After months of preparing for my wedding, I am very relieved to say that the stressful few months leading up to February is finally over. I got married to Mariel, my fiancee’ on February 21st, and now I can finally talk about it.
For those who don’t know, Mariel and I were supposed to get married at Shrine of Jesus near SM Mall of Asia. When we found out our desired date was still available, we immediately shelled out 50% of the required payment then and there just to block off the date (Upon reserving, people were given a week to come up with the initial payment just in case we changed our mind). The place back then felt perfect. The church wasn’t too old, and it wasn’t too big either.
The next thing we decided to take care of was the reception venue. We had gone around and visited a number of places, but I personally found it too expensive to rent a venue and still have to worry about the caterer. While looking for a possible food supplier, we chanced upon then newly opened Oceana Events Place. The establishment allowed us to remove the venue rental from our costing, and was under the CCA umbrella (we had little doubt that the food would be great). Since it was also a few minutes away from the Church, it would be convenient for the friends and family as well.
By June of 2009, we were almost done with the planning stages of our wedding. Since Mariel and I once belonged to the magazine industry, our main suppliers were some of her close friends. The deeply talented Kate Torralba was going to take care of the gowns for the bridal entourage (including my suit). Barbi Chan was going to do her makeup (if you get to read this Barbi, it was too bad our schedules didn’t work out), but Peddy Acebo was perfect. Pat “”Worth every penny” Dy (you’ll find out later why Kate coined this nickname for him) was going to be our photographer. We decided to do away with the video since there was no more room for it in the budget. Also, we weren’t the type to make guests sit through a video of our wedding.
It was in November of 2009 when all these plans suddenly changed.