I have been getting a lot of hits on my post Free Wedding Checklist and the readers actually ask me detailed questions about my wedding, most probably to get an idea on how to prepare and pull this off . So now I am creating this post to show who my suppliers are and how much they cost me:

Reception

My Wedding’s reception was held at Ciprianos Garden. I initially planned to have it at Stone Crest but after seeing Ciprianos Garden (the place itself) and the package they offered, there was no doubt this was the place. Here is what is included in their package (as of last year December):

• Php 68,000 for the first 100 persons
• Php 320 per person in excess of 100 persons
• 10 courses inclusive of dessert, rice, softdrinks and water
• 4 hours use of venue
• Basic floral arrangement ( I say basic because mine was an upgraded one…)
• Skirted table for bride and groom and gifts and cake
• Elegant Presidential table
• Buffet table
• Complete table settings – Tables and chairs
• Bottle of win
• Sound system
• Wedding cake

That means if you have 200 guests (which I did), you would have to pay Php 100,000. I paid Php 110,000 for Ciprianos because I upgraded the floral arrangement.

Audio/Video

We availed of the Lens-Tech Digital Photography service for our audio and video needs. We got their Php 20,000 package which included:

• 8×10 20 Pages Magazine style book
• 12×15 Blowup with special frame
• 3ccd Video, Edited (but now I believe they have a new gliding camera which is cool…)
• 1 Photographer (actually 2 including his wife)
• 1 Videographer (plus 1 holding the lights)
• Unlimited shots in CD gallery

Dress

This one has a long story which I will cut very short. We initially chose to take the services of a dress shop somewhere in Pacita near Glamour (name won’t be revealed) and they did a very terrible job. I won’t go into detail but in other words we had to take the dresses they sew and stuff it somewhere since we already paid for them but had to still rent my tux and my wife’s gown somewhere else. Yes we paid twice for our dress

We rented our tux and dress from a dress shop somewhere in Sta. Rosa ( I forgot the shop’s name ) and this one did their job properly. And yes we rented from them a few days before our wedding (whew..). Here is the breakdown of expenses:

• Totally terrible dress shop in Pacita near Glamour: Php 24,500
• Cool dress shop in Sta Rosa: Php 3,800 (very very elegant gown + cool tux)

So the tip here is just rent your dress. You wouldn’t want to keep something you won’t use again right? Choose a good shop as well. I could have saved Php 24,500 if I chose correctly.

Grooming

Hair and makeup services from Glamour at Pacita worth Php 2000 for bride and bridesmaid.

Invitations

We did this ourselves so it cost us around Php 5,000 – Php 10,000. Kind of expensive but the knowledge and experience gained from here is great. What’s more I believe the invitation we made would cost around Php 250 per invitation if you get it from outside.

I got married last year December 6, 2008 to my beautiful wife Janet. Yeah I know, there was no announcement of any sort in this blog. The reason was plain simple, I was too busy. From work to getting ready for the wedding, time to blog was not a convenience (if you notice I was not able to blog for about 2 months…).

To make it up to you though, I’d like to share the checklist that I used to prepare my wedding. I don’t know if you will find this checklist in some other site (I think you would find something similar) but I’d like to share the things that you need to get ready with and prepare for before that big day. What I would actually share at the end of this blog is actually an excel spreadsheet that I used to track the important items/things for the wedding, or what we are calling the wedding checklist that I am giving out for free. But before that let us go through the process of getting married (at least how I did it and the technical aspect of it). Please be reminded as well that some items here might not be applicable to some of you as you might be living in a different country and have different customs and traditions.

1) Finalize budget and guest list

For me, this is the hardest part of the preparation. Budgeting takes a lot of time as you have to canvas with the different stores to get their different prices and quality of service. While budgeting is hard, finalizing the guest list is even harder. At first I targeted 150 as the maximum number of persons I would invite. However, this number shot up to 200 as the wedding day drew nearer. But I guess, this depends on you. If you are going to be strict with yourselves and really control your budget, then you don’t have to do what I did where I changed the maximum number of guests to accommodate more friends (guests).

It is good to take note that I put the budget and number of guests together as they are directly proportional meaning the more guests you have, the higher the budget should be.

I am not going to itemize the things you need to prepare here because it is already in the wedding checklist. However, what I want to point out here is that instead of utilizing products and services from different merchants, it is better to get a package deal on the important things in a wedding (like what we did). For example, if you are already going to find a venue for your wedding, why not ask if they offer wedding packages as well that would include catering for the food, wedding cake, sound system, etc… Getting a wedding package deal won’t only spare you from a couple of headaches but also trim down your budget a bit (most package deals are cheaper).

If you are getting married, live near Laguna and want a wedding package deal, you can check out this site where we got married:

Ciprianos Garden

2) Create/Prepare and Send Invitations

If you’ve already noticed, we were trying to save money as much as possible (package deals remember?). That is why for the invitations, we created them ourselves using Photoshop, photo paper and hard cardboard. I did the design using Photoshop and printed the invitations using photo paper. While Janet created the invitation envelopes using hard cardboard. Here is a sample:

And yes, those are our wedding rings on top of the invitations.

I am no Photoshop expert but I do know basic stuff with it. To learn Photoshop effects and advanced techniques, I learned via the websites below:

Photoshope Essentials
Finesse FX

Once the invitations are ready, send them out! It is good to send them out early to give you time to get their RSVPs. I sent out mine a month ahead of the wedding.

3) Ready Documents for Marriage License

Though this is at number 3, this is one of the most important things you have to get. Without this, you cannot get married. To get your marriage license, you need:

• Personal appearance in getting marriage license
• Birth certificate
• Certificate of Attendance in a pre-marital counseling and family planning seminar
• Written parental advice(a written indication that the parents are aware of the couple’s intent to marry, for persons aged between 22-24)
• Written parental consent(a written consent from the parents, for persons aged between 18-21)
• For persons 25 above, nothing is needed from parents. However, a ‘certificate of no marriage’ might be required by certain municipalities (or religious organizations, i.e. church)

For more information on the legal requirements needed in the Philippines, you may check the government’s website itself: Legal Req’ts

4) Ready Other Things (ex. Bridal Car, Cake, etc…)

There are many ‘other’ things that needs to be prepare beforehand. But as pointed out just now, this other things may vary depending on background and culture so I’ll leave this out for the couple to figure out. But for the sake of reference, I’ll put the ‘other’ things I considered for my wedding (not exhaustive):

• Sounds
• Video
• Pics
• Cake
• Car
• Chairs
• Table
• Dress
• Invitation
• Champagne
• Quartet
• Guestbook
• Floral
• Lights
• Frame
• Tarpaulin
• Chandalier
• Gazebo
• Red Carpet

And here is the checklist. If you find something unclear, please just comment below:

Free Wedding Checklist

If you do like this checklist, I could also discuss here another checklist that I used to make sure everything falls into place during the wedding itself.