High Pinay

Aside from looking stunning and beautiful on her wedding day, I realized that brides really do more of the preparations.

And as a bride myself, I am just happy to accept all the responsibilities of choosing and preparing all the details and just present them to my groom who would lovingly approve my choices. (well, I don’t think I am actually giving him enough choices but just to “yes” ). And as a bonus for my hard work, he would constantly shower me with praises of how exceptional and lovely my ideas are.:-)

But of course, he would bring in suggestions and a few wishes of his own. And just like a real woman, I lovingly and impishly find ways to reject some suggestions if they are not to my likings.

Seriously, it really takes two to tango and I am just lucky because my man is giving me enough liberty and trust to decide for our wedding.

Maybe if I married younger than 28 and my bridesmaids are as young as teenagers, I would love to see them in pink or yellow gowns. Now my color preferences are more subdued and considering that my lovely bridesmaids are already “full bloom women” and are no longer teenyboppers, I think a pale gold gown is my choice.

While working on my color palette of yellow, green and beige, at first I have chosen the beige or champagne color but my sister finds it too dull. Then, we saw this pale gold color, more like champagne but more vibrant.

I know that multi-colored bridesmaid’s gowns are the trend today. But I would appreciate it very much if they will be in uniform colors. I will just leave the design to their own preferences and my other request is for them to do without a shawl.

I don’t have anything about shawls, I just like my wedding pictures to be different from the usual. If our parish would be too strict about strapless gowns and my bridesmaid won’t be comfortable with it, we just have to do with more conservative cuts like these:

And for the flowers, do you think yellow and green flowers will make it more dazzling?

I know that the use of butterflies is already common, but not here in our humble province. And also, I really like the effect of seeing colorful butterflies hovering around on my very special occasion. How about releasing them right before the “you may kiss the bride part” of the wedding, hmmm?

I found two names of stores selling butterflies. I haven’t talk to any of them yet but I understand that more or less each butterfly cost around P50 for small orders, also included in the package is the cage. And, I learned that it is advisable to feed the butterflies prior to releasing them so that they will not fly away to look for food. I haven’t talk to my “hunny” yet about this and hopefully he would concede.

Here in the Philippines, we usually call it souvenir. But in browsing the internet I find it helpful to use keywords like wedding favors aside from wedding souvenirs. There are so many choices, you can even make your own wedding favors.

Considering my theme, I forgo the idea of choosing whether it is going to be candles, beautiful lamps or the Pinay inspired wedding souvenirs like the beautiful pieces made from capiz and abaca.

Instead, we are considering giving plants. I saw this lucky bamboo tree at Mall of Asia, 20 small stalks cost around P250. I just have to find a suitable vase and buy the colored jelly which is helpful for the plant. The sales lady said that the plant is a little bit sensitive and also my “groom” thinks it is a nice way of saying “Thank You”. I just hope my guest will appreciate it as much as we will appreciate their presence for our big day.

I find theme party a lot easier to organize because the materials are no longer difficult to think of like working on a superman theme birthday party. I never thought that it is also fun to incorporate theme for weddings.

How am I going to incorporate our favorite cartoon characters into the wedding? Is it possible? Hahaha!

Anyway, we want to celebrate life and so I think we are going to use more of nature’s wonder in our wedding like butterfly, plants and flowers. And so that is it - a beautiful life themed wedding is going to be ours.

They say that in choosing the color for a wedding you have to consider the date of your wedding, the venue, the theme and of course something that would reflect the personality of the bride and the groom.

Date – for sunny months, it is advisable to use bright and light colors like yellow and teal. Likewise for cold months it’s best to choose warm colors like crimson and royal blue.

Venue – if it is a beach wedding, then I think it follows that bright colors would fit best.

The theme – some wedding incorporates theme in their wedding like Cinderella or fairy tale like colors. If so, it would not be difficult to choose color because you just have to copy the color used by the characters.

Color that best reflects the couple – we are a cheerful couple and so we have chosen to use happy colors for our wedding. At the same time we want to make it clean and simple that is why we have chosen to work on pale yellow, green, beige and pale gold colors.

Weeeeeee, this is really is it!

Before 2009 ends, I am officially going to be a married woman. And so, the first thing I searched in the internet is – wedding gown!

I wanted to keep it simple and chic. By the way, his Dad is the one who is going to make my dress. So I just have to find a nice picture and present it to him. I really never wanted to have a long wedding gown trail. And so here are my choices:

I fell in love with the upper body of this gown but I am not sure about the skirt.

The second is really my dream gown, but I have to make an alteration with the deep neckline and put a little sleeve. We are going to have a Catholic Church wedding and I think some parishes are really very strict and conservative about dress codes.

Ahhh! I just can’t decide which one yet, anyway I still have few weeks to choose.

It is not the usual engagement scenario wherein a man will kneel down and pop the question “will you marry me?” together with the ring.

 

What we had is more intimate and special. Then, as if we are rehearsing a line for a film festival movie entry, he asked me the question. My answer was really so unbecoming of a lady. I was so happy at that time I just can’t help but to smile. He said something like “I am not acting my part” so repeated the question but I just can’t say yes properly and just keep on smiling and laughing.

 

Up to this time I never really answered “yes” as it should be. I always ask him to repeat the question but he knew I would just end up smiling again. So, I just reversed the situation and I am now the one asking “hunny, will you marry me?”

 

Well, it is just really so “us”. A weird but happy couple! We knew deep in our hearts that our love is more than a simple “yes”.

 

BTW, the engagement ring is already in my fingers for almost four years now. Again not the usual engagement ring, but rather more like a wedding ring. 

According to the News

“After a short-lived success in the Philippines, Sandara Park is getting a big break in South Korea where she will be formally launched this month as part of the new Korean pop group 2NE1 (short for 21). The all-female group is slowly but surely becoming popular, with its debut single, Lollipop, already topping music charts….

2NE1 is reportedly being built up as the female version of the popular all-male Korean band Big Bang which performed the song Lollipop with Sandara’s group. The glossy music video (available on YouTube) is a visual delight with first-rate production, and young Koreans love it. Aside from Sandara, 2NE1 is also composed of Park Bom, Lee Chaerin and Gong Minji.

But, added Edmund (who provided Funfare the latest info about Sandara), “The sad part is the bad press Sandara is getting lately after the Korean media and bloggers have dug what they claimed was ‘embarrassing’ past photos of the star once known as the Pambansang Krung-Krung ng Pilipinas.” (Krung-krung is Filipino slang for weird or crazy.)

The “embarrassing” photos were those in UNO (Diether Ocampo’s men’s magazine) three years ago, showing Sandara in “sexy” poses. The Korean press describes the photos as “disturbing” and “inappropriate” especially for someone like Sandara who is being packaged as “sweet and innocent.”

According to My P.O.V.

Sandara “Dara” Parks, Sandy as we call her is very much loved by many Filipinos, we fondly call her “Krung-Krung” not because of its literal meaning in Filipino which is “crazy”, maybe she is a bit weird but because she is not afraid to express herself. She actually changed the meaning of that word into something positive, someone who acts according to what she likes and not of what others dictates her to do.

I believe that the photos were not embarrassing at all, if you still remember at the peak of her success and fame in the Philippines, she went to Korea to study acting, and when she came back, I just can imagine how lost she felt when she realized the world is not the same as when she left.

“She didn’t reckon with the sad reality that in showbiz, absence doesn’t really make the fans’ hearts grow fonder. Soon, Sandara was replaced by another chinita, Kim Chiu, then a Pinoy Big Brother Teen winner and now a superstar.”

The sexy pictures where just what I call a desperate move to regain what was lost without so much support from the bigwigs except for her “true fans” who remained faithful to her. It was not even that bulgar, she was just clad in sexy clothes but you can still see the sweet and young Sandara, not a sexy star ((badly seeking where she will fit in).

She never really acted opposite her character. She was just carried away by the misleading conception in our “showbiz system” wherein teen stars who are trying to be taken seriously as serious actress are posing in sexy magazines to change their image. Remember Rica Peralejo, Angelica Panganiban, Roxanne Guinoo and so on, they all did it. Maybe it worked out well for them, but sadly not for Sandy, and now it is being used against her. But knowing Sandara Parks, she will get by (hopefully!). Go Sandara!

Now it is what I call, our parents’ intervention!

Of course we are already talking about getting married but we just can’t decide when the right time is. When I moved into another place to work, it made things too difficult for us. We only see each other once a month and so a time came when I was childishly and selfishly pushing him to set the date. Thinking back at it now, I am just glad we waited a bit longer.

God gave us opportunity to grow more as individuals. I am glad because I was also given an opportunity to help and support him reach his dreams and likewise I was given more time to fulfill my own goals in life. We are happy and content with our life now that everything seems to have fallen into the right places. We are still enjoying the fruit of our hard work and the marriage issue never became an issue to us again – until….

The time our parents’ took it to their initiative to push the wedding this 2009.