It's June! 8 months to go before our big day. I'd actually started shopping since last April, but I didn't really took much photos because I didn't know I'll be blogging about this today. Not to worry as I salvaged whatever's on my phone and will feature all details here and the coming chapters.
For starters, we already started booking our plane tickets to Coron, including those for our entourage and VIP guests. We also managed to get the teams and the names of other suppliers such as the P/V team and HMUA and booked their tickets as well. It's always cheaper to book early, right?
I also can't count how many times we've been going back and forth to Divisoria to canvass all the needed fabrics and materials. But I didn't care about the heat, sweat, crowd, and miles of walk because I love Divi! Love it more than the regular malls. There's always so much things to see and buy here at a fraction of a cost.
What more did I learn from this wedding planning journey? I've become a Shopee addict. There's so much to shop there and sometimes, can be even cheaper than Divi. You just had to research carefully on the seller and look at the reviews. Believe it or not, we splurged a lot on our venue, suppliers, etc., but majority of the items and elements in our wedding just came from Divi and Shopee. These two were my to-go places for shopping.
To start, here's the first part of my Divisoria haul. There were too may to mention so I divided in into two chapters. The other will come soon.
I wanted my girls to be in floral printed gowns, no embellishments because I wanted them to be lightweight for the beach & the prints are embellishments enough. Second, I wanted it to have some hues that matches my theme. It was actually challenging to look for my desired printed color. We searched all over Divi and Ylaya, and finally found my ideal color & print in Tabora. Store name was SRC Blue & Pink Gen. Merchandise owned by Ms. Virginia Gaw.
We bought all the necessary fabric from her. All her fabrics were top quality and most were from Japan. The width she sells were also the larger variant, 60" instead of 40". Ms. Virginia was also very friendly and she automatically gave us discounts. Love these types of vendors!
My girl's fabric for their gowns
The principal sponsor's gown and suit fabric, I even bought the gown lining.
In Tabora street, there were hundreds of vendors selling souvenir, crafts, fake flowers, invitations and many more. I immediately had these flower crowns made for my girls and flower girls for just P70 each if I remembered correctly.
I also found another vendor, Jeanalds, that can produce my ideal fan that we're giving away to our guests. It's just one of the good items to giveaway for beach themed events. I sent the design I made, chose the fabric color, and they produced a sample (with a different fabric just for sampling) for me to check before they proceed. P50 per fan was the price, pretty standard and cheap considering the print was for the whole area of the fan, not just some rectangular or oval shaped imaged smacked into the fabric.
1st picture was my design, 2nd picture was their fan fabric swatches where I chose the bright peach color, and the last picture was the sample they printed on pink fabric.
The finished product! It was prettier than I anticipated. Got all 200 fans in about 2-3 weeks.
For our second trip back to Divi, we went to 168 Mall and went straight to Ms. Cherry Beruela of Jannah & Keith Fashion Boutique. I already did prior research on the most reputable stores and dressmakers in Divi to protect myself from scams, anxieties and worries from all the horror Divisoria gown stories I've been reading online. She came out one of most excellent dressmakers reviewed by several of her past clients. Her price though, would be a little bit higher than the others, but I personally saw her works. The stitches, fabrics and design were all top-notch. Another plus to her was that she as the owner, was also the one entertaining her clients, which explained why I did not bother looking for other shops.
I handed her the designs I came up with from the fabric we bought from Ms. Virginia. She quoted each gown to be Php2500 which fitted right under my budget. I also had her do custom bowties for the bearers and groomsmen to match my girls' gowns for P65 ea. It didn't really hurt to spend a bit more for this case as the gowns and bowties would be quite different than the regular plain colored infinity dresses and bowties.
She gave me this measurement guide so I won't have to ask my girls to come personally to have themselves measured. A quick fast forward, only one of the gowns got a back job to adjust the measurements, but for the rest, everybody fitted in them like a glove in their first try!
In addition, my mom also had her gown made by her for my upcoming Tinghun in October. Below was her peg and she chose the dark fuchsia-magenta color. She also suggested to add a few sparkles at the top of her gown. She quoted P4500 for her gown.
Along the street, I also bought this white printed crane robe from this friendly vendor, I think it was around 300 or 350php. I would be using this for my Tinghun prep.
There's still a lot more I bought from Divi but I'm stopping here first and shift to Shopee. First major stuff I bought there were the test tubes, craft starfishes and shells. The pearl beads by the way, I also bought from Divi. Combining everything, I got this beautiful case for our invitations! Finally, my vision was coming to life. For the sand, I just used any local random sand I can find to imitate beach sands.
This was definitely bigger than the regular message-in-the-bottles we're seeing from invitation suppliers, which was also why I chose to partially DIY the encasing, aside from the fact that it's cheaper! I simply assembled about 120 test tubes and sent them to my coordinator. They were generous enough to offer help in assembling the invitations once the supplier finished printing them. I would receive them fully assembled and secured. Nice!
The next thing I bought from Shopee were the barefoot sandals to be used by my MOH and bridesmaids. I think they were just 70+php a piece. Lovely accessory for the beach!
Lastly (for this chapter), I scored these socks for my groom and his groomsmen for just 55php a pair. Believe it or not, excellent quality! It's why I fell in love with Shopee.
More to come with my other hauls in the next chapters!
***All my posts are in no way sponsored or paid. I narrate our wedding planning adventure like a diary, with only actual facts and experiences.***
Chapter 7: Vendor Hunt & Shopping Galore Part I
Days to go: 8 months
Wedding Planning Progress: 35%
Wedding Planning Team:
1. Bride & Groom
2. Wedding Coordinator: Monina E Events & Marketing
3. Venue: Sunlight Eco Tourism Island Resort
4. Event Stylist: Monet Event Styling (packaged with coordinator, Monina)
5. Photo / Video: Mayad Studios
6. MOH, Bridesmaids and Flower Girl Dresses: Jannah & Keith Fashion Boutique
7. Fan Souvenir: Jeanalds
8. Minor Wedding Elements, Materials and Miscellaneous Items: Divisoria & Shopee
Prenup Shoot:
1. P/V, HMUA, Stylist, Outfit Rental, Coordination: 玫瑰星座 Rose Studio
2. Accommodation: Wyndham Sanya Bay c/o Rose Studio
3. Photo Slideshow: Rule of Thirds
4. Location: Sanya, Hainan, China
Tinghun:
Days to go: 5 months
Tinghun Planning Progress: 25%
Tinghun Planning Team:
1. Bride & Groom
2. Venue, Catering, Styling, Musician, Cake, Ceremony Snacks & Drinks: New World Makati Hotel
3. Tinghun Robe: Soler. Divisoria
4. Mom's Gown for Tinghun: Jannah & Keith Fashion Boutique
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