Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Planning Your Wedding with Family and Friends

Weddings nowadays have gotten exponentially expensive. When I was growing up there was no such thing as wedding coordinators. Whenever there was a wedding in the family it meant mobilizing everybody to get it organized. With limited budget we decided to do everything on our own with help from family and friends.

Where does one start? You need to define first what are the things that are important to you. Do you want a nice venue? Good food? Amazing wedding singers? Big church? Small church? Number of guests? For Sweetie and me we identified three priorities: (1) Wedding venue that would prevent me from having an asthma attack; (2) Good food; and (3) Musicians who can provide great OPM music. These were the non-negotiables for us so we set our wedding budget based on this (you can make a copy of the budget planner).

Homemade table decor.

Sweetie and I took care of finding the suppliers and had help from friends. And here's where they helped:

Entourage Gown Design - made by my niece Patricia
Giveaways - made by my high school friends
Choir - friends I grew up with
Priest - from our parish, I have known him since I was in high school and he was still a deacon back then
Photography - got huge discount because they are friends
Videography - a friend did the coverage, sponsored by one of our ninangs
Invitations - got huge discount from Sweetie's friend
On the day coordination - c/o a great friend from work
Missalette - made by a friend
Table decor - made by me
Message board - painted by my uncle

We also got a lot of help for legwork from family and friends. I was very busy traveling around the country during that time, but made sure to make time to plan and organize the wedding. The list kept me sane (you can start with the doc I linked above). Nowadays there are also a lot of ready to use items you can just buy off the shelf and remember, in the Philippines, there's always Divisoria!

We all want to have a beautiful wedding. It doesn't necessarily mean though that you should spend a lot for it (and you shouldn't!). For me a beautiful wedding is where you get your family and friends involved in the planning and organizing. This will allow you to also get to know each other better and make the integration less stressful. Involving your family and friends will also make them happy that they are engaged and helping you start your new life. 

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