Ask any married couple, and they will all tell you the same thing — there is no such thing as a perfect wedding. Well, the least you can do is prepare for all possible mishaps (that’s what your wedding planner is for). Before Mariel and I went to Cebu, we still had a lot of loose ends to tie up, namely:

1. Canonical Interview – Since the wedding was out of town, and we were trying to minimize on costs, we scheduled one two days before the wedding. It was also the first time we saw the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral up close.
2. Bridal Car – My aunt was trying to find out if we could get a good deal with one of her contacts, so we had decided to wait it out.
3. The Slideshow/AVP – Since I used to do this a lot, and had access to most of the pictures, I decided to do this myself.
4. Transportation for the guests – Since the hotel was a good 30-40 minute drive away, we were decided that we had to take care of all guest transportation (if you’re planning on doing the same thing, this is one of the biggest last minute costs you’ll encounter).

Now why did I bother to list these things down? Because coming from someone who has gone through all the stress, the bride or groom should be spending the last few days before the wedding relaxing. Or getting a massage. Or playing videogames. And I did none of these.

The night before the actual wedding, I helped Mariel transfer to her suite. After which, I went down to the lobby area to have a drink with my friends. Apart from having to worry about the arrival of most of our guests and family, it was the first timeI actually got to relax (apart from the sporadic 20 minute “quiet breaks” I would take in my room). We stayed up till about 2 to 3 in the morning, finishing a bottle of vodka and rum in the process.

And then the big day arrived.

When I woke up in the morning, I felt calm. I was sure that I had done everything that needed to be done. Our wedding planner was due to arrive after breakfast, to be followed by the team that was going to bring my suit, and all the dresses. I had a good breakfast with my family, and almost everyone who mattered in our lives were there. Everything was running smoothly until we were about to leave for the Church. Hala.

By 1pm, after all our pre-wedding pictures were taken, I walked out of the hotel to look for the van that I was going to take with my friends. You guessed it, the damn thing wasn’t there. After confirming it twice, the driver of the other van we had rented for Pat Dy’s team told me the other van was still at least 30 minutes away. It was already 1:30pm then (the wedding was at 2:30), and the Church was at least 40 minutes away. Stress! Our wedding planner made me ride with the photographer van instead, leaving behind around half of the entourage. I spent the time in the van trying to compose myself, thinking that the only thing that mattered then was that I made it to the Church on time.

I arrived at the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral at around 2:20pm, about 10 minutes before the wedding started. The Church was packed. It felt like a politician was getting married, where in actuality, there were just two non-Cebu people who decided to re-plan their wedding in less than 3 months.

At 2:30pm, the entrance song played. My friends were not able to walk down the aisle, but it didn’t matter. The hour or so I was stressed out before getting to the Church was soon forgotten. Seeing friends and family there, complemented by how beautiful the atmosphere was in the Church was more than enough to make me fight back all the emotions. Holy shit I was going to get married.

Before I knew it, the doors for Mariel had already swung open. Everything was perfect. All the things that go wrong in weddings, believe me, they won’t matter — and it sure didn’t matter for me then. My bride was being escorted by her parents in a beautiful gown (it was really beautiful, and she was beautiful in it). Before I knew it, it was time to give my dad a handshake (didn’t bother looking at his face because I knew he was already crying), and my mom a kiss on the cheek. And then I picked up Mariel, and we took our place before the altar.

Yes, I was nervous, but not during the ceremony. I was nervous of getting caught on film or video with tears in my eyes (my dad and younger brother were the ones who got caught, see 3:23 of the video below).

When I think about all the preparations Mariel and I did, I can very much say that given the chance, I would go through it again. When I was still working in Summit, I had been involved in several events that required me to forget about sleep. Whether I was doing legwork, or editing some video, I knew all the sacrifices would pay off in the end. In this case, the sense of accomplishment was multiplied tenfold. If you’ve never done manual work before, like following up on guests, reservations, and flights, and you’re in the process of planning your own wedding, I highly suggest you don’t rely preparations on family members or solely on the wedding planner. It’s only once in your life that you actually get to plan your wedding.

Sure, you’ll have photos and videos to remember the wedding by, but the hurdles you have to go through to get to that point, those are priceless.

Of course, there is still the incomparable Kate Torralba and Pat Dy, who made the wedding as wonderful as it is. These two people should be part of the “Wedding Dream Team” if there was one. Thank you as well to Ms. Em Ravina and Janice Jacaban of Be Resorts, Peddy Acebo, as well as Bong Abella of Koncepts and More. And to everyone else who had to put up with our tantrums (specially the Jimenez, Cancio, Chua, and Manaloto clans), thank you, thank you, and THANK YOU. You people, are doing the Lord’s work.

Having the wedding out of town meant not being able to invite everyone in the family. My older sister’s comment actually struck me at first — If you have your wedding in the Philippines, that means you are obliged to invite a lot of people, and if it’s out of town, it has to be immediate family only. My attitude towards this was pwede bang in between? In the end, we came up with an initial list of 60, which somehow ballooned to as much as 120. So much for keeping it small.

Aside from the guest count, we had to find out if our suppliers would be available out of town. Fortunately, our esteemed photographer was, as well as our designer who actually lived in Cebu (how convenient!). Mariel’s makeup artist was not however because of a previous engagement the same night. But no problem, we were able to find another suitable and able replacement. You can say that having built a few years worth of contacts in the magazine industry did have its perks. One thing we had to do though was let go of P30,000 worth of reservation fees and down payments. Oh well…

The next challenge we encountered was one of the most time sensitive of all — the flights. If you’ve booked any flights online (be it Cebu Pacific, PAL, or Zest), you would know how frustrating it is to see a good price one minute, and see it immediately increase a significant amount the next. Imagine the urgency to disseminate all the wedding details to our invited guests even though details of the wedding were not yet final. The plan of action? I had to send out a “sort of” invite (The actual ones weren’t printed until the 3rd week of January!). In a span of 3 weeks, we were able to coerce our friends and family to purchase tickets.  I hope this can also serve as our “sort of” apology to everyone (specially those who live abroad) for not being able to give out the invites and details sooner.

Since we were coordinating everything in Manila, someone had to take care of our business in Cebu. Fortunately, we found someone who frequented Manila once or twice a month. Bong Abella of Koncepts and More was our first and last choice actually (because we were able to meet with him personally right away). We had already decided on the Archbishop’s Palace and made a reservation when he informed us that they did not allow Sunday weddings there. Stress! After scouring the interwebs and looking for an alternate venue, we had settled on the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral. You’ll find out later why this turned out to be one of the most pleasant accidents in our planning.

The Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral (Beautiful isn’t it?)

The last and most time consuming task for the wedding was of course, taking note of the flight details, room bookings, and reception. As the wedding was approaching, I was still following up on flight details and room bookings. Just to give you an idea of how tedious it was, I had an excel sheet with the guest complete guest list (with matching attending or not attending opposite each name). I also had to ask each guest if they wanted to book the rooms through our party so we could get them the bulk discount. On another sheet, were the room reservations, detailed with whether the guest was booking a standard, premium, or suite room. And on another sheet (whew), each reservation name had beside it the names of the people who would be staying in the same room (The hotel required this list, but I wanted to do it anyway just so we knew where everyone was staying). I did this every single day after Christmas, leading up to the wedding.

If you think about it, we could have moved the wedding to a later date to ensure that everyone would have ample time to take care of their arrangements. This could have spared us the unnecessary stress too. This however, was a non negotiable, as Mariel’s lola happened to have her 85th birthday on the very same day. We had made arrangements for her to fly from Angeles to Cebu, and there was no way we were moving the date a day early or later.

Next: The Big Day | Alvin and Mariel’s Cebu Wedding

]]> http://justanothergame.com/2010/03/04/planning-an-out-of-town-wedding-the-nitty-gritty/feed/ 1 http://justanothergame.com/2010/02/28/from-manila-to-cebu-a-wedding/ http://justanothergame.com/2010/02/28/from-manila-to-cebu-a-wedding/#comments Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:21:54 +0000 Alvin Jimenez http://justanothergame.com/?p=1224 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.

Be Resorts Mactan

Mariel had just arrived from the US, and we had decided to have part of my birthday celebration in Cebu. The place was special to us because our only two domestic trips outside Subic and Baguio had been spent in Moal boal and Sumilon. It was because of a friend’s recommendation that we decided to try out Microtel (now called Be Resorts Mactan).

The place had a botique hotel-esque feel to it, and wasn’t as busy or activity driven as Hilton or Shangri-la. It only had one restaurant in the lobby, which had a good range of reasonably priced (think P200-300) big enough for two dishes (you should try out the Hainanese chicken). The rooms in Be Resorts Mactan also have simple, very cool, and modern atmospheres which set it apart from the other hotels in the area. If you’re all about relaxation, you can either take a dip in the infinity pool or sip on a drink in the jacuzzi near the man made beach front. There’s also a newly opened recreational area with a billiard table and a few table top games. If you know your furniture designers, creations by Kenneth Cobonpue are also littered all over the hotel.

Be Resorts Mactan Suite

We stayed at Be Resorts Mactan for a total of 3 nights and 4 days. On our first night, our gracious hosts (Ms. Em Ravina and Janice Jacaban) even brought us with them to “tourism night” during the town fiesta in Mactan. We went out for drinks on our 3rd night there with a good friend, Leanne Florendo of All Flip Flops Cebu. It was on the 4th and last day of our stay in Be Resorts Mactan, while sipping on a few drinks by the pool area, that we came up with the crazy idea of moving the wedding to Cebu.

*More photos can be viewed of Be Resorts Mactan at Grand Benedicto’s Flickr page.

Next: Planning an Out of Town Wedding: The Nitty Gritty