Post your reviews on www.SPOT.ph

Hi, everyone!

I feel like, after having gone through our wedding preps last year, I’ve realized just how we soon to be wedded couples here in Manila are actually quite a very discerning bunch – perhaps one of the most discerning. I was hesitant to post this for fear of a self-promotion backlash, but then I was like, wait, our blog is called JayandCathy: The Wedding – and it’s the epitome of self-promotion (ahahahaha!!!). So I figure, why not just have you guys take a peek into one of my lastest work projects?

We want all of the discerning couples out there to be part of SPOT, a new community-driven website put out by the same people who have brought us the websites we all love to visit on a daily basis: Shop Crazy, PEP (showbiz gossip – you know you love that stuff!), Real Living Space blog, and the Female Network, to name a few.

Beyond the review-writing contest that we’re having until April 15 (and we use the word “reviews” and “writing” quite loosely, meaning if you have something to say and you want to say it in a sentence, then by all means, write it in just 1 sentence), I really want you all to test it out, play around the site, upload pictures and post reviews if you like. Although the site is live and it’s a public beta, we’re still a long way away from where we want it to be come our full launch. I’m sure by now, you’ve all gone to a lot of meetings with your suppliers at Starbucks, Coffee Bean or your preferred restaurant or bar. If you happen to have had good service (or not so good service…) then feel free to drop us a few lines at SPOT.  Let us know what you’re thinking.

You just look for the establishment in the search field, click on it when you find it (or ADD it if you don’t), and then you can post a review right then and there.

Of course, you have to register to post a review, but after that, do what you like, girlfriend (or boyfriend).

Supplier Rating: Jill Lejano, Photographer

Hello, wedding preppers and web purveyors.

Before I launch into our supplier rating for Jill, first let us tell you why it’s been hard to blog. There are plenty of reasons: no dsl at home (so difficult for my techie husband) yet because we just moved into our place and have not yet been graced by a phone line; busy at work; busy fixing up our place on the weekends; and we’re still recovering from the jetlag and hangover from our 2-week vacay *that needs another vacay after it*.

We went to Bogota, Colombia, for my Kuya Fred’s (and his now wife, Natalia’s) wedding. We did lots of eating – as in eating MEAT, which they have a lot of (well, cows) in Bogota, lots of drinking, and lots of dancing. The eating, drinking and dancing combo – despite the drugs/crime/third-world status of Colombia – has a lot to do with why Colombians are so happy, I think. There’s nothing that a shot of arguadiente or an hour of salsa with friends can’t cure.

Kuya and Nat at Andres Carne de Res, dancing – what else?

Their wedding was held at Hacienda Santibella, and it was g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s.

Bogota itself was so interesting… it was like Los Angeles, Miami, Manila, and parts of New York balled up in one place.

Their wedding was intimate (120 people) and quaint, but still so romantic and fun to be at, and it was so worth the journey to get there. So congrats to my new sis-in-law, Nat, and to my brudda, Kuya Fred!

On to the supplier rating for a certain Ms. Jill Lejano.

Jill’s an artist and a cool cat. She’s also a professional, she’s damn good at what she does, and she’s a lot of fun to be around. If you’re looking for a traditional portaiture for your pre-nups, or for the old stuff that you see in your Tita or Lola’s wedding albums, then Jill’s not the person to call. But if you want fun, tongue-and-cheek, and candid – the kind of stuff that should be blown-up, framed and displayed – then Jill’s your girl.

I guess, yes, she was our “second” photographer, but that’s just cos we hired her after we hired Terry. But to us, they’re both professionals and extremely good at what they do, and we’re grateful that they shared our big day with us.

A few shots of our pre-nups in Laguna (Casa San Pablo, to be exact) and Alabang:

A few shots from the wedding:

Although Jill took amazing digital shots (all included in our wedding album, along with Terry’s), what we really loved were her lomo/film shots.

Supplier Rating for Photographer, Jill Lejano: 5 stars.

To learn more about Jill and what she does, click here. To inquire about her wedding rates and package, please contact Jill at suplada80@gmail.com.

Don’t worry, party people. She’s not in the least bit suplada so don’t be scared by the e-mail addy! She’s game for what you and your significant other have planned for your shoots.

Jay and I with Jill, on the dance floor

Chinkie Uy Agregado/Metro Eventscape Planners

Yup, this is a supplier review.

Chinkie Uy Agregado and Metro Eventscape Planners: 5 (out of 5) stars

Chinkie was very different from the other two planners I interviewed (JP and Nenita Zagala). She was around 15 minutes late and sleep-deprived when we first met, which normally wouldn’t bode that well for a supplier meeting, but for some reason I was ok with it. She was a lot warmer and easier to talk to, in my opinion, than the other two suppliers, and it didn’t feel like a stiff “interview,” which it kind of felt like with the others; it was more of a coffee date with a friend. I tossed out a few images from my scrapbook, a few ideas, and she contributed her own ideas as well, and then for the most part, we just kind of chatted and got to know a little bit about each other. I just followed my instincts with this one, as I tend to do with most of my decisions, and I called up Jay and my Mom to tell them that I think I had found a coordinator who we could all work with that same afternoon after our first meeting.

In terms of personality: Chinkie is one of the nicest and most genuine people I’ve ever met, so hands-down, she gets 5-stars in this department.

For promptness and correspondence: She’s not great with e-mails, but I have high expectations since I work in media and check my work mail every minute. That being said, she will get around to answering your queries over e-mail, but it may take a quick text to her to remind her to check her e-mail. If you’re the kind of person who needs to get an email reply within the day – you should make this very clear with your suppliers, so that you don’t have mismatched expectations. Chinkie is much better with phone calls and will pretty much tell you what you need to know if you just give her a quick call. The only times that she didn’t answer that promptly were over the weekends (when she’s on the job as most weddings are over the weekend) or late at night (when she’s asleep!).

Looking back, I think I would sometimes get apprehensive because Chinkie has a really relaxed way of doing things, so I would be thinking, “Hmm… does she really know what she’s doing?” But about 2 months before the wedding she went full throttle. She would call often throughout the week or text to confirm appointments or payments; she mediated between a problematic supplier and I. She made little tweaks and suggestions on how to make the day-of run smoother. One of those suggestions was the hagads – we had… 6 hagads 8 hagads guide us through Manila traffic, which came in so handy on the day of (imagine this route – Makati-Alabang-Makati – on a Saturday afternoon/night!).

She exceeded our expectations and her staff was professional throughout our wedding. We didn’t hear a single complaint from any of our guests – and our entourage enjoyed being told what to do, and when to do it. I’m sure there were a lot of things that could have gone wrong or did go wrong – but Jay and I were oblivious to them because we were too busy having fun, and I think this is testament to a job well done on the coordinator’s part.

Chinkie and her staff made the day a seamless flow of one fun event after another, and for this we are truly grateful.

To reach Chinkie, please click here or text her at (0917) 328-1893. Images 1 & 3 by Jill Lejano. Cliquebooth image by Clique, the party photobooth. For more images, click here.

And we’re back…

Hello, everyone. 

So we’re back on WordPress… and we’re not sure we should have left, either!  Nodblog (for those who don’t know, we moved to jayandcathy.nodblog.com awhile back) was kind of weird and we thought we liked it at first because it enabled us to put in AdSense but now, we don’t really care about that and just want to share with you guys our journey to our Big Day… and beyond (yes, there are plans of blogging about life after the wedding, which is really when the fun really starts, don’t you think?).

Anyways, I’ll post stuff on here for now and will let the word-of-mouth do its thang in the wedding network/subculture that we’ve set up (blog) camp here on WordPress.

We have a lot of updates and it wouldn’t be fair to just ramble on and on about all of them in one posting, so we’ll have to pick just one thing for today.  And that would be Terry Uy’s (our main wedding photog’s) revamped website!

He uses flash so it takes quite a bit of time to load but it’s really worth flipping through all of his pictures.  We saw him at a friend’s despedida de soltera on Sunday night and he informed us that we made it into his new site!  Under the “brides and grooms” category, photo 19.

We really love Terry’s style.  He managed to capture so many of the moments that we still look back on with such fond memories, but also the ones that escaped us entirely because we couldn’t be everywhere at one time.  There was nothing contrived about him, he wasn’t a diva, and there wasn’t a moment when he didn’t have a big ‘ole smile on his face.  And believe you me, smiling for an entire day gets tiring!

Anyways, I’ll link to this post in my subsequent posting about our wedding album.  Jay and I were saying that our wedding album is the best one that we’ve seen floating around so that’s pretty high praise for Terry – cos we’ve seen a lot of albums.

On other fronts… it feels really good to be back.  And by ‘back’ I mean back to life, back to reality (to all you Mary J. fans, you know what I mean!).  When you are preparing for a wedding of enormous (I exagg… it was big but not like 1000 guests big) proportion and scale (emotional, financial, spiritual), it affects every part of your life.  At work, I was feeling torn because there was always a detail, an e-mail query, a call from my panicked mom, to field, so I was kind of distracted.  Now, I can be more present when I’m with my friends, family and at work… it’s fantastic!  I wouldn’t give up any of the lessons learned in the preparations, but we (I think I can speak for Jay) are so happy to finally start our lives together, with our proper jobs, our friends and family behind us, and a new place of our own in which to make memories… and when the time is right, start a family.

We’ll be back, but for now we leave you with the photo that made it into Terry’s site:

Expect us to do the following this year:

1) answer your e-mails more promptly

2) post more substantial stuff, with lots of pictures

3) and to be more discerning in giving out our opinions when it comes to things wedding and post-wedding related

Thanks for all of your support and lots of love and light to all of you this 2008!

(And yes, you can also look forward to our thorough suppliers rating!)

 

 

 

Moving

We’re moving to a new home! On the internets that is. Our new blog will be located at jayandcathy.nodblog.com. Please update your bookmarks. Thanks for reading!

The Barong Tagalog

Countdown: 4 months left

I’ll spare you the history of the ‘national attire’, which you could read about here. But as pimp as I would look in a suit, there was no doubt I was going to put on a Barong for my wedding.
I’m Filipino. Cathy’s Filipino. Our wedding is Filipino. The Barong Tagalog is Filipino.
When Cathy walks down that aisle and I’m trying my hardest to hold back the waterworks (by the way, Cathy thinks my emotional pulse is not unlike that of a robot and is confident I won’t shed a tear), I want to make sure I’m at least breaking down in style. What I love about the Barong Tagalog is that it looks vintage and old school, but brings so much class and style. That ‘untucked’ look with a buttoned up collar and long sleeves exudes confidence but stays comfortable at the same time. Coupled with a crisp pair of pants and spanking new shoes, I will definitely hold my own at the Big Day.
Now, all I have to do is find one to wear.
I actually found material this past weekend which I thought would look great, but upon further research on the Barong Tagalog, I found some nifty designs online that I may like to look at. I won’t put up any sample images, because I want to surprise Cathy, but I’m excited to find that right one and get it tailored to my specifications.
It’s also going to be great to see all my best men and groomsmen decked out in a Barong Tagalog! Especially on my good buddy Kai Paul. A strapping young American man (but Indonesian at heart), well over 6 feet tall, and fiery red hair that would put Conan O’Brien to shame. Him, in a Barong Tagalog. Priceless.

Updates

I know, I know, it’s been 6 days since our last entry. But a lot has been going on since we came back from the long weekend!

1) MUSIC. We heard Aquarela at their CD launch at Shang Mall and although they were musically and technically spot-on, we think that their appeal is to a more mature crowd. Definitely buy their album cos it’s the kind of music that you want to play over a dinner with friends, or on a lazy Sunday morning. But we are looking for a band that will bring the house down for our wedding.

A friend of ours, Irene, who is the vocalist for Chubibo, recommended Guarana. They played at her wedding and she said that they were entertaining, and that Eileen Sison even taught everyone how to samba, and had a conga line goin’ on at some point! This kind of festive performance is definitely something we want for our reception so we’re going to check them out on Tuesday at Cafe Havana.

2) FRIENDS. We got a chance to see our Jakarta friends (including Erwin, who has finally resurfaced!) last weekend for a surprise party. And one of our favorite little tots was there! She’s the daughter of our friend, Ana, and has got to be one of the most adorable little girls you’ll ever meet. So adorable that she’s the new face behind Johnson & Johnson’s no more tears campaign – and the photog (at least for the spread in the Star, Good Housekeeping, Smart Parenting, and Working Mom) is none other than my very talented fiancee! Claps!

Our group baby making lambing to Jay the entire time. Apparently she really likes facial hair. Cute.

Jay and Erwin (with Jamie in the background sneaking in some food)

(sorry for low res shots, just taken with my phone cam)

3) ANDREA & WENDY. My maids of honor have started e-mailing me about the bridal shower and the bachelorette. Just preliminary questions so they can start planning and contacting the invitees both here and abroad. They are so put together, these two. And are so enthused about the whole thing! I am very lucky to have them by my side throughout all of this. I feel quite blessed, I can’t say that enough.

I’ve also been getting e-vite reminders for my friend, Nicole’s, bachelorette in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Unfortunately, since it’s in Mexico and it’s in July, I won’t be able to go. However, we’re all set to head on over to her wine country wedding in October! I’ll be a bridesmaid along with the other Pangkor girls. Sonoma, here we come!

4) HEALTH. One of the reasons that I haven’t gotten a chance to blog is because I am getting my butt kicked in Bikram Yoga, the only studio (in 2 locations – Salcedo Village and Tomas Morato) in Manila that’s sanctioned by Bikram himself, and only has Bikram certified instructors. Flexibility wise, it’s fine because I used to dance. But mentally, it’s a whole different ball game. I am literally having to fight-off panic attacks as I ease myself into camel pose. The heat, the sweat, the chatter in my head – all of that I fight to let go of for 90 minutes. Waiting to hear from a potential employer – let it go. Wedding planning – let it go. Smelly guy next to me – let it go. Claustrophobia – let it go. Letting go is hard work.

Jay has also started his boxing and basketball sessions, so we are motivating each other throughout this process, keeping ourselves hydrated and rested and supporting each other after a not-so-great practice. We talked about it a couple of nights ago and our health is definitely one of those things that we are willing to invest in – whether it’s through a monthly membership at a studio or a gym or whatever. Personally speaking, I am so tired of getting sick. My stomach hasn’t gotten used to Manila and I’ve been here for 2 years!

After all is said (by doctors, parents, friends) and done, I know that I need to detoxify – not just with what I eat, but with my surroundings and environment as well. So I am just laying low, taking it easy, surrounding myself with positivity, and staying committed to Bikram, which has helped me gain some focus, discipline, perspective, and a sense of commitment, attributes that I’ve been lacking.

Anyways, I am going to let go of this entry now and leave you with this fantastic video that, at first, Jay and I started implementing into our lives as a joke – a big joke – but now, we know why there are laughter clubs all over the world.

Puerto Galera + Cathy’s Family

As blogged by super-blogger extraordinaire posing as my fiance Cathy below, we had quite an eventful weekend. The highlight being our trip to Puerto Galera. It also was my first out-of-town trip with Cathy’s immediate and extended family. One would assume the awkwardness and uncomfortable silence between idle conversations that’s naturally common in get-togethers involving future in-laws. Not with Cathy’s family/relatives. They are a very tight-knit group and although seeing all of them together as a pack can be quite intimidating, they welcomed me with open arms.

It was a great trip, not only because we would spend it with family, but also because Cathy and I needed a break from the city. It has been awhile since we trekked out of town, and the past few weeks had started to take a toll on us physically, mentally and emotionally. We wanted to get the hell outta Dodge. Except, instead of Dodge, it’s Manila. And not Kansas, but the Philippines. You know what I mean.

But I came to a small realization post-getaway trip. The plan for the trip came last minute, merely a few days before we left. Prior to that our other proposed trip for our much needed ‘getaway’, had been cancelled. Although disappointed it didn’t push through, we stayed positive and knew we would catch a break soon. Lo and behold, Cathy’s parents told us about the Puerto trip and asked if we wanted to go. We wanted to go.

I have to say, that ’silver lining’ is very underrated.

So after lots of eating, sand, sun, snorkeling, eating, taking photos, island hopping, eating, conversations, story telling, laughing, sweating, while eating, banana boating, waiting in line for parasailing, bangka-riding, and finally lot’s of eating. Cathy and I got our much needed R&R.

It was indeed an eventful weekend. Thank the Lord and his silver lining.

finally!

 

More photos here…