Our Wedding in The Philippines

The day was 22 April 2006. The Place: Butuan City, Philippines. This is the blog leading up to and about the wedding day of Geoff and Marissa.

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The Wedding Day

Our wedding day finally arrived on the April, 22, 2006. We had been preparing for this wedding right up until the day before.

Marissa's makeup and dress was very nicely done. Even though it is unusual for Marissa to have a lot of makeup, today was the day for Marissa to look like royalty, and she did. Geoff was very impressed with the way Marissa was presented on the day and we where told by our guests she looked great too.

The wedding day was full of emotion and there where some delays with the hair and make-up but eventually things got started and the girls made their way to the Church where Geoff had been waiting for them.

The walks down the isle began and we are now proud to say we are married!

Being summer in the Philippines it was hot. The two of us where sweating at the alter during the mass, but after that it was nice. The ceremony went well and we have been told by people who went that it was a very good service. We have also been complimented on how well organized things where on the day.

The reception was nice and we are happy with the decorations and preparations the reception venue arranged.

We where both lucky that both our families where there to celebrate our wedding. After the reception we went home for some cake and to open the wedding gifts. After that we went back to our hotel for the night and spent the first night of our married life together alone.

Over all it was a nice day even if it was tiring. Marissa was very stressed leading up to the wedding because of month of preparation but she is now slowly getting over that stress and we are planning the next step in our life.

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Wedding Photography

A few days after the wedding we where given the photos by the professional photographer. He put them on DVD and gave us 100 of them printed which Marissa has put in a photo album.

We are happy with the photos that where taken and the quality of them. We feel we got good value out of the photographer.

As of 20 May 2006 we have not seen the video of the wedding but we are hoping to have that in the next few weeks. Marissa has seen a sneak preview of the editorial they have been doing so we know things are moving along in that area.

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Wedding Budget and Cost with Three Weeks Remaining

Marissa established a preliminary wedding budget in February 2006 based on the information she could find making phone calls and doing some canvassing around. Along the way we have stumbled into extra costs that where not on the original budget. We are now getting closer to knowing what the final amount will be.

Thankfully Marissa has had training and a lot of experience working in a job requiring her to master spreadsheets and Geoff has a basic understanding of how to use spreadsheet software. We have been able to use this as a tool for keeping track of our wedding budget and what we are spending the money on. Using a spreadsheet has made it easier for Marissa to let Geoff know where we are at with the wedding finances over the long distance and has allowed Geoff to keep a close eye on how much is remaining to pay and ensure we will not spend more that we will earn in the time before the wedding.

As it stands now, we are at the start of April and have estimated we will have another 48,200 Philippine peso to spend before we have paid for everything. We have already spent over 143,000 Peso. This is a lot for two people who are low-income earners but we are nearing a final cost for the wedding so it is getting easier to be comfortable we can afford it in time. The bulk of the extra hidden costs have been the international money transfer and related fees we are charged when sending money using Ikobo and Western Union so it is not only the extra things we need for the wedding that have added to the wedding expenses. Managing the spending of money and using the fees wisely has been one of our main discussion points and one way we can make the most of our income.

We have had a lot of discussion about the wedding budget and financing. The wedding budget has been one of the most stressing parts of our relationship so far. Our wedding is the first step of many towards the happy life we both desire. Managing the finances and doing the wedding cost planning has been a tough challenge that we have had to work on together. These challenges will make us stronger in the end and we know it is the love we share that is the most important thing to help us both through this rough part of our wedding plans.

After the wedding we will post our final wedding expense summary so you can see what we spent.

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Three Weeks to The Wedding Day

There are only three weeks remaining before the wedding day and Marissa has been working frantically on getting things prepared for the day.

Geoff has been working a lot of overtime at work so we can pay for the extra costs that have risen along the way.

We have arranged for the accommodation of Geoff�s family while they visit Butuan City and have given them a rough idea of what we will expect of them during the few days before the wedding.

We have begun to make partial payments for the things we will require on the day and have now fully paid the video photographer so we are assured that we can have some video footage of our wedding.

Marissa has been doing some price checks for the ingredients needed to prepare the food for the reception and has begun to purchase some of them. We will be purchasing food for the reception over the next three weeks and her relatives will help prepare and cook the food. We have ordered a three tiered wedding cake.

With a limited amount of time before the wedding our budget is already stretched as far as we can go. We recently ran into some unexpected costs we had not included in the original budget that have made arranging things harder on us both but as long as we stick close to our budget we will be fine. Most of the remaining expense for the wedding is for the reception food so we are trying to save by purchasing the ingredients while they are on special.

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Wedding Photographers Booked

We have now booked the photographer for our wedding and have made a partial payment to book the video cameraman for the day. Marissa has watched a show reel of example video footage and seen some photos taken by the photographer. She was happy with what she saw so we have decided to book them for the day.

Having the video of this wedding come out well is very important because a lot of Geoff�s relatives will want to watch the video because they can not attend the wedding in The Philippines.

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Moving Along Step by Step

We now have 6 weeks remaining before our wedding and even thought we are making progress there is still a lot left to do. Marissa has chosen a video and photography company who will do the photography for us and provide an edited copy of the video as well as the master copy. We will get the photos from the photo camera in digital format and have 100 printed for us. We know my family and friends here in Australia who will not attend the wedding will want to see the video which is why we will ask the photographer to give priority to the video camera operator.

We have now completed making the payments for the reception hall and the church. Marissa has started to correspond with the church decorator about how we want the church decorated. The church decorations are an extra cost. They are not included in the church fee so we have given the lady a set budget for the decorations to work with.

The wedding invitations are finally completed. They will be posted to Marissa this week so she can write on the envelopes and send them out to people in The Philippines as soon as possible.

Before Marissa was eligible to marry in the church we have chosen for our wedding, it was necessary for her to get a clearance from her local Church. This took three Sunday announcements. Everything was cleared ok and she got the paper work stating that she has the permission of her local Church to marry in Butuan City.

Marissa has negotiated the pricing with most companies we will deal with for our wedding but we still have to start paying for most things. We are making partial payments as we go and will be paying things off one at a time over the next six weeks. We have created a spreadsheet with our budget and predicted expenses so we can easily plan what will be payed for each week and how much we will need.

Things are moving along now and we will keep you posted as things develop.

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The Wedding Invitations

We know it is unusual for the groom to take care of the wedding invitation design but we decided that Geoff would be the one to design the wedding invitations in Australia and mail the completed invitations back to Marissa so she can send them to her friends and relatives in the Philippines. This decision was reached because Geoff has a computer and printer at home and easy access to things needed for designing the card economically in a short amount of time.

Designing our wedding invitations did not come without a few challenges that had to be resolved. The wedding is going to be held in the Philippines so we did a card in the way wedding invitations are done in the Philippines. There is a lot more information on wedding invitations in the Philippines than you would find on most Australian invitations so we where restricted to the type and size of the card we could create.

The first challenge was selecting the type of card cover for these invitations. Geoff really liked a smaller type of card cover but they would have made it difficult to fit all the content on paper inside it neatly. After looking around at invitation stationary shops and with input from Geoff's mother, it was decided that a C5 size card with a window on the front was the most suitable size for our invitations.

The second major challenge was how we where going to lay the card out to fit all the content required neatly. We decided to print the content on blue A4 size paper. We had to fit it on three pages and leave room on the front page for the photo of us that people could see in the window when they first look at the invitation. Coming up with the layout for the card content took a few attempts and we even had to get online so Marissa could make some final changes to the text and the way I had set things out. We finally came up with a layout that looks neat and fits all the content on three pages. We have made an easy to read invitation to our Philippine wedding.

As part of the printing process to get the layout right we where also testing the location and size of the photo which was printed on the first page of the invitation. We had to make sure it would align with the window on the front cover. This also took a few attempts but we finally got it right.

The rest of the challenges where mainly how to assemble the invitations and attach the printed inserts to the card cover. Geoff's mother came up with a clever way to punch holes in the card and tie the paper insert to them using the blue ribbon while keeping the photo printed on the front page aligned with the window on the front cover.

We decided to decorate the Antique White Mist card to make it look less plain on the outside. We used a decretive hole punch and punched some hearts into the top and bottom right hand corner of the card at the front to give it a decretive look. Geoff's mum decided to cut out two different size hearts and stick the small one on top of the bigger one. This was then used on the bottom right corner of the window to create a corner frame enhancing the photo.

The end result is a nice looking invitation that was economical to create and matches the theme we will use for the wedding.

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Butuan City, Philippines

One of the biggest decisions we had to make was where to have the wedding. This was a topic of much discussion and there where many different factors we had to take into consideration before it was decided to hold the wedding in Butuan City, Philippines, which is close to Marissa's home town.
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Welcome to our Wedding Blog

Welcome to the wedding blog of Geoff and Marissa. We will be sharing with you our journey to matrimony and the ups and downs we have on our way to the big day, our wedding day.

Making the decision to get married and share a life together was one that flowed naturally for the two of us though it was Geoff who officially proposed to Marissa and asked for her hand in marriage on the 30 July 2005. Marissa said yes and from that night on our life was headed in one direction.

We know there is life after the wedding. We know the wedding is just the start, but we want to share with you our experience so far and hope somebody somewhere gets something out of reading our wedding blog.

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