DIY guests' Boracay information sheet

I can't help it. I could have skipped this whole process but the DIY diva in me wouldn't settle for a generic guest information sheetp. So, instead of letting my coordinator handle this on her own, I asked her if I could make my own. (Why do I always seem to make the wedding preps harder on myself? haha) She was so nice about it and even offered to print it out- colored and everything, no charge! yey! 

*Tommee sometimes looks at me crazy - sometimes, he can't grasp my OC-ness about things.. He didn't even know that I was planning to do that kind of work on the info sheet. He was happy with the generic one, but he was proud of what I did =)

Ok, so on with my DIY info sheet..

Some of our guests have never been to Boracay, or if they have, they haven't been there in a while, and believe me, a lot has changed over the years. I'm a bit sad that it's getting too commercialized, but I can't deny that it still has a great white beach (more on station 1). Anyway, I decided to customize our own Boracay information sheet.

I got this map from directrooms.com (You can go here) and I found this site very useful in getting maps customized to your venue/location. As you can see, the hotel is highlighted with a yellow person marker (haha)

That was the first element I added to the page. I also wanted to make the info sheet more interesting than just a few pages with words on them, so I spiced it up with some clip arts. I added some of our personal faves of things to do and places to eat and other useful information for Boracay. 

Here's the final output:

TA-DA!

the OC couple's wedding first steps

I am OC. Tommee is OC. Therefore, it's not a surprise that we're an OC couple. I was due to leave for the US 2 weeks after we came home from Boracay. I wasn't really sure how long I was going to stay there, so we had to work out our plans, including the wedding preparations.

During those 2 weeks, we talked mostly about our budget and the guest list. At first, we really wanted an intimate wedding (if it was possible, just the 2 of us and witnesses) but it wasn't doable considering how big our families were. Next, we pinpointed which aspects of the wedding we were willing to really spend on. So, we narrowed it down to 3 - the food (of course!), the photography (memories), and the videography (again, memories).

While I still had a lot of free time in California, I began to scout for a photographer and videographer through the internet. This wasn't easy especially when you only their website to base everything on. I am lucky enough to have a very hands-on fiancé. I did all the research and prepared questions for the supplier and he was the one who met up with them and talked "business."

For our photographer, he interviewed a couple of well-known wedding photographers, but somehow, he never felt OK with any of them. One of them was so obnoxious that when Tommee asked him about his style of photography, his answer was "I can't explain it to you, you won't know what I'm talking about, you won't understand"  - WTF, right?!

Anyway, I don't know how I ended up at this photographer's website, but I think it had to do with a special art he does with his photographs. This photographer is Jomel Gregorio and he produces Tintography. According to his website, http://www.jomelgregorio.com, tintography is "a contemporary photographic art where the fusion of digital art and conventional hand painting are aesthetically combined in one beautiful picture." See example here

As for the videographer, I really wanted to get Jason Magbanua - he's considered the leading videographer in the Philippine wedding industry- unfortunately, he was way over our budget. So that was put on hold for a while because I couldn't seem to find one who, at least, had the same style as Jason. 

We decided to hire a wedding coordinator because we were having a destination wedding. As OC as I am, I was being realistic about setting up my wedding outside Metro Manila. Besides, my main reason for getting one was because I wanted everyone to enjoy and not have to worry about doing anything for the wedding. During our scouting of location, only one name was mentioned by every single hotel and resort in Boracay - Amanda Tirol. Apparently, she's the queen of weddings in Boracay, having planned and coordinated her own wedding in Boracay. Since then, she's handled hundreds of weddings there, so we didn't even question it. Tommee met up and interviewed her and told me all about it through SKYPE (which was our main form of communication then). We decided to book her and so far, she's done a good job coordinating with me.

Now, thanks to Amanda, we were able to get a videographer with the product to match Jason Magbanua. These guys (and girl) 

actually apprenticed for Jason Magbanua, and what's great about them is they live near Boracay - they're from Iloilo- and they fit right in our budget. Such a young and talented bunch and I'm so grateful to Amanda for recommending them.

So, the OC part. Tommee and I have excel sheets of almost every aspect of our wedding. These excel files are constantly updated by the both of us. I made my own wedding checklist because I wasn't satisfied with the checklists I got online. I basically consolidated all the good checklists I got and made it my own. This checklist is evolving as I move along my wedding plans. As Tommee says it, "Suyen organizes the shit out of everything." So there.

location, location, location

When we decided to get married, this was what we were doing right before..

I'm not sure if you can tell, but it didn't look like we were gonna have a life-changing talk then.. 

Ever since I was a little girl, I knew that I wanted to get married on the beach.. I don't know where I got the idea, but I really never pictured myself getting married in a church. I didn't know how that was going to work out since I was Catholic, but I just said I'll figure it out (haha). I couldn't believe it when Tommee told me that he wanted a beach wedding, too! We decided to have a beachfront wedding (we're allowed to do this because Tommee has been a Christian since he was young, while I have been a baby Christian since May 2008).. YEY! (another sign I was meant to be with this guy, I guess haha)

We had no qualms about having it in Boracay. We love Boracay enough to vacation there twice in less than a year, so why not?

2 days of our Boracay vacation was spent scouting out hotels & resorts for a wedding venue and checking out wedding packages..

We checked out the FF places:

- Boracay Regency

- Boracay Mandarin

- Friday's Resort

- Waling-Waling

- Pearl of the Pacific

- Discovery Shores

We actually never considered Discovery Shores as a venue because we honestly thought that there wasn't anything special about it from the front, but whatever made us go in there and ask, we will be grateful for. When we entered their lounge/dining area, I finally saw why they charge people that much to stay there.. It was beautiful inside, just unimposing outside. Out of all the wedding packages, we thought they had the best deal to offer, besides, we initally clicked with their events coordinator, Gel Sunga.

so there, not even a week after deciding to get married, we already had our location.