Table Names

Some guests have asked me to post all the other table names with their descriptions, so here they are. They get a little redundant sometimes because they're really meant to be read individually, not as a whole.

1. Malvar
   On Malvar Street, only a few houses apart, Nicole and Julian lived their separate lives, unaware of each other’s presence. Funny how two people can live so close by for years, yet only meet on the Internet.


2. St. James
   St. James the Great Parish is a magnificent church that houses the community which Nicole and Julian belonged to -- the community that caused them to meet. They always dreamed their wedding would take place here. Nevertheless, it will always occupy a special place in their hearts.


3. Shine Through
   In 2001, the St. James Renewal Movement held a concert entitled Shine Through, for which Nicole danced and Julian played guitar. It was here that Julian first laid eyes on Nicole. It wasn’t until years later, though, that they finally met and learned each other’s names.


4. Moira
   In 2002, the St. James Youth Praise Ministry produced the theatrical play, Moira, wherein Nicole performed and Julian was part of the technical team. This was the second time Julian got to see Nicole, yet he still didn’t get a chance to meet her during the production.


5. #Shaddap!
   In 2003, through the power of chatting on the Internet, in the land of Undernet, #Shaddap! on mIRC, Nicole and Julian met and got to know each other. It may have been love at first smiley. :)


6. Tequila Rose
   After chatting with each other for a couple weeks, Nicole invited Julian to share a bottle of Tequila Rose, left over from her 20th birthday party. It was over a glass of this liqueur that Nicole and Julian first met face to face.


7. Taft
   Nicole and Julian’s respective colleges were located across the street from each other, along Taft Avenue. This made it easy for them to hang out before, after, and in between classes. Their first date was along this avenue.


8. Pancake House
   Nicole and Julian’s first meal together was at Pancake House on Taft Avenue. Julian’s credit card was denied, embarrassingly, and Nicole had to foot the bill. Of course, this gave Julian a chance to owe Nicole another date.


9. Cuenca
   Long walks, talks, and warm hugs were shared at Cuenca Park, located just down the street from Nicole’s house. In was here that Julian revealed to Nicole that he had plans to marry her.


10. Burg 902
    Nicole spent a semester living in Burgundy Towers, just down the street from her and Julian’s respective schools. Julian was a welcome guest, and it was here that Nicole’s roommates witnessed the couple’s friendship bloom.


11. Baywalk
    Nicole and Julian’s first evening date was at Baywalk in Manila. Julian wanted to show Nicole the prettier sights that Manila had to offer. He couldn’t go wrong with a stroll by Manila Bay, lit by colorful lamps and interesting people.


12. Breakwater
    Most of Nicole and Julian's first evening date was spent by Manila Bay's breakwater. They spent hours listening to the crashing of the waves as they talked and learned about each other.


13. Gothika
    After several months of “hanging out,” Nicole and Julian finally went on their first movie date. They chose to watch Gothika over Torque, and quickly learned that they are both scaredy-cats.


14. Chow King
    Nicole and Julian shared countless meals at Chow King on Vito Cruz. So much so that when Christmas came around, management handed them a small token of their appreciation.


15. 10/01
    October first is Nicole and Julian’s anniversary. They couldn’t get a wedding appointment on this date, so they settled for the one closest to it... Today!


16. Santa Ana
    Nicole and Julian were civilly wed in the Santa Ana Courthouse on June 28, 2007. It took them a while to save up for “the big church wedding” but they’re happy to finally be celebrating with family and friends today.


17. St. Denis
    Nicole and Julian chose to sanctify their bond of togetherness in St. Denis Church, their beautiful new parish, where they attend mass every Sunday. They are happy and proud to be part of this community.

Details of the Invitations

I decided that I owe my invitations a little more blog-time, simply due to the amount of time and money we spent on them. :P In retrospect, it probably would have saved me a lot of grief if I had just picked out one of the ready-made designs I found in magazines and online, but I just had to have my way with the layout and I just had to have all the colors match perfectly. So I sacrificed my sweat, blood, and tears, but came up with an invitation I really loved in the end.

I got the idea of the layout from other pocket invitations I've seen around, except most of those opened vertically, and I wanted my invitation to open horizontally, like a regular card or book. Here's where my new-found skills, adapted from a year of working at Graphic Services, came in handy.

The inner envelope was cream, lined with gold, and a quote from Antoine de Saint Exupéry's The Little Prince printed on the flap: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

I used Stardream Metallic Bronze for the body of the invitation, Astrobright Terrestrial Teal for the borders, and Luxe Cream for the text because it was perfect paper for letterpress printing. Unfortunately, I couldn't afford to letterpress all of the text, so most of them were thermographically printed.

On the inside left flap was a picture of Jules and I. This came out even better than I planned. The metallic quality of the paper gave the photo a holographic feel, which gave it the perfect there-but-not-really effect I was looking for.

The main invite was designed around Feanne's artwork. I had her work printed first as a background, then took it to a letterpress printer to have the words done.

I believe it was the inserts that earned me all the, "Nicole, your invitation is so you," comments. What?? I can't help it if I need to give a lot of out-of-town guests a lot of information, and I wanted to do so in an organized fashion! For the record, it was the printer's fault those titles were designed to be misaligned. :P






Hehe. The last insert basically says, if all else fails, just find all of life's answers on my website!

Girls Night Out

These are the invitations that Camille, my Maid of Honor, made for my bridal shower. She's also throwing me a little bachelorette party just before the shower, where my girls and I are going to take a pole dancing class!

Invitations

Our invitations were originally marked on my calendar to be sent out in the first week of July. After all the delays with the printer, obtaining guest addresses, and invite assembly, we finally got all of them out today -- almost two months later. I apologize to all our guests for the late invites, and hope it doesn't hinder anyone from attending. We can't wait to see everyone. :)

We have to thank my mom, Camille, Corinne, and Sachil, for helping assemble the invites. They may call it "slave labor" but I like to call it a "labor of love." :P

The beautiful artwork used in the invite was illustrated by my friend, Feanne.



We can't thank her enough for her contribution. I think it really pulled the whole thing together. View more of her pretty, pretty work at Feanne.com.

With the invitations finally out of the way, I can move on to other things, like the programs, timeline, music selection, giveaways, placecards, table names, proxies, ushers, readers, dresses, tuxes, hair and make-up. That's not so bad. Oh yeah, and school starts next week.

I could use some serious pampering.

Inserts

I picked up the inserts from the printer yesterday! I haven't gone through them because I'm scared. I know I thoroughly proofed them beforehand, and others have proofed them beforehand, but it's still possible that we missed something. And I just don't want to find out that something's wrong when I've already printed almost 200 of each piece.




I'm supposed to get the rest of the parts tomorrow so we can start assembling them. The main invite, which was sent to a letterpress, is due on Monday.

I need to finalize the guests' addresses!

Update

It's a little weird that my last post here was a month ago. Things have been on hold because of term papers, projects, and final exams. Now that school's out for the summer, wedding planning is in full blast again.

First off, Jules and I booked a DJ/MC from Have Music Will Travel. They were half the price of a couple other DJ's that we really liked, so we were a little hesitant to book them. Quality over quantity, I always say. But after several good referrals and consideration for our empty wallets, we thought we'd give them a go. I hope we don't regret it.

Invitations are almost ready for the printer. We're finalizing the text and tweaking the design here and there. Feanne gave me some beautiful artwork for it, and I'm really excited to show off her stuff.

We're due for our engagement photo shoot really soon, and possibly a sample-arrangements session from our florist. We still need to send swatches and tux instructions to some members of our bridal party, and we need to book a string quartet for our ceremony/cocktail hour. Camille's working on transportation and hair & make up artists, and mom's got the giveaways covered.

Whew. What else? We're pretty much on track, actually, maybe even a little ahead. Which is good, I like that. I enjoy this stuff.

Invitations: Take 1

It looks like my coworkers' designing skills might be rubbing off on me. Here's a mock-up design of our invitations.



The fonts and wording aren't final, I just threw them together to make the design more complete. I'm hoping to have the brown part be bronze metallic material like so:



The inserts and the main invite are brown/bronze wording letter-pressed on ivory card, and stuck on turquoise card for the border. The picture is printed regularly, and the quote on the right is letter-pressed turquoise.

Of course, this will all change depending on the cost of printing and other details.