pre-nups (no, not the agreement)

looks like our first major wedding planning obstacle will be resolved very soon. we spent hours (and almost a tankful of gas!) last weekend driving around pampanga and cavite looking for potential venues, and we found one that's beautiful and practical (because the wedding package they offer takes care of most of the big supply requirements already). just have to pay the reservation fee tomorrow and we're set. the details can be ironed out later.

so on to the next item on the list: the pre-nup pictorial venue.

as with most other tasks in our wedding checklist, moks and i have endured callused feet and sweat-drenched backs looking for that spot where we can do our pre-nup shoot. our requirements are quite complicated: we want something different, not the typical meadow shot ala echo and kristine in pangako sa 'yo. but we also want something that shows the beauty of nature. it can't be somewhere too serene because serene is just not us, but it can't also be too loud because i won't be able to stand it. the place has to have access to good restrooms for our outfit changes (!), and it can't be too hot there too or moks will melt. and finally, the place has to be within metro manila because we can't afford the additional charge for an out-of-town shoot anymore!

we walked the walls of intramuros two weekends ago, thinking maybe there's some remote, undiscovered place in intramuros that will have the qualities we're looking for. well, judging from the pictures we took of ourselves, there's none.

there's me with my knees buckling and very near hyperventilating in fear that i will slide down the slope of the walls and fall face flat on the golf course down below.

then there's moks who couldn't seem to stop imagining himself as a soldier-cum-streetfighter. very, very bad idea to make him hold my umbrella - he had the perfect prop for his gun, sword, bayonet, etc.

in fairness, love was scribbled all over the intramuros walls. just, um, not so much the type we were looking for. =p

we were able to walk more than half of the entire intramuros walls when we got to a portion that was locked from public access. we had no choice but to abandon our quest.

we went to the piers afterwards - we were hoping to see some abandoned, rusty ships that is open to the public, but there didn't seem to be any. there were rusty ships, admittedly. but they did not look abandoned, and we dared not insist on coming in.

after a tiring afternoon, we rested while watching the manila bay sunset. cliche, i know, but it was the first place we could get to that offered a place to sit and relax with ready access to food and drinks. moks took this picture using my nokia 6600 phone. now, imagining the same shot by a professional photographer with high-tech cameras, i just realized manila bay may just be the place for us.

where oh where???

waaaahhhh!!!

first actual wedding-related panic attack.

we have to ditch our initial choice for venue. looks like it can't accomodate the number of our guests. so sad really, considering we were able to draw up the layout plans and check the lighting of the place just last saturday.

but it appears to be a choice between finding a new place, or ditching our guests. and right now, we're more partial to wanting to see our family and friends (and our families' friends) at our wedding, so we're back to venue hunting.

it shouldn't be so hard, if it weren't for the fact that i have already imagined the wedding there and liked it. it's our first choice for our venue, and when we visited the place the first time, it felt right. it was such a relief to be able to find a good place that is reasonably priced without compromising on the details i want. so now, to have to drop all those... *sigh*.

but oh well, life's like that. now i need to stop myself from whining because that is such an energy-drainer and i really don't have spare energy to waste. we need to stretch our days to be able to attend to our work, call suppliers, do oculars, and still have quality time for our families, ourselves, and each other.

any recommendations on a good but cheap garden that can seat 150 to 200 guests? suggestions will be devoured, pramis.

baby i'm-a want you!

moks and i do not agree over most of the details of our wedding.

he wants 40 guests, i want three times that number.

he wants earth colors, i want brights.

he wants me to wear a mermaid cut dress, i.just.won't.

but there's one detail that we agree on - that in fact we are willing to spend on, eventhough it's not a necessity, and it's outrageously expensive.

we want a chocolate fondue fountain.

oh yeah. pure melted belgian chocoloate continuously flowing and seemingly inexhaustible. oh. yeah.

we are not particular about what to "dip" into this sugar bounty - we don't care it it's fruits, marshmallows, nuts, bread, meat, fish, rice, soup, whatever anyone wants. to me, the very idea behind the free-flowing chocolate fountain (the stuff my childhood daydreams are made of, to the tune of the Goya Fun Factory jingle) is to abandon all sense and reason and just go for the goodness that you want. heck, moks even wants to wear a bib and just position his mouth between the first and second layers of this baby!

and me, i'm not eating carbs and seriously cutting back on sweets these days, and ideally, until the wedding. but once my wedding pictures are taken, and i have already spent an hour beautifully fitting into that wedding dress, well hell would freeze over before i stop myself from feasting on this sinful goodness. babawi ako!

1...2...3...banana!!!

it's overwhelming.

my office workload is just crazy it's driving me crazy! it's not just up to my neck - my neck is like my waistline now with the to do's that i have! i don't know how to do this.

so i don't.

i blog. and i plan my wedding.

and i go even crazier.

i hardly realized i could spend a whole afternoon buried under brochures and pamphlets and flyers and magazines, all tied together by the overly stretched phoneline, and still wish i have cable internet so i can check my emails at the same time! i have shepherded multinational transactions, syndicated loans, mergers and acquisitions - right now i'm even handholding a stupid and whiny client while it acquires a company that promises to be a major pain in the ass later - but i have not given any of those much more thought than i have to planning the layout of my wedding venue. do i want round tables or long tables? do i want vines on the railing over the lake, or do io want to keep it as is? do i want red? or copper? will copper look nice in the morning? will i look nice in the morning?

but well, of all the headaches i have and i have had to go through, of all the planning i have and i have had to mind, of all the "projects" i had to spend my energies on - ito ang pinakamasarap pag-isipan.

it's too beautiful

every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. - closing time, semisonic.

well, not for me. yes, i went through a beginning and an end, but only to pick up from where i left off and begin again.

this is the story of my life and moks's. we met, we got together, we went apart, and then met again. he actually predicted it would happen that way - on the very first book he gave me (oliver's story, by erich segal, on the pretense that he's sorry about accidentally putting a crease on a book i lent him), he wrote "in case we meet again." good thing we did.

now we're planning our wedding. and in the hopes that i will have a creative outlet to rant and rave about the details (and in so doing spare him the hassle of having to listen to me all the time about stuff he doesn't understand, like fuchsia and mauve, motifs and themes), we've decided to set up this new blog.

comments, well-wishes, and supplier referrals are welcome and will be greatly appreciated.

there are some people who meet that somebody that they can never

stop loving, no matter how hard they try.

i wouldn't expect you to understand that, or even believe it,

but trust me, there are some love that don't go away.

and maybe that makes them crazy, but we should

all be lucky to end up with that somebody who has a little

of that insanity. somebody who never lets go.

somebody who cherishes you forever.

-ally mcbeal