Wedding Cake: Booked!

Our wedding cake was not a priority. In fact, I even said before that I wouldn't get a cake because I find the usual three-tiered cakes too expensive. But then again, the parental units insisted that I must have a wedding cake because it is part of the tradition. Since I didn't want to stir any trouble with them, I just decided to find the cheapest cake possible.

I started scouting for cake suppliers that offer the most affordable cake-only rates at bridal fairs. I wasn't interested at availing their usual packages with the additional mini cakes, cupcakes and other freebies since our dessert buffet from Purpledish already consists of cakes. Baka magmukhang Oompa Loompa na ang mga bisita namin sa sobrang daming cakes. Haha!

Sadly though, most of the suppliers' rates start from P6,500 to P7,500, which was over our budget. I was actually thinking of just spending around P4,000 for our cake. Kuripot much? Hehe. Even Goldilocks offer cakes that were out of our budget range!

Then I chanced upon Hearts and Bells at the Weddings and Debuts bridal fair around two weeks ago. I've been reading great feedbacks about them from W@W for their designs, flavors and affordable rates. I plan to have a customized wedding cake that would showcase our theme, and Hearts and Bells quoted my design at only P4,000 to P6,500, depending on the diameter of the cakes. They do have a delivery charge though of P600, but it was still within our budget.

I was itching to book them already, but I wanted to wait for Mox to help me decide so I started looking for other suppliers. Then I saw Gervy's Cakes at another booth. Instead of using fondant, they use chocolate to cover their cakes—dark, white and even colored chocolate! The cakes even have some chocolate fillings inside! Oh my, I was in chocolate heaven!

Gervy offered this mini cake tower, which has around 20 or 30 mini cakes on it, and a cutting cake, which is customizable to your wedding theme. It costs around P8,000, which was supposedly too expensive for us, but I thought it was too cute to resist. Haha!

Gervy's mini cake tower (taken from their Multiply site)

But when I showed it to Mox, he didn't felt the same way that I did. He didn't want a mini cake tower; what he wanted was a traditional three-layered cake. Gervy's three-tiered cakes were too expensive—starting at around P10,000 I think—so I had to let them go. Sayang.

So I went back to our original choice, Hearts and Bells. When we checked out their portfolio, we saw that they have already made several beach-themed wedding cakes, so I gave them plus points for that. So after discussing things with Mox, we decided to finally get them. Since we booked them at the wedding fair, we had a choice to either have a P10% discount or 15 pieces of cupcakes. We decided to just get the 10% discount so that it would at least cancel out the delivery charge. Hehe.

We just picked out our design from their catalog since we found the perfect beach-themed cake that also had our color motif. I won't paste the picture here though; you just have to attend our wedding to find out. :) A few more suppliers to go and we are finally done! Yey! :)

HEARTS AND BELLS CAKE ARTISTRY
934 Alvarado Street, Binondo, Manila
242-0599 / 244-0255 
heartsnbells@yahoo.com

Wedding Rings: Booked!

Last Friday, we spent a very productive day at the bridal fair because we booked not one, but two suppliers! Yey! :)

First stop was our wedding rings. In the previous bridal fair, we found a design that we both loved in Suarez Wedding Rings at the price that we could afford. So at last weekend's fair, I went straight to their booth to inquire. Our chosen ring was still there, but then I saw another ring that had a similar design, but was more aesthetically pleasing. The new ring was thicker and had round edges, which made the matte white gold center more prominent. It has a more expensive price tag though, so I was having second thoughts on whether we would choose it as our ring design.

I tried looking for other options at the different booths, but everything was P40,000 and above, which was way beyond our budget. So I went back to the Suarez booth, this time with Mox in tow, to choose between the two designs. Mox fell in love with the second ring instantly and wanted to book them already, but I was still hesitant to do so because of our ever-growing wedding budget.

Seeing our dilemma, our AE from Suarez said that we could choose the cheaper ring design and customize it to look similarly like the second ring. He suggested to dull the flat edges of the ring and make it rounder to avoid wounding the skin. He also adjusted the fit of the ring to a semi-comfort fit so that it would rest comfortably on our fingers. These customizations increased the overall price of the rings, but it was still within our budget so we decided to book Suarez and get our original ring choice.

The picture above is our chosen ring design. Since we booked them at the bridal fair, we got two 0.02 carat diamonds on each ring for free! Mox will have some bling on his ring. Haha!

Suarez offers layaway plans at a maximum term of nine months, so it wouldn't be too heavy on our pockets to pay for the rings. But since our wedding is still more than a year away, our AE allowed us to pay for the rings for 12 months, without interest! Now that's a good deal right? :)

Suarez also offers free resizing services and lifetime warranty for their rings. In addition, if we plan to upgrade our rings any time in the future, we can trade in our rings and their value will be deducted from the price of the new rings. So all we have to pay is the remaining balance. Isn't that neat? Haha!

Our AE said that we could drop by their Gateway branch by mid-March to check out our rings. Whee! I'm so excited to see the finished product. :)

SUAREZ WEDDING RINGS
Unit 217, Cubao, Quezon City - Gateway Cubao Branch
913-4143 / 0922-8227220
 

Happy Hearts Day!

This is our third Valentine's day together, and you finally gave in to my demands and "surprised" me with some flowers! Yes, naging cheesy na rin tayo ngayong Valetine's day! Haha! Well, even though I sort of knew that you would buy me flowers (since I kept on dropping hints for the past week that I wanted a bouquet), I was still so surprised and kilig when you fetched me at our office, holding this bouquet. :)

Thank you Mox for making this Valentine's day special. But most importantly, thank you for making EVERY DAY special. :)

Let the Cooking Adventures Begin!

I'm the only girl in the family, but I am hopeless in the kitchen. Even my brothers could cook better than me! This actually drives my mom crazy because she believes it's the woman's responsibility to prepare the meals of the family. The only things that I could cook are hotdogs and instant noodles, and I could still mess those things up! Waley na waley ang cooking skills ko.

But since I'll be getting married soon, I must increase my limited knowledge and skills in cooking. Nakakahiya naman kasi kay Mox kung siya pa paglulutuin ko. And so, with the help of Mox and some video tutorials from the Internet, I decided to try to cook a very simple meal: Adobong Sitaw.

I won't go into details of what I did since I just followed the recipe here. But I'm so proud of the finished product that I thought it deserved an Instagram photo. Haha.

It looks beautiful! What's even better, it's actually edible! Haha! In fact, it's downright delicious! Call me arrogant, but this was way better than the pork sinigang that I cooked before, which was so spicy it made my eyes water. Haha! Epic fail talaga.

I want to give a special shoutout to Mox for having the patience to teach me all these stuff! Looking forward to another cooking lesson with you soon. :)

Backup Photographer: Booked!

A few months ago, I mentioned my dilemma on whether I should book a backup photographer or not. I decided not to have one then because I didn't see it as a necessity, only as a nice-to-have that we could do without.

But then I heard a lot of stories from fellow brides whose wedding photos were stolen, lost or corrupted. This is actually one of the situations that I hope I wouldn't encounter during our wedding... well, aside from tripping during the bridal march. Hehe. I honestly don't know what I would do if our wedding photos would be compromised. Iiyak siguro ako ng bonggang-bongga nun. A wedding is a once-in-a-lifetime event (unless you plan to get married again), so it's almost impossible to recreate the wedding photos if they get destroyed. :(

And so, I thought hiring a backup photographer was a good idea. It slowly became a necessity for me. After all, in case something like this would happen to us (although I'm hoping that we wouldn't experience this kind of stress), at least we would still have photos from the backup photographer, right? Backup photos are better than no photos at all!

Luckily, Mox agreed to book one, so I started searching for someone who has a different style of photography from Osep&Mimi, and who would fit our budget. Then I remembered April, a former W@Wie, who recently ventured into photography with her husband Manny. They are architects by profession, but they do prenups, postnups and backup photography for weddings during weekends. And since they are just starting out, their rates are relatively affordable! :)

I checked out their porfolio and really love what I saw. Their talent is very evident in their photos, and I believe they have the potential to do great in their craft. And so I emailed April for their rates, and she replied instantly. After a few exchanges of emails, I then told her we would book them for our wedding. It was a very quick transaction! April even told me that she was surprised I made a decision right away. Ganun talaga pag excited eh. Haha!

And once I deposit my downpayment tomorrow, I will officially be one of their happy brides. Yey! :)

Here are some of my favorite photos from their portfolio. :) For more of their works, check out their website. :)

MANNY AND APRIL PHOTOGRAPHY
mannyandaprilphotography@yahoo.com

Money Matters

Last weekend, I got into a minor car accident. Don't worry, I'm okay and my car is fine. There was no damage whatsoever. However, the car that I hit had scratches on its bumper. I talked it over with the driver of the car and we agreed on a certain amount that I should give her, which was around P4,000. Wow, I couldn't believe those little scratches would cost that much. :(

Because of that, I had to withdraw money from our wedding fund, which screwed up our whole budget plan. :( There were also a lot of additional non wedding-related expenses that seem to appear every month, so we would find ourselves using our wedding budget to pay for these unexpected costs.

I computed our remaining money on hand and found that to make up for our lost funds, we would have to give almost 90% of our salaries to our wedding budget, which would make day-to-day living very difficult. Isang beses lang ata kami kakain araw-araw pag ganun. Ultra-duper tipid mode!

I was so stressed out that I was ready to give up on everything. I even cried to Mox and told him to cancel the wedding, just so we can use our remaining budget for more useful things. Luckily, Mox didn't take me too seriously on my threat. Instead, he just hugged and comforted me, saying that things would get better in the end; I just have to believe in ourselves that we could do it. But still, I wasn't convinced. I kept on computing and thinking of ways to earn more money. And every time, I would get so frustrated because I would end up with no solutions for our problem.

But God would indeed provide for those who are in need. Little blessings soon came to our way; I finally received my annual salary increase, while Mox got a P10,000 bonus for his unused leaves and employment referral fee. It may not be that big of an amount for some, but it was a welcomed solution to our financial issues.

I know this may be the first of the many financial trials that would come during the course of our wedding preparations. But now I know that we would be able to get through it. All I need is some faith in God... and of course in my fiance as well. :)