Happy 4th Wedding Anniversary!

For so many years, I’ve been wondering if I should share these personal photos and the stories behind them.  But then, I realized, a good chunk of you have been with us since we started back in 2009. 🙂  We were still dating then not knowing that a few months into making the comics, we’d actually be engaged.  As much as I want to shower this post with flowery words that could hype up the day, all I could remember are the fun and funny details leading up to that date.

4 years ago today, we got married.  I often hear the phrase “the wedding you dreamed of since you were a little girl”.  Actually, I can’t relate to it.  All I ever dreamed of when I was a kid was to be able to own & buy all the art materials I wanted when I grew up.  Also, the thought of having a boyfriend then was icky. 🙂

So it was 2011 and we were still very active on Tumblr, one of my favorite blogs was Things Organized Neatly.  Hence, our invite above pretty much had this look.  It was a collab between me & the hubby.  I did the styling (I was secretly dreaming of becomine a prop stylist at this time thanks to Will of Bright Bazaar) while Ponggo took care of the photos.  “Flatlay” was not even a term during this time so it was X times more awkward to shoot this in a public place then. 😛

Yep, that’s me X pounds ago. Hehe.  These days, I laugh at how much pressure I put on myself to look thinner and worry that I’m not slim enough but after expanding with the universe during the past 8 months, I just laugh at all the tiny things I was concerned with then.

By the way, while brides would probably be bothered about the design of their gown, I was busy worrying about my motif.  I mean, how are you supposed to choose only a few colors when you love all of them?  Really!!?!?
One of my cousins even joked that I should just probably get all the colors of the rainbow.  The snippet above is from the album I made with some inky doodles (watercolor + drawings with the dip pen). 🙂

I took it upon me to take care of the DIY details of the wedding such as frames with my own lay-outs, menu, name tags, table numbers et cetera.

Most of my inspiration during this time were from my favorite wedding blog of all time, GreenWeddingShoes.  

We chose Tagaytay as our general venue as we loved going on out-of-town trips and we loved the small church there which I believe made the wedding have a more intimate feel.  We were supposed to get 11/11/11.  But, as you have guessed it, the date was taken as well as all the suppliers we wanted weren’t available on that day. Haha. 🙂 So, we settled for 11/12/11 and we have 11/(11+1)/11 engraved inside our rings because we’re geeky like zat. 😛

I really loved my blush pink gown and I really hope I could wear it to some other casual event while having picnic with friends IF I could still fit in it. Haha!  I like the fact that it has no sequins, just a bunch of seemingly raw spontaneous folds that actually form a rose on one side. 🙂

The hubby wore a white top with blush pink stripes and an orange slim tie. *Wait, why do I sound like a fashion reporter?*  For my head piece, I wanted to go with something simpler but this was my hubby & my mom’s choice so fiiiine.  🙂  I mean, it’s rare that Ponggo gets to say anything about what I wear.

So awesome that Mangored was able to capture these shots.  I usually freeze in front of the camera and more comfortable hiding behind it. 🙂

My mom surprised me with these huge A&T pillows.  I was supposed to have them made but with so many other errands, I no longer had time for this.  If there’s one thing I learned about DIY’s, you have to involve the whoooooooole barangay.  Never be shy to ask help unless you want to suffer in silence.  Haha.

So, I was finally able to narrow it down to 4 main colors: Blush pink, raspberry red, orange, yellow orange with two other colors playing the role of best supporting actor & actress: lemonade & white. Hehe.

Yep, I really asked my entourage to stand this way. Haha. OMG. Me & colors.

I still remember picking up those gumpaste hearts from the supplier just because I wanted them to be in a particular shade. Darn it.  Looking back, I don’t know why I get so caught up with these details but looking at my painting today, I’m also OC with my kind of red.  I don’t want my red to be red: I want it to be coral red or raspberry red.  *Sigh, something is wrong with me.*

I’m so grateful that my mom took care of the flowers.  She eventually confessed that she’s been doing her research a couple of years before I got married (and she showed me her folder of pegs on her phone). Hahaha.  We also brought some flowers from the church so they won’t go to waste.  The white garland above us was initially situated at the church’s entrance. 🙂

We had our first dance but it was just some step-to-the-left-step-to-the right sort of dance as the hubby refused to hire a choreographer.  Haha.  I love dancing so I didn’t know how to react to this but at the end of the day, weddings & relationships are all about compromise.  To boot, he didn’t say anything about the event oozing with shades of pink even though a lot of grooms would usually suggest adding blue or gray to balance out the look of the event. 🙂

I’m also grateful to have our friends sing and host for us which made the event more personal.  Thank you Jojie, Alex & Finesse! 🙂

We had customizable M&M’s made through this website but grateful that my cousin volunteered to give this as a gift & had it flown in. 🙂

I’m sharing with you my wedding inspiration board.  The photos are mostly from Green Wedding Shoes blog.

During this time, we were only blogging with comics but we also took some photos & saved files during the preparations:
I did the lay-out for our photo booth template just to make sure each element falls exactly where I want them to. *I swear, this girl has serious lay-out problems.* I was also thinking, “Where can I find a backdrop with perfect stripes of the pink hue that I wanted?  I ended up sending an 8 x 8 ft. backdrop file to our wedding booth supplier so that they can print it on tarpauline.

The years after that, my friends would usually find me complaining about OC brides when I did invite lay-outs.  But, looking back, I guess it was just fate’s way of giving me a dose of my own medicine. 😀 Hihi.

I also made these tissue boxes with the caption “PULL in case of emergency” as suggested by my high school best friend Pam. It was the first thing I received from my bridesmaid as I finished walking down the aisle.  Haha!
My sisters-in-law helped me pick out the headbands for the bridesmaids and I labelled each one of them. I don’t know why. Hehe. I think I was pretty obsessed with these two fonts at that time!
Above: More photos from the invite shoot.  I ended up having random pink, red, orange & yellow things for the years to come. Haha.  Yes, those tiny tooth given to me by Ponggo’s cousin made it to the invite.  Some people ended up thinking we were dentists. 😛

The Strawberry Balsamic drink is one of our favorites from Antonio’s.  I also love their ice cubes!  Can’t wait to have another one tonight. :)
So I always brought a handy dandy notebook with me & I would jot down some notes from time to time. 🙂
Above is one of my uniforms.  Can’t wait to fit into that dress again as soon as Riley is born. Hehe. 🙂

As you may have noticed, I have a tiny print out of my peg which I can easily show to suppliers and to anyone who questions the general look of the wedding.  (During that time, for most of the weddings, only a single color was assigned to each row and DIY was not a thing).  Looking back, I can’t imagine the amount of details and errands we had to deal with for just a few hours of one day back in 2011!

Before ending this blog post, I’d like to play ate (older sister) and impart a few words about weddings:

1. The wedding is the the final exam of your relationship as girlfriend-boyfriend – With all the nuances of the preparations,  different sorts of pressure created by yourselves, the people around you and the society, it’s important that you both focus on the goal–the true essence of the day. 🙂  Compromise as much as you can and always talk it out.  Well, it’s not as easy as it sounds (and it can really get dramatic) but everything can be solved by talking.

2. Not everything will go as planned. – At 6am, I discovered that my bouquet was the smallest of all because the flowers I requested for wasn’t in season.  (There was a good number of months after the wedding when my heart would break each time I saw a big beautiful bouquet of peonies.)  The florist promised to replace it with something of the same size and a similar aesthetic.  My jaw literally dropped for a couple of seconds but when I saw that everyone will be stressed if I start stressing out, I gladly accepted it as one of the external symbols of the day instead of something that reflects my personality.  So many other things happened: no one could locate the paper straws with pink stripes which we had flown in (there were no online shops that carrie this before), I wanted to walk down the path before the church alone for that boom crane shot but the wind was too strong someone had to hold my veil and someone had to hold me as the veil was really heavy & pulling me back, there was a mixup in the seating arrangement,  my face felt too oily after the church wedding, the photo booth ended too early, it was a hotter-than-usual day in November, I totally forgot that my gown had a ribbon so I could carry the skirt conveniently et cetera.  But, thanks to the advice of friends, I realized the event didn’t need to be perfect and that I must carry on.  After all, most of tiny things will only be noticed by the couple.   This is one challenging event where you are both the organizer and the celebrant so forgive yourself a little. 😉

3. Learn how to filter comments. – I think it’s already in the culture of our country that we love giving out unsolicited comments & throwing questions not knowing how it affects the couple.  Sure, some friend / relative will have a comment about this and that. Someone will demand that something in your wedding should look this way just because.  They all think they’re helping even though deep inside you’re going crazy because you have so many other things to deal with. Just learn how to filter comments and know that you can’t please everyone. Learn how to separate the non-negotiables (e.g. a custom that the family respects) from the nice-to-haves.

4. Ask for help. – One of the mistakes I did was overwhelming myself with tasks especially the DIY stuff.  Thank you though Apple, Aina, Anna and my sister for helping out with the DIY’s! 🙂

5. Learn to Prioritize –  You will be presented with so many things & options to the point that you wonder, how come your parents pulled off their wedding in just a few months while you’re here thinking, what if we just had our parents, a bunch of witnesses and placed all the money into buying a home instead?? The hubby loves food so that was his non-negotiable.  Mine was, well, the opportunity to treat the wedding as a huge art project.  Haha.  We also love taking pictures and visuals in general so the photographer & videographer were also on the priority list. So from then on, things like a bigger orchestra ensemble, a fancy envelope for the invite, expensive pairs of wedding shoes (I was actually wearing flats during the reception as I learned during the debut that no one will see my stilettos under my huges skirt), custom-made pieces for the ring bearers, a new set of custom pieces for the groomsmen, et cetera we could easily let go of. 🙂

Well, that’s it!
I thought I was just going to share a bunch of photos with no descriptions.  As usual, I went overboard with the captions and backstories.

Happy anniversary to the exciting dad-to-be who never really bluntly says he’s excited but has since then spent so much time doing research on strollers, car seats and mini car toys for toddlers! 😀

XOXO,

Tipsy ♥

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Coming Soon: A New Googly Gooey Character
Preparing for Your Big Day