Wedding Expo Philippines

It's September. Aleq and I have seven months to go before our happy day, and we are really hunkering down into the nitty-gritty of wedding planning. We were incredibly busy with work in August, so we kind of fell behind a bit with the wedding stuff. We're getting back into it though, and today we accomplished a lot.

The Wedding Expo Philippines was the biggest bridal fair we've been to so far. It was held at the SMX Convention Center at the Mall of Asia, so that can give you an idea of the scale of the event. The booths were a lot bigger, and there were a lot more suppliers there than the others we've been to.

Wedding Expo Philippines

By now though, the fiance and I are hustlers when it comes to wedding expos, since we've already been to - and survived - two previous ones. We breezed through today's event, skipping the booths we've seen before, waving away supplier brochures we're not interested in, and making a beeline for the booths we wanted to check out.


Our first stop was Josiah's Catering, because the main reason why we went to the fair was to make our reservation. We chatted with our banquet events consultant a bit, catching up and clarifying some small details. I asked to look through their portfolio book again too, because I forgot to take pics of the setups I liked the last time we met with Josiah's. Then we paid what we were supposed to, and we were off to our next stops.

We liked the lanterns.

I was thrilled that they had my flower pegs in their book.

See the top left picture.

We went to look at rings afterwards. We did the usual canvassing rounds, but we found the rings we wanted at Matus Jewellery. They're actually one of our top picks and they have been highly recommended by friends, so they were the last booth we went to, knowing that we would most likely find what we were looking for at a good price. We didn't find the exact rings of course, but they had ones that were almost exactly what we want, and they were able to give us a quote for our customized design. We decided to wait until we have canvassed thoroughly at other jewelers though. It did give us pause because of the great expo-only promo they were offering, but it's still a little early for us to think about rings.

Pretty close, since the half-round bands are exactly like our promise rings and my engagement ring, but we want white gold. I'm also the only one getting a tiny diamond on mine - Aleq is going to get a plain (manly, heh) band.

After Matus, we scanned the fair really quickly for suppliers that were new to us, and we found a few that we are definitely considering (a suit-maker, a coordinator recommended by our catering consultant, a gown designer, etc). At this point in time we pretty much know what each supplier is going to cost us. We've made enough inquiries and have gotten rates from almost everything we're interested in, and the expo helped us finalize our prospects. This meant that we could already have a realistic look at our real wedding budget. Our initial budget was really just a very optimistic figure that we started off with. How could we set a real budget after all, when we didn't know the prices? So we went to the dining area of the fair, got Cokes, and sat down to hash out our budget allocations really quickly. We also used that time to rest our tired feet and overwhelmed brains, and to check out the chocolate box our caterer gave us as a reservation present. 

These chocolate truffles were divine! Goodness! Thanks Josiah's!

All in all, this event helped make the details of our plans a lot clearer to us. I love wedding expos and I highly recommend attending them. They're very enlightening; convenient because you get access to a ton of suppliers in one go; and you can score deals and save money with all the promos the suppliers offer at the events. 

Happy couple

Our loot bag and name tags

Here's a bit of advice from us to other "soon-to-weds" who want to attend wedding expos. Firstly, do register online before going to the event. You will get the event pass via e-mail, and make sure you print it out and take it with you to the fair. It only takes less than five minutes, and it will save you from wasting time lining up and filling out forms to get into the event. Also, do write things down. You'll meet and talk to so many contacts at the event that it's easy to forget or lose track of things. Taking notes really helps.

    Our event pass

This notebook was my best friend today.

The day ended with a bit of shopping at Mall of Asia, and dinner at Sonsi Kapitolyo. Aleq and I are all caught up when it comes to our wedding preps! Hope we keep the momentum going and don't fall behind again.

Alaminos Longganisa dinner at Sonsi