Tunes from That Happy Day

Aside from the videos and the photos, this is the most requested thing from our wedding: our playlist. Friends have been bugging us for it, so here it is. We made our wedding a tribute of sorts to our favorite era: the 90s.


GROOM AND ENTOURAGE MARCH
I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing by Aerosmith, performed by Vitamin String Quartet

BRIDAL MARCH
Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins

CHURCH PICTORIALS
1. Yellow – Coldplay performed by Vitamin String Quartet
2. Sweet Child O' Mine – Guns 'N Roses performed by Vitamin String Quartet
3. She Will Be Loved – Maroon 5 performed by Vitamin String Quartet
4. Bizarre Love Triangle – New Order performed by Vitamin String Quartet
5. Some Medley performed by Vitamin String Quartet
6. Under the Bridge – Red Hot Chili Peppers performed by Vitamin String Quartet
7. With or Without You – U2 performed by Vitamin String Quartet


COCKTAILS
Foo Fighters, Incubus, Nirvana, Aerosmith, Red Hot Chili Peppers songs performed by Vitamin String Quartet

PRENUP VIDEO
Sembreak – Eraserheads

ENTOURAGE ENTRANCE
Crash and Burn – Savage Garden

GRAND ENTRANCE
Semi-charmed Life – Third Eye Blind

FIRST DANCE
I Knew I Loved You – Savage Garden

GROWING UP VIDEO
Can't Stop Lovin' You – Van Halen
I Believe in a Thing Called Love - The Darkness
Into Your Arms – The Lemonheads


ON-SITE EDIT PHOTO SLIDESHOW
Deep Inside of You – Third Eye Blind

ON-SITE EDIT VIDEO
Dreaming my Dreams – The Cranberries

4PLAY BAND SETLIST

SET 1
1. Champagne Supernova – Oasis
2. One Headlight – The Wallflowers
3. Every Breath You Take – The Police
4. Kaleidoscope World – Francis M
5. Semi-charmed Life – Third Eye Blind
6. Crash Into Me – Dave Matthews Band
7. Sunday Morning – Maroon 5
8. Wish You Were Here – Incubus
9. Close to Heaven – Color Me Badd


SET 2
1. Deep Inside of You – Third Eye Blind
2. Are You In? – Incubus
3. Each Time – East 17
4. Girl on TV – LFO
5. Till I Hear It From You – Gin Blossoms
6. 1979 – The Smashing Pumpkins
7. Back for Good – Take That
8. Someday We'll Know – New Radicals
9. 214 – Rivermaya
10. Closing Time – Semisonic


PARTY SONGS


1. Wannabe – Spice Girls
2. Quit Playing Games With My Heart – Backstreet Boys
3. Sometimes – Britney Spears
4. Love Me For A Reason – Boyzone
5. Step by Step – New Kids on the Block
6. Too Close – Next
7. Fill Me In – Craig David
8. Gettin' Jiggy Wit It – Will Smith
9.  Always – Erasure
10. Stars – Simply Red
11. The Sign – Ace of Base
12. Mr. Boombastic – Shaggy
13. Tubthumping – Chumbawumba
14. This Love – Maroon 5
15. Drive – Incubus
16. Baby One More Time – Britney Spears
17. Come On Over – Christina Aguilera
18. Honey – Mariah Carey
19. I Want It That Way – Backstreet Boys
20. Tearin' Up My Heart – N Sync
21. Because of You – 98 Degrees
22. Summer Girls – LFO
23. MMMBop - Hanson
24. You Get What You Give – New Radicals
25. Semi-Charmed Life – Third Eye Blind
26. Two Princes – Spin Doctors
27. All I Want – Toad the Wet Sprocket
28. Breakfast at Tiffany's – Deep Blue Something
29. Sublime – Santeria
30. Love Song – 311
31. Crash Into Me – Dave Matthews Band
32. Save Tonight – Eagle Eye Cherry
33. Barely Breathing – Duncan Sheik
34. As Long As You Love Me – Backstreet Boys
35. Good Vibrations – Marky Mark
36. Relight My Fire – Take That
37. All For Love – Color Me Badd
38. I Want You – Savage Garden
39. Only Wanna Be With You – Hootie and the Blowfish
40. Crazy – Aerosmith
41. Push – Matchbox 20
42. Don't Speak – No Doubt
43. Learn to Fly – Foo Fighters
44. Ironic – Alanis Morisette
45. So Little Time – Arkarna
46. Heroes – The Wallflowers
47. Dishwalla – Counting Blue Cars
48. Extra Ordinary – Better Than Ezra
49. Every Morning – Sugar Ray
50. Rollin – Limp Bizkit
51. Bawitdaba – Kid Rock
52. Bullet With Butterfly Wings – The Smashing Pumpkins
53. Zombie – The Cranberries
54. Pardon Me – Incubus
55. Sex and Candy – Marcy Playground
56. Kamasupra – Eraserheads

Just Married!

After a year of preparations, it's over. We got hitched last Sunday! We actually just came back from our mini staycation at the Edsa Shangri-la Hotel, and we're still busy responding to well-wishes and cleaning up post-wedding debris. The last couple of weeks before the wedding were such a whirlwind, we didn't get to post about our final preparations and wedding events anymore. We still have much to share on this blog, but for now, here's our favorite wedding picture so far, taken by our friend, Paolo.

Spell S-T-R-E-S-S?

Sometimes I feel like we are never going to finish our DIYs, but when I see how cute they are, I smile and just get on with things.

Note: Photo taken by Wedding Fairy Clang.

My Surprise Bachelorette Party

I thought last Saturday was going to be another ordinary day of running wedding errands, but no, my fabulous girl friends surprised me with a bridal shower! The little liars! Haha. I really wasn't expecting anything at all because I knew everyone was busy, my friends aren't obligated to throw me one, and I was actually okay with not having it. The fiance had his bachelor party a couple weeks prior (more on that when I get pictures), but his friends planned it months before. So, I really did not expect or suspect anything when I didn't hear from my friends.

Then a week before last Saturday, my matron of honor Hazel texted about dinner at Tender Bob's Shang for Saturday. I thought "Okay. We're just going to have a nice, girly dinner, yay!" Then I didn't hear from her or any of my other girl friends after that. The next text I got was Saturday, when Hazel texted me the time. 7pm. That was it. So I planned a meetup with one of my bridesmaids, Cielo later that day because she has been bugging me for a shopping date since I've been on a shopping ban for the wedding the entire year. Aleq and I had our gown and suit fittings that morning at Edwin Uy, and then we had a very late lunch at Kimono Ken before my meetup with Cielo. Then Cielo came, we walked around a bit but ended up just having coffee and sharing a crepe at Dome. She started talking to me about how she didn't like the bridal shower venue - Tender Bob's - because she had a bad memory that happened there. I just told her why she didn't tell Hazel, the known organizer, about it, and she said she was just shy. Then my veil sponsor Sheva texted me if she could sleep over at the Yellow Pad after and I said yes, and then she arrived at Shang and told me she couldn't sleep over after all. I said ok without really thinking about it. Then she asked me if I really liked Tender Bob's, because she said it's such a normal thing for me since I eat there a lot, and she thought it wasn't that special of a venue for my bridal shower. I again wondered why she didn't tell Hazel about it, or suggested other venues when she was contacted. She then suggested going to Cafe 1771 at El Pueblo since we could at least have wine there. I said ok, whatever you guys want is fine with me. Then Hazel arrived, they asked her about games, and she said she prepared some that we could do in a restaurant, and then we worked out logistics for the change of venue pretty quickly. Cielo said her driver would just come back for the other girls that Hazel got in touch with and we could go ahead. So we hopped into her car and Sheva said she had a present for me. She then pulled out a sleeping mask, took my glasses off and put the mask on me. I readily put it on to humor her because it was her gift. She asked me to keep it on till the venue, and I said that was silly because I knew where we were going. She said we could pretend I didn't know. Yes, I'm that gullible.

So I stayed happily blindfolded until the car stopped and we got off the car. I knew I only had to make a couple of steps before I was off the sidewalk and inside Cafe 1771 anyway so I was okay with the blindfold. And then we walked a few more steps and I realized - wait a minute. This is not Cafe 1771 if we have to walk quite a bit to get into the place. Then the ground changed from the sidewalk to floor tiles and then to the sound of elevator metal. Where are we? They all started laughing and holding on to me so I wouldn't take the blindfold off. Then this happened.

Church and Government Requirements - Check!

To me, the biggest hassle in getting married is getting all the documents in order. There are a ton of requirements from both the church and the government and it was such a challenge finding the time to work on it all. The fiance did the brunt of the job, going to the city hall and government offices on his own. I only showed up at the city hall for the personal appearance bit once. My dad helped too in getting my documents from Cavite, and my sis-in-law Weng helped in shuttling documents to UST. Thankfully, we encountered no problems during the entire process and were able to complete our documents last March.

Our marriage bann approval from our neighborhood parish. 

Our marriage license from the Pasig City Hall.

We're free to marry! My advice to other would-be brides is to work on the documents as early as you can because you never know what kind of problems might crop up. Also, make sure you get the official list of requirements from your church and the government. They change all the time and vary from city to city so don't rely on blogs or the Internet for it. All your preparations would be for naught if you don't get the necessary documents, so this is of the utmost importance. 

Shopping with the Wedding Fairies

Things are crazy busy and insanely hectic on our end already but I have to make this quick post about shopping for outfits for my prenup shoot with my Wedding Fairies. They are truly awesome and have really gone above and beyond what I thought they initially signed up for. I messaged Lek and Clang last Friday very randomly and last minute if they wanted to go shopping with me at Megamall, and they said yes immediately and brought along their other friend Eah to boot.

I had previously gone shopping for a few pieces here and there, but I needed to complete everything that day. Luckily, with my fairies' help, we got everything done quickly. We even got a dress for my bachelorette party and my big day preparations dress. We also had time for dinner at Savory with fiance Aleq. Here go the pics.

The night's loot

Bridesmaids Day

Last March 24 was my Bridesmaids Day. It was the day when they tried their gowns on for alternations. Our dressmaker had to cut sections of the dresses so they were still far from finished. Like last time, it was held at my brother and sis-in-law's other house in Marikina. The dresses were actually a nice surprise. We didn't think the color combo would work - it was such a risk - but it turned out great. The dresses look so summery! My cousin Lek says they're mannequin dresses - they look pretty normal on the hanger but they magically morph into something else when worn. Here go the pics!

My girls' frocks!

A Day with my Matron of Honor

Last Friday was spent with my Matron of Honor. Hazel is my best friend and our friendship goes all the way back to high school. She had a prior commitment and couldn't make it to the bridesmaids' dress fitting last Sunday, so we did her fitting in advance.

She picked me up bright and early at my apartment and we hied off to Dapitan. We met up with my sis-in-law Ate Weng, and we went over to The Secret Creations for her fitting.

She asked for a lower back! Haha. Kuya Edgar obliged.

We were there about 30 minutes flat, but a ridiculously heavy downpour suddenly happened just as we were leaving. We dropped off my sis-in-law at UST Grad School and then went on our way. We got to Espana and it was flooded like hell after only just 15 minutes of rain! We spent an hour there because traffic was slow-going and we just couldn't get to Welcome Rotonda no matter how hard we tried. We were worried that her car was going to stall the entire time! Thankfully some people on the street gave us directions to an alternative route and the rain had stopped by the time we got to E. Rodriguez. Then we encountered more traffic around Greenhills. We ended up having an adventure on the road for about two and a half hours! 

Really heavy downpour at UST

Wow UST solid ka talaga sa baha. Ang bilis lang, grabe na tubig agad kanina.

Hazel and I held our breaths every time we went through a flooded area! 

Acoustic Rock Band - Check!

Aleq and I are 90s kids, which means we want mainly rock and alternative music from the 90s to the early 2000s at our wedding. Our awesome coordinator suggested a wedding rockeoke band and we liked that idea. However, logistics made us think otherwise. The Pergola is a pretty intimate venue and we thought that the electric rock sound would easily overwhelm the place. We also didn't think our older guests would like the noise, so we had to find other options.

We decided to look for an acoustic rock band instead. The fiance started googling acoustic wedding bands and came up with this band that seemed really interesting. We liked their sound and they had videos of a couple of songs we liked. However, when we contacted them and they sent us their repertoire, we decided otherwise. We couldn't relate to most of the songs they played, and we only get to request a certain number of songs outside of their repertoire - if we go beyond their specified number, we had to pay extra.

So I started googling in more specific terms. I searched for "90s acoustic wedding rock band" or something like that and 4Play came up. One look at their YouTube channel and we liked them instantly. It felt like they stole our iPods - they had exactly what we were looking for.

We called them up, they sent their playlist over, and we liked almost everything. They even had stuff nobody else here plays! They're South people too - they play at SM Southmall and Gilligan's in ATC and Festival Mall. Those were our old stomping grounds. So we met up with one of the band members, Randell Tan, last March 9 at Starbucks, Alabang Town Center and sealed the deal. It was a great meetup. We were able to pin down a set list for the wedding without a hitch. They also had a set number of requested songs, but since we liked almost everything in their repertoire it didn't feel like we were restricted at all. A lot of the stuff we wanted, they already played. We also talked about music the way kindred spirits would. We discussed songs and riffs and concerts we went to and missed, etc. It was a real good fit!

The clincher for us by the way, was this video of them playing One Headlight by my favorite band, The Wallflowers.

Pre-Cana Seminar at UST

The Pre-Cana Seminar is basically a crash course on how to be married. Who knew that you can have lessons on being a responsible, married adult? Haha. It's actually a church requirement for marriage. You can't get married without going through marriage preparation classes. The government also requires couples to have a family planning seminar for the marriage license, but lucky for us, we applied for a license at the Pasig City Hall, which accepts the church's seminar in lieu of the government's family planning seminar. [Tip: Make sure you check with your local city government if they accept the church seminar. If they don't, you have to take the government's family planning seminar as well. Not all municipalities allow it.] The UST seminar is free, but I'm not sure if it's free for those who are not getting married there.

So we hied off to UST super early in the morning last March 3 to undergo marriage training. The seminar started at 8am and ended at 6pm! We felt like we were back in college, there in the mezzanine of the Ecclesiastical Faculties building. There were five classes that ranged from responsible parenthood to couple finances. (I'll post the names of the other classes when I remember them, hah!) We had recesses and a lunch break, and we were provided food and drinks the entire day, which we didn't expect. We had different "professors". There was a Catholic OB-GYNE, a stockbroker who has a successful marriage, a catechist from the Archbishop's Palace, and a couple of church lay ministers who also have successful marriages. We had classmates too - we went through the seminar with four other couples with very diverse backgrounds. There were three couples who have been together for 2-6 years, and a couple who has been together for 8 months but are already living together. Aleq and I were the only ones who have been together for more than 10 years, heh.

Anyway, it was good in the sense that it got us thinking about the realities of marriage. The wedding is only the first day after all - we have to prepare even more for what comes after. It also gave us the opportunity to discover things that we never knew about each other - like what we wanted out of married life, what aspects of our relationship were really important to us, etc.

UST was beautiful that cloudy, rainy day.