Wedding Themes

It took me awhile before I finally came up with a theme for our wedding. It took form when I did the script for our pre-nup AVP.

Here's the thought process I went through to determine the theme for our wedding:

1. Color motif - when I was a kid in the 80s I remember helping out my Mom when we prepared for several family weddings. All the weddings back then were anchored on a color motif. We went through the colors red, peach and cream, pink and lavander (twice) and other baby colors. Nowadays though it's not enough to just have a color motif.

2. Favorite things - we both didn't have any favorite "thing". We both spend a lot of time around computers and the internet, but decided not to anchor our wedding on it because we thought that our elderly guests wouldn't appreciate it (i.e. giving out flash drives would've been useless). Our choice of gadgets or replicas of them would've been quite expensive as well.

3. Favorite things to do - find common things that you both love to do. One of our friends used "coffee" as their wedding theme because they both were coffee addicts. Our interests were quite hard to render as themes since "the internet" isn't something physical. We listed a couple of things and realized that we both love Filipino music (OPM) and immediately decided to use Filipino music for our song line-up. Our interest was also largely internet based so I realized that placing the slogan "We Clicked" in all our wedding materials was apt.

Here's how we rendered our theme on our pre-nup AVP:



And here's how our theme was rendered on our wedding materials:

Wedding invitation by Gail Villanueva.

Cartoon by Miguel Apolo. 

Missalette by Ottie Pasigan.

Frames by the Twisted Wedding Planner with help from friends.

*AVP video and editing by Buddy Gancenia, script by me

The Wedding Invitation

We originally thought of having a traditional wedding invitation. Formal script text on a cream board and the usual wordings, date, time, place and entourage list. We were so busy with other wedding preparations we only managed to finalize our invitation barely 2 months before the wedding.

Here are some tips:

1. Finalize the content before you go to the printer. Make sure you get the complete names, titles and right spelling for the names. Getting everything right is tricky so it's better to do revisions before you even start with the lay-out. Do some research online as well for sample invitations so you can use it as basis for the wording.

2. Scour the internet for sample invitations so you get an idea on how you want it to look. A lot of wedding invitation suppliers also showcase their samples at trade shows and in their shops. It's better though to have an idea of what you want to save time.

3. Customize by adding a personal touch to the invitation. My son, Miguel, rendered us as a cartoon and we used it for our "Save-the-Date" invitation. Our award-winning designer friend, Gail Villanueva, took over designing our invitation (she was horrified at how our rough draft looked). [See what she did above].

4. Save by having a regular printer produce your invitations. Our invites would've cost more than PhP100 had we gone to a wedding invitation printer. We also got a hefty discount from our friend who owned the printing company.

5. Don't give it to all your guests. We only gave physical invitations to select guests and we just sent invites via email (in PDF and through a Google Calendar invite) to other guests.  

I remember also helping out a couple of friends for their wedding invitation. We just did the lay-out ourselves and printed it with our home PC printer. You don't need to do everything on your own, remember you have friends who are willing to help, so delegate!

Getting Measurements

One of the hardest tasks I had to do was getting measurements from my entourage. Most of them are based abroad and were expected to arrive just a few days before the wedding.

Here's a list of the measurements I had to get:

Shoulder - measure from tip to tip

Bust - place tape measure under the arms, take tape around the back and get measurement at fullest part of the bust.

Bust point - shoulder tip to middle of bust.

Bust distance - distance based on the two bust middles

Waist line - this is easy ;)

Figure - start at shoulder, have tape go over middle of bust and end at navel

Arm hole - have tape go around the armpit

Hips 1 - have tape go around about 3" below your waist

Hips 2 - have tape go around approximately 7" below your waist (middle of your behind)

Front deep - shoulder tip to waist line (just straight down)

Back deep - should tip to waist line from the back (just straight down)

Round under bust - have tape go around under the bust

Round under arm - have tape go around the arm (at the armpit area)

From shoulder to under bust - measure from shoulder tip to under the bust (go over middle of bust)

Full length - shoulder tip to heel

So these terms came from our mananahi.

Here's another guide you can use -

http://www.ehow.com/how_2259388_basic-body-measurements-sewing.html

Also, here are some videos on how to take measurements -

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=A618038BDE16A900&search_query=how+to+get+body+measurements

Are you looking for a wedding gown/entourage gown designer? Inquire here.

Ordering Wedding Gowns from Divisoria

So far there is no way online you can order wedding gowns/entourage gowns from Divisoria. You have to do it the old fashioned way -- go there!

Here are tips though to make things easy:

1. Make a list of all the gowns and barongs you need to have done. Bring several copies of this list so it would be easy to have the store keeper give you a quote.

2. Bring the design of the gowns you want made. They won't design it for you and will likely make you choose from a magazine.

3. Know what kind of clothe you want to use for the gowns and barongs.

4. Get their phone numbers, fax and email. (Note that they may have email addys, but they don't really check it). List down the name of the person you spoke with so it would be easy to call them back.

5. Measurements. It would be hard to haul your whole entourage to Divisoria, but you can request the store to send somebody to your home to do measurements. It would cost you an additional PhP500 per home visit.

6. For those with entourage based in other countries/regions, request them to send you their measurements (will make a how-to measure post soon).

For a short list of Divisoria wedding gown makers please refer to this post -
http://twistedweddingplanner.blogspot.com/2009/05/braving-divisoria-for-wedding-garments.html

Are you looking for a wedding gown/entourage gown designer? Inquire here.