macapinlac.com

Wedding FAQ

The rumors are true. My status has been updated from single to married on facebook and every other social networking site known to man.

I wanted to update my blog before the new wife and I traveled off on a romantic honeymoon to make sure that people (all 3 of you readers) didn’t think I died in a fashion related accident. I also wanted to just answer some of the emails that I’ve been receiving so a Q&A/FAQ/BBQ format seemed to be the best way. Ok here goes:

So when did you get married?
Aug 16, 2008 (08, 08+08, 08) heh! 4 8’s! Beat that Aug 8, 2008 people!

How did the day go?
The day itself went by very quickly. My usual answer is “Oh man, at the end of the night it felt like I had just woken up an hour ago.” I had a lot of fun since all of my friends and family were there to celebrate with us. I wasn’t stressing out since our awesome helpers were all there with the to-do lists that we created for them. The most important thing was that everything was on schedule (apparently early too)! The most perfect and fastest day of my life.

I heard you had some kick ass food! Did you?
Ask someone who actually ate, cause Cheryl and I didn’t. We didn’t even get to taste the crab or the salmon puff pastry. I personally had 3 bites from my plate and I re-heated a plate that our awesome helper put in our hotel room the day after. But it wasn’t quite the same. If anything you should ask Aileen and Melanie.

Who made your giveaways?
Our giveaways were mini-cupcakes made by the always awesome Paula of Aeyracakes. Cheryl, Aileen, Laurie and Anna Lizza assembled and glued every-single-box (notice: my name wasn’t in there, thanks girls!)

That band was awesome! Who were they?
My one (major) splurge.  They were awesome, and probably the reason why so many people enjoyed the night (even people who didn’t dance). They’re called Famous Players Band and they usually make their rounds at the Commodore and PNE.  They told us that they gauge the crowd and play to their tastes. Apparently, we had a lot of 80’s children in our wedding.

What kind of shoes did Cheryl have?
Really? *sigh* She wore Manolo Blahniks. Mine were rentals, thankyouverymuchforaskingaboutmine!

How many people did you have in your wedding party?
Our wedding party was big. We had a total of 19 people (including Cheryl and myself). 7 grooms men and 7 bridesmaid, with 3 little people (flower girl, ring and coin bearer). We barely fit in our 20 person limo.

And how big was your guestlist?
Total? 247 people. It’s small for a Filipino wedding. Our buddy has a guestlist of 600+ people!

Your wedding seemed to have gone without a hitch, what advice would you (and Cheryl) impart to other brides and grooms?
Good question, I think I’ll ask my wife to help contribute to this answer. (1) Get a wedding book with a thorough check list (the larger check list the better). (2) Be engaged for a year and half (the year and a half timeframe really helps space out the different to-do items and opens up vendor’s schedules) but if you can’t it’s all good. (3) Plan to be finished 1.5 weeks early (it doesn’t have to be exactly 1.5 weeks, but generally early). Since Cheryl and I had quite a bit of out of town guests we knew that the week of the wedding there would hardly be any time to do anything. So we made sure that we were done before that 1.5 week cut off point. So our last week was spent enjoying with out of town guests and with generally smaller non-stress type of tasks. (4) Get awesome helpers (pick people for their expertise). Really, its no different from any project management gig out there. Pick people who are good at what they do. We were blessed with soo many people who were willing and awesome. (5) If you are the bride, ensure your fiance knows as much as you, so that he can answer all the questions from people on the wedding day while you’re blissfully enjoying everything.

I would also like to add: book your spa/massage appointment the night before the wedding. Not only does it enforce the “be finished early” point but its nice and relaxing (plus it keeps you from getting hijacked by the boys and taken out for poker and drinking - like what happened to me).

One other things, we also used Google docs to manage our guest list and it worked amazingly well since you could share the list between your families.

What other advice can you offer up?
Just enjoy the day. Once you get to that point, you can’t really change anything. You have to leave it to the people you’ve entrusted and your own coordination skills. I mean, really it’s just the first day of the rest of your lives together so what is one little tiny mistake.

Do you feel any different?
Not really. Cher and I practically lived together since we got engaged. So I already knew that she likes to steal the blanket, bleed into my side of the bed and hang her bra on the bedroom door knob waaaay before we got married. heh!

6:27 pm