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

How to Choose Your Motif

I’ve been part of the entourage for several of my friends, that’s why people keep kidding me that I am a professional abay. I have gowns in almost all colors! (That's me coaxing the flower girl to do her walk haha).

I never really thought about what would’ve been my motif for my wedding. I was too scared to even think about fixing it up (that’s why I’m a twisted wedding planner remember?). So how does one choose le motif? I don’t really know, but this is what my friends thought;

o It should be the bride’s favorite color (er… normally it is)
o It should be a significant color for the couple (cheesy!)
o It should be a unique color, something not normally used for a wedding (that is if you could find the right tela for it)
o The color should flatter your whole entourage (don’t use red if most of your entourage is morena)
o Choose a color that suits your age (when you’re 45, I don’t think baby pink suits your age and that goes for the gown too, no Cinderella ballgowns please)

Motif also doesn’t only revolve around the color of your wedding. You should also define what you want out of your wedding. Do you want it to be fun? Formal? Traditional? Relaxed? Stiff? By defining what you want out of your wedding then it would be easy to pick a theme. Beach? Filipiniana? Sun-shiny? Old Manila? Modern? Zen? Bubbly? Dolphins? Whatever it is, make sure you are in agreement with your spouse-to-be. And make sure you DO NOT alienate the groom with your choices. You don’t want him just to be guest at your wedding.

After defining your motif and theme, it would then be easy to choose the tela and the bling-blings you will be using for the gowns and the giveaways and the flowers. You wouldn’t want to use gumamela as flowers for a really formal, traditional wedding do you? (well that’s an extreme example). It’s just like making a marketing campaign. Make sure you communicate only one message. If it’s Filipiniana, then stick to it, there wouldn’t be any place for American burgers in your reception. It could also be a mix of stuff, a fusion. But make sure it’s not a hodge-podge of things! Simple elegance goes a long way.