftsmanship!  I’m targeting to have 75 invites for about 120 people, since some of them are couples and families requiring only one invitation card.

Each “one-page” invitation card consists of 2 pieces of 1/4 A4 white board with silver specks, some centimeters of pale blue-and-silver ribbon, about 10 centimeters of darker blue ribbon and same length of skinny white satin ribbon, about 1/6 of an A4 blue vellum paper, 1 small circular detail of a silver doily (each doily has 10 of it), and of course, crafting glue. Since the white board with silver specks has only 1 side of really presentable surface, I had to glue it back to back, which is good because it makes the card thicker.  The invitation wording is laser printed on the blue vellum in black fonts.  Then a silver film is taped over our names, then had the paper run through a laser printer again (just for the heat, so the silver would transfer to our names), then the film is detached…and there you get our beautiful silverized names!

Oh, the trivia on the silver film… More than a decade ago, my crafty aunt in California sent me a couple of boxes of silver films that a crafty person can use for printing stuff with silver fonts, using laser printer.  Back in the day, we had no laser printer, just an ink jet one, therefore had absolutely no use for the material.  Well, I just kept it somewhere in my collection of useful and junk art and craft materials.  Then more than a couple of years ago, I remembered the films when I starting making invites and posters for church events, using my uncle’s laser printer.  The effect was quite impressive, and people kept on wondering how I made them.  I never thought those “semi-ancient silver films” would be quite useful and absolutely fantastic on my own wedding invitations.

Back to the crafting.  The tricky part is gluing the invitation pieces together.  Glue makes the board curve a bit (I had to put each in between pages of thick books and magazines to flatten it again) and makes the vellum paper wrinkle (making it look like a mild case of corrugated board… nothing can be done so far to flatten it, except to decrease the amount of glue to prevent the wrinkling in the first place.) Oh boy, you really need to be a neat worker to achieve it successfully.

So far that’s the adventure.  I never thought I’d learn so much, but then, as the famous quote says, experience is the best teacher.

Yeah, this is what I had been up to.  Am I now an official Bridezilla? Or am I just trying to be an organized bride and trying to get things done?