Loves

Hands down, I wanted to make this birthday really special and memorable, while keeping it simple. Sophie is our firstborn and I wanted to create memories in photos for her to look back to when she gets older.

The thing is, I do not know a lot of kids, neither does Tabs. We only know a couple or two who will surely attend, so for sure its not gonna be a children’s party. So I just thought, why not do the party in a playground like Active Fun, they have function rooms where adults can eat and chat while Sophie plays and enjoys. And we did exactly just that.

Planning the party is fairly easy. We reserved the Fluffy room 3 months before the birthday. Fluffy can only accommodate up to 50 guests, because we plan to invite only our families and close friends.

Next, I thought of a theme. I considered Hello Kitty but went to have a Minnie Mouse theme instead because of her colors. Red, white and yellow sounds more fun than pink, isn’t it? 😉

I then looked for a cake maker that can create the cake and cupcakes I saw in Pinterest, but with an affordable rate. I found Rocio Bautista in Instagram (@cakefromusph), I was not too happy with the outcome of the cake, but for the price I paid (P5,500 top and bottom edible 3-tier) and the cute cupcakes (P50/pc) for giveaways, it was good enough.

Since the favors and lootbags need labeling, I ordered a stamper in Amazon ($21-ish) to just stamp sticker pads and stick to whatever needs labeling. This costs P2,500 here when I asked my embosser maker. It will only be used for this occasion and good thing Amazon has it cheaper.

For the lootbags, I just stashed additional chocolates and toys to the lootbags of Active Fun. For the game prizes, I bought red with white dots paper bags and filled them with chocolates and candies. I also bought 8″ wooden letter standees in Celebrations and diy them with red art paper and white round stickers to go with the Minnie theme. I placed these letters in the dessert section.

For Sophie’s outfit, my wedding gown maker, Jo Rubio, promised to create a birthday gown for Sophie for free, but we used it immediately for her photoshoot. So we just used the Burberry dress we bought for her in Dubai, and changed her to Minnie romper during her play time.

As for the invitation, Sophie’s Ninong Ralph is the best in Photoshop. He did the invitation layout and Tabs just made Facebook invites. Ralph also did the layout for the photobooth and backdrop of the stage.

As for the food, balloons and photobooth, they have to come from Active Fun because if I outsource from others, I need to pay a corkage of P2,000 each. On the day of the party itself, we were also charged for the photo and video corkage, because even though it was waived by Ms. Helen who was handling our account, she resigned days before the party, so we had no choice but to pay.

Ok, the most important supplier for this event is probably the photo and video. It only took me a good few minutes to research, inquire and book JV All Events. I’m not sure who can beat their P7,000 rate for photo and video. The rate was such a steal.

The party turned out to be just the way I wanted it. It was a simple celebration with our family, some friends and about 6 kids: dinner, a bit of games and playtime for Sophie. All were captured on camera by JV.

Happy birthday our little love, Sophie! Cheers to a beautiful life ahead! 😘

Here are some of my favorite shots from the party. 😊

As of this writing, I will be walking down the aisle in exactly 15 days. Since I hate stressing myself with the preparations, and the fact that I have an infant to care for, most of the suppliers that we have chosen, we picked because we liked them. Not because we had to canvass who’s cheaper because if we do that, it might take us a whole year. The wedding industry has boomed over the years and a lot of suppliers has mushroomed left and right with competitive prices and packages that it’d be so hard to narrow down to just one. So Tabs and I just went with our whims and selected who we like irregardless of their rates. Most were on the higher end though, since we don’t want to compromise the quality and elegance of the wedding. It is a once in a lifetime event, after all.

1. Church – Santuario de San Antonio (Susan 8438830)
— Though we are not Forbes Park residents, we knew this church because we had our Nursing capping here. It is a small and very nice airconditioned church which is open to non-residents and just near our reception.

2. Preparations & Reception – Peninsula Manila (Frances Duque 09175896578)
— Pen was not our first choice. It was Makati Shangri-La. But maybe it wasn’t meant to be in Shang because they couldn’t accommodate us on Sep 9 due to fully booked corporate affairs. We booked The Conservatory in Pen with dinner buffet package for our wedding, since our estimate is only about 150 guests.

3. Photography – Nice Print Photography (6365505 / Rona 09178642377)
— Celebrities love Nice Print and I knew I had to get them for my big day. I didn’t even bother considering other photographers. It was just Nice Print, period. Simple as that. We requested for a good photographer though, and they gave us Stephen Pechon, who mostly works with celebrities.

4. Videography – Threelogy (Bong 09209506558 / 4344428)
— I love Kristine & Oyo’s SDE, and Threelogy just made a mark on me that if I can afford them, I will surely get them. They are composed of three friends who have their own teams in events, unless its a celebrity wedding where they all attend.

5. Coordinator – Bride’s Maids & Co (Gia Bernardo-So 09189273679)
— This one I had to research, and I inquired to several because I really have no idea for a coordinator. I was torn between Getting Married and Bride’s Maids, but BMC is the pioneer in wedding coordinators in Ph. Plus Gia seemed so energetic and so cowboy when we had a sit down and we knew we had to work with her.

6. Florist/Event Stylist – San Ramoune (Ramon Pastor 09189208093)
— It was recommended by the church admin so we chose this for the church flowers. Later on we found out he also does event styling. Since he’s already an old timer in weddings that even Gia recommended him, we also got him for the reception styling.

7. Music (Quartet) – Manila String Machine (Ted 09189066377)
— They were also recommended by Gia and it was a plus that they played at Tessa Prieto’s 20th wedding anniversary.

8. Make Up Artist – Jo Chan Make Up Artistry (09178283898)
— When I started searching for a MUA online, I discovered her and loved her work, saw her booth twice in expos but I didn’t book her. I continued searching for others but I kept thinking about her. Hahaha so yeah, I booked her and slept peacefully knowing that I did.

9. Couturier – Jo Rubio (09175162784 / 09175548399)
— Like any other bride I was hoping for a Veluz, but they couldn’t accommodate me because I inquired 6 months before the wedding. They require at least a year for a custom gown. Jo Rubio is in the top 7 based on my research. His package rate includes the whole entourage with what only a bridal gown from Veluz.

10. Invitations – The Write Impression (Ana Mallari 8674207)
— It has a more reasonable price for letterpress and gold stamping than Printsonalities although I must admit the latter has the better creative designs.

11. Cake – Penk Ching (09178122676)
— It was an inclusion in the Pen package but I was having thoughts of replacing her and going for Bethany instead. She was a busy woman and we even had to go to QC just to meet her. Well, she’s a pioneer in cake making and she seemed to get what I wanted so I’m sticking with her.

12. Entourage Giveaways – Chocolate Confections (Maribeth Santiago 09178519828)
— I first saw this in the first bridal fair that we went to, and like the sucker for chocolates that I am, I was thrilled by the thought of giving chocolates to the entourage. So I finally booked them the second bridal fair around.

13. Guests Favors – CheeCups by Team Johnny (John Malayao 09053461021)
— I really wanted food for a giveaway. Maybe because I find stuff like figurines or little lamps corny and obsolete. The trend now for giveaways are cupcakes and french macarons. So I just search for something like it but not too common. Cheecups are flavored cheesecakes in jars. They are not cheap, but are delicious and the supplier communicates well.

14. Photobooth – Flipbooks (Mark Javier 09178073425) ;
KnJ Photobooth (Kate Añonuevo 09178720818)
— Flipbooks is not exactly a photobooth, its a 7 second video clip that they will turn into small books that you flip to see the action. I think its better than a photobooth. Though we still retain a photobooth by KnJ. We loved their photos from Sophie’s christening last year so we decided to get them as well. So there’ll be two of them that guests can line to.

15. Bridal Car – Rolls Royce (Jeff Lizardo 09175973322)
— Ok, we know this is waay too lavish and fancy for a bridal car, but we had the chance of taking this RR for a spin last Pen’s bridal fair (we had a driver). When else to have this once in a lifetime opportunity to use a Rolls Royce other than our wedding day? Nada, right? So we booked them.

16. Tiffany Chairs – Windsor & Tiffany (Maru De Ocampo 09175315300)
— Pen has silver tiffany chairs but our color motif is nude pink and gold. So we needed gold tiffanys. Windsor is the one who brought Tiffany chairs to Ph so I know they have original tiffanys. Plus they have pink seat cushion which matches our motif.

17. Lights & Sounds – Sound Assembly (Janssen Dimalanta 09178537028)
— This is also included in the package, but we met with the owner because we wanted to be sure for the requirements of the quartet. We also added 2 projectors for the avp and other presentations.

18. Entourage Car – The Luxe Bus (Monica Lu 09176255346)
— My take is that, Tabs doesn’t want to be beaten by my RR, so he booked this bus for him and the entourage. I’m following this on instagram, and in a way I like this because even then I have always wanted to know what it would be like riding in this luxury bus. We booked the Indulgencia, which can seat 24 people, drinks included.

19. Entourage Make Up – Tong Ecat (09062087808 / 09296079118)
— My sister-in-law Roxanne, is friends with her in HSBC. She recently resigned from work to concentrate on being a MUA. Rox was able to haggle her rates for all the entourage, so I was fine with that.

So there. This early I wanted to thank all the suppliers for hopefully giving us the best wedding we could hope for. Tabs and I were already married civilly but of course, its still different to be married in church in front of our family and friends, and now we have Sophie. I have always wanted a simple and elegant wedding and in just the next few days it will finally become a reality. 😊