Attempting the Details

Sometimes I wonder if by posting things about the wedding, I'm diminishing the surprise element? What do you think?

I love discussing it, and don’t have someone with me all the time to hear me ramble about my wedding plans. If I did, gawd, poor them! I feel like only other brides can really deal with your wedding ramble, and its only out of respect because you'll listen to theirs. Also, maybe it will be a source of ideas for some bride bouncing around the internet and reading other bridal blogs.

On the one hand, I feel like I'm getting rid of the element of surprise. But then again, I have 20 people attending my ceremony, who most, don’t even read this blog. So they're still going to be somewhat surprised, and those who can't make, it can bask in my vision.

Ceremony spoiler alert, for those that want to be surprised!

The ceremony is really coming together. We've so far started to paint the picture of what we want the scene to look like by discussing the type of arch, chairs and bench we want. We've booked a violinist. We've discussed an officiant, who hasn't been booked, but we could probably do that soon enoough. I've started an outline of the actual ceremony (more on that later) and asked one of my good friends of mine to help put the ceremony together…since he's very progressive and very well connected with his progressive Church, he'll be able to contribute in a big way. Now for some smaller ceremony and décor details.

We don't have any cute little boys to play ring bearer, so likely someone else will be bringing the rings. We decided to add to our ceremony a Ring Warming Ceremony, where we will pass our rings around at the beginning of the ceremony so that our guests can say a little prayer or blessing for us. We're so lucky that a few people will be making the trip to our wedding, and we want to include them in the ceremony.

But rings are small, and we're going to be on sand, so we want it to be attached to something someone can keep an eye on, and can't be dropped very easily. So we thought of the Ring Book. Rather than having a little tacky pillow cushion, we are going to use a book with a secret compartment that will hold the rings.

source

Off weddingbee.com, I found this great tutorial on how to make one. Martha Stewart's got one too, but I'm going to support the non-corporate-brand of making a Ring Bearer Book. I really like the vintage feel of the ring book here.

Source

R loves the idea, but we were also thinking of making the book significant too. We came up with Carlos Bulosan's America Is In The Heart. A well written, honest bibliographical account of struggle of migrants in agricultural work in the U.S. during the 1930s. He also talks about labor politics and the attacks on unionists. He describes horrific discrimination, starvation and ultimate struggle. Anyways, its our kinda story.

Unfortunately, we'll have to cut up the book to make the Ring Book. But we were hoping that we would stop and highlight a really deep thought provoking line, that people will see when they open it to see our rings. Even more unfortunate, is our inability to find a copy of this book in Hardcopy. Honestly, no one sells it or appears to have ever published it. I looked online at Amazon, and some other places, but also scowered Kijiji and Ebay to see if someone internationally wants to part with it…. For under $40.

So, our options is are (in order of easiest, to hardest, which also happens to be worst to best case scenario)
- find another generic book that has absolutely no significance but is pretty.
- look for a book binder who can magically make a paperback to a hardcover. (As I wrote, this I googled a bookbinder in Toronto, called them and found out that they can do it - after checking the book first - but it cost $60, and they cannot emboss images, just text. So in addition to actually buying the book $20, we're looking at almost $100 to destroy the book)
- look through my contacts to find that business card of Carlos Bulosan's editor who I met in 2007. Maybe he has an extra hard copy he can sell me?

The last option would be to figure out how to make this a paperback into a hardcopy. I'm sure someone crafty can help me with this…
Ugh. Gotta figure out our options with this one!

A little bit of Bridal Crazy

More often than what maybe is healthy, I think about what I'd do if I won the lottery. Not big sometimes, like, if we won an extra $5,000 or $20,000 in the work pool, and today I thought about $100,000. I'd put half of it towards a downpayment on a house, and put 25k in savings, then add 25k to our wedding budget. With that extra 25k, I'd pay for everyones accommodation and some flights for some family and friends who can't make it because of that cost. I'd probably add a little extra to my dress. Then probably spend $5k on Rodney's family home, and another $5k supporting organizations in the Philippines. Maybe donating the full 5k to a hospital?

Should money occupy the thoughts of the bride, a mother, or any woman like this? I don't feel like its abonormal, but its something on my mind a lot lately. I guess because the wedding/trip budget has explanded a good $7,000? Maybe due to the realization that not my parents, nor his parents would contribute at all to the wedding, out of sheer not wanting to.

When my aunts were over from the U.S., we had this really fun night out at a Café, where we all got yummy desserts and drinks, and great conversation that you can only have with family, as you laugh about your own disfunctionalities. Anyways, I didn't realize the type of misconceptions my family has about me. (Actually, it hurts a little to think that my family might think of me a certain way) I guess because my parents appear to have money, and manage their money well, they assume my parents help us out with money. I clarified that, no they did not give us that Jeep, I paid money from my savings to buy it off them and only because I hated taking the bus with the baby with groceries. I clarified, that yes, I worked part-time throughout university, because I didn't have an allowance. And yes, I drained my savings to pay my mother rent during the first and second year. I guess, everyone had this illusion that I was some spoiled brat that was being kept a float by my parents. When it’s the complete opposite - I did it all by myself and really, I get no credit for doing things on my own.

Yes, we currently live in their property, but we still pay rent that covers all the expenses. So the only thing, is that they're not making any additional income, since the property is already paid for, and we're living in it. Maybe people think that our wedding in the Philippines is getting help from our parents, too. Doesn't the bridal family typically pay for at least a portion of the wedding? (As an aside, my parents did offer to give us only $10K IF we got married in Toronto only. I said no to the conditions, as well as the amount that wouldn't even scratch the surface of a wedding here. His parents offered us 100k PESOS, or about $2K. They have since changed their mind.. for no reason.)

Thinking back to this night with my aunts, one of them invited me to the U.S. for my younger cousins graduation party. We went on to talk about typical celebrations that are to occur - debut, graduation party, wedding. When I was 18, my parents didn't give me a debut because they said they would give me a car. I never got the car, but was allowed to live in the condo where we live now when I went to University, as a consolation. (But they would have to pay for my residence fee if I didn't live there, but that's just a side thought). They never celebrated my graduation from University and my honours degree from one of the best and most challenging school's in Canada. I don't remember getting a party for High School either because our graduation was in September, and awkward time of year, and my dad was away in Mexico. Despite coming out of highschool with awards and scholarships. And now the wedding. No celebrating that either from my parents.

The only way we can live our life and have the wedding we want, is to do it ourselves. I don't receive a monthly income, or even gifts from family to help us. We work hard, try to budget and manage our money, and work a lot of overtime to make this dream a reality for us. I wake up at 6:00am and wait in line at the library to get a free pass to the Zoo and other museums, so that we can save some money but still enrich our daughter's experiences. I guess its easy to blame your crazy on your parents, but really, isn't it the case with my money preoccupation? Or maybe they're just crazy, and they don't really want to celebrate their oldest and only daughter. Maybe that's not crazy then. Maybe that's just mean.

Freak outs and accommodation basics.

It's been a month since my last post, and longer than that on anything really to do with planning the wedding. My WP was MIA for a good minute, and then I became enthralled in planning for my I's 3rd birthday. I guess that is the major downside with planning a wedding from abroad, you can only go do as much as your coordinator will let you. I can only think of ideas, come up with concepts, and outlines, but in the end, I need her for the nitty gritty. So when there's a little gap, you gotta just wait it out. Which has caused me some anxiety, and every time I come to this blog or my wedding website, I feel like I should delete the counters. 6 months and 1 day to go?!.. 185 days until my wedding? DEAR GAWD! ... because then I start thinking, I have even less time because I actually leave for the Philippines 15 days before my wedding! AHHHHH! (insert image of breakdown here). So I'm trying to not be stressed out, but I think when I'm chatting with my coordinator its coming off as cold. Well, I feel cold, when I re-read our convos so I can make a summary. (Yes, I do that. Can you imagine what I was like in University? O.C.D.!)

So the major hurdle at the moment is accommodation. Let me tell you, I'm ecstatic that this is a concern, because this means, I have people that are COMING to the wedding. Seriously! Two of my girls from uni are coming and let me tell you, I was trying to be calm when in reality, I am jumping for joy! My aunt and uncle from California, ALSO coming!.. (and they also made sure to tell my parents to their face they were coming, and threw in, itstheirweddingnotyours). Love it!

Anyways, I looked up vacation rentals, as well as different rates for places, but of course I needed to talk to my WP. She gave me a quote from the BE that is alot more than what I've seen, so she's going to go back and get that lower, if possible. She also mentioned something called Pension Houses. I have never heard of this term in my life! When I looked around at some research, it looks like its just another hotel without any frills. Some stoop to the sleeze of what we know as a Motel, but some don't really.Of course, this got me thinking into class. Maybe they created these Pension Houses to clearly draw class lines. Is this where the middle class stay?

So I have a few that I thought looked nice, that I will get her opinion on. Actually, my homie's girlfriend is in Cebu, so maybe I'll ask her opinion as well. I haven't met her yet, but she's there so I feel like I don't want to overwhelm her with questions. But I desperately need the help of locals.

I'm feeling more like bride self, so hopefully, I'll have more to blog about. Will definitely have more to report on accommodation as I narrow some options. Stay tuned!