Love in the Time of COVID-19

Isn't it amazing how everytime you open your Facebook feed someone is always just engaged, married, pregnant, or has given birth? We are at the stage in our lives when it's finally time to settle down and life's milestones are happening here and there. Cy and I joined the bandwagon last October 2019 (wee) and as common as it seems, it's honestly not so easy figuring this whole marriage thing out! It also required a lot of time management especially for us, since I work 6 days a week, and because it seemed Cy and I were in a long distance relationship - he lives in Cavite and works in Makati, while I live and work in Pasig. It helped that Cy and I are used to managing projects for a living, but the secret is simple: create and follow timelines, delegate tasks, and do a little every week. So we thought we had it all figured out... until COVID-19 happened, less than 2 months before our original wedding date in May 2020! I am writing this for all the couples who - like us - had to pivot and adjust to the times because of unforeseen circumstances. I am happy to share that we finally tied the knot last July 17, 2020 and will be talking about the process through this blog post. The first few parts reflect plans for our original wedding, and then will transition into how we had to plan for our intimate General Community Quarantine (GCQ) wedding.

1. Research!

The very first thing you need to do before anything is RESEARCH! Since a lot of friends are getting married, take advantage of that! Chat with your friends and get advice from them. As soon as we started planning for our wedding, it's been us overly critical and observant during other people's weddings, haha. We even talked to some suppliers during weddings just to have a better idea of things. I suggest watching out for bridal fairs, such as Toast. A lot of people advise against joining bridal fairs because you can get pressured into making decisions quickly, but I think it's a good way to see what's out there, and also a lot of suppliers offer discounts during bridal fairs. You can also get a lot of ideas from Bride & Breakfast and read about first-hand wedding experiences from a wide range of people from the Wawies group on Facebook. Since we planned our original wedding to be in Baguio, we literally went around the city to check out churches and reception venues that we liked. It's really different reading about things online and actually seeing them in person.

2. Budget

I love numbers, but not when they keep increasing by the month haha. Have an excel to track your expenses as soon as you start planning for the wedding. Our arrangement was that we agreed to pay for our entire wedding with minimal help from family. Prepare to spend a lot if you want to get married as it's really expensive to plan for a wedding. BUT it's really up to you what you feel you want to splurge on and what you decide you won't prioritize. For me and Cy, we wanted to make sure the food was good, the venue still offered that "Baguio feeling" and needed minimal styling, and that the photos would be nice. Just to give you an idea, our initial budget had already at least doubled, considering all the other additional costs that we didnt't account for. The good thing about it though is that you don't spend for everything in one go - suppliers are paid a downpayment as soon as you book them, and the balance is paid on the day itself. Sadly on the "best day of your life" you will be losing a lot of money haha - but will be receiving a lot of gifts too! To minimize costs, all the suppliers we booked were Baguio-based (except our videographer), as getting Manila-based suppliers means paying OOTF (out of town fees), plus their transportation and accommodations!

3. Timeline and suppliers booked

We planned to have a very short engagement - 7 months! A lot of people plan for a wedding 1-2 years after getting engaged and I just didn't see that point in that. Fortunately for Baguio, the long lead time for reservations wasn't necessary as the suppliers that we wanted to book were still available for our date. We made it a point to canvass and research on suppliers first, though, before deciding on booking any of them - especially for the items where the bulk of our budget went to, we canvassed maybe more than 5 before paying the downpayment. Here is basically how we planned everything out:

5-7 months before (Oct-Dec 2019):

- Research online and attend Toast

- Book wedding ring supplier at Toast: J's Diamond

- Do oculars in Baguio City (2 trips) - We literally went around Baguio during 2 separate weekends to do oculars for the church and reception

- Reserve church: PMA - St. Ignatius Chapel - This took a while as we needed to get an endorsement from someone who works for PMA. Also, the coordination with the church is separate from the coordination with PMA, so it can be a bit tricky.

- Book reception venue: Mama's Table Private Dining - We booked this restaurant as we wanted a simple venue that had delicious food, a good view with Baguio feels, and required minimal styling.

- Book photographer: Owen & Nikka - everyone recommended them, and we mean literally!

- Book wedding coordinator: Hip Events - we chose Hip as we were able to meet their "bride assist" while stalking one wedding at St. Ignatius PMA (Ms. Rose) and felt comfortable talking to her

- Inform entourage that they're part of the wedding

- Finalize guestlist

- Create deck for moodboard

- Create joint Instagram and joint email account (for more efficient communication with suppliers)

- Create separate Telegram thread for wedding preps

- Make withjoy and send out to guests

4 months before (Jan 2020):

- Order CENOMAR (Certificate of No Marriage) and birth certificates from PSA (Philippine Statistics Authority) - Ordering it online took only one week! Although I think ordering this from PSA offices with a physical appearance will cost a lot less. The CENOMAR was pretty pricey at P430 each.

- Second payment of wedding rings; finalize engraving and sizes

- Order baptismal certificates and confirmation certificates from your respective churches (6-month validity) - This was also pretty quick, 3 days for my baptismal cert from Christ the King and 10 mins for my confirmation cert from St. Francis of Assissi in Mandaluyong.

- Book entourage dresses: Love, C Manila - I didn't expect this to finish so quickly! After sending the measurements in, it took less than 1 month for all the gowns to be finished. I ordered all infinity gowns for my entourage to make the process easier and so that they would still be able to wear them even after the wedding.

- Book wedding gown: Apartment 8 - I was firm with making my decision on a minimalist dress that wouldn't cost me so much! I was only going to wear it for one day of my life so I didn't want to spend so much on my gown, but I still wanted to go for quality.

- Create event page on FB for announcements

- Borrow matrimonial set from friends and relatives

- Book HMUA: Krizia Guevara

- Book accommodations: Hotel Le Monet - We chose Le Monet because they are the only hotel in Camp John Hay with airconditioning! Our wedding was on May 1 and Baguio can also get a bit hot especially on a summer day at noon! Also, they allow pictorials at their garden, unlike others who charge a fee for this. On other nights we plan to stay at Forest Lodge

- Finalize invite design: Rachel Halili - it was an x-deal for us and our friend Rach, as she offered to design our invites, in exchange for Cy's photography skills for their wedding in March!

3 months before (Feb 2020):

- Purchase cloth for groom and groomsmen: Divisoria

- Pamanhikan

- Book video supplier: Digital Storyteller - They were our only Manila-based supplier as we didn't really identify with the styles of the Baguio-based videographers, though we still wanted to keep our costs low.

- Have groom's suit tailored and distribute cloth to the entourage members

- Attend the Discovery Weekend (as pre-cana seminar) - recommended especially for couples who don't discuss sensitive issues so often!

- Create monogram for seal

- Registry at Rustan's - simply walk in to register and then schedule an appoinment for when you want to choose the items for your registry (1-1.5 months before)

- Reach out to emcees: one from the groom's side, one from the bride's side

- Finalize styling pegs and invite design

- Get Barangay Clearance for marriage license

- Attend Bridal Fair at SM Megatrade Hall

- Book invite supplier: Print Divas

- Book lights & sounds: Reinforcements

- Pick up entourage gowns from Love, C

- First fitting of wedding gown!

- Pay 50% downpayment for venue

- Purchase wax seals for invites: Wax Seal Stamp PH / Dalagang Guhit

- Purchase gifts for sponsors: Thoughtful Supply Co. - we got them the cheeseboards with tools and personalized engraving. For our US-based sponsors, we purchased them from Etsy

- Book photobooth: Happy Bunny Photobooth

2 months before (Mar 2020)

- Order accessories for entourage: Luna Manila

- Finally agreed on a stylist: Accents and Petals for bouquets and church styling - they were the most affordable and they also use eco-flowers! For the venue, we availed their add-on for centerpieces

- Plan trip to Baguio in April (cancelled)

- Pre-select menu for reception

- Plan application for marriage license and processing of marriage banns (cancelled)

- COVID-19 breakout - quarantines and cancelled classes started

- Readjust entourage and guestlist

- Finalize mass songs for church choir - our family members!

- Pick up proofs for invite, finalize layout for printing

- Finalize entertainment for reception - our guests!

- Pre-nup shoot: Light and Focus - we wanted a chill shoot at Anilao and Gulugud Baboy (cancelled)

ENHANCED COMMUNITY QUARANTINE (March 16 - May 15, 2020)

- Communications and updates with suppliers regarding schedule and contingencies.

- On April 5, we finally decided to move our wedding to October. We were hoping to get married civilly on May 1 but since the government offices were prioritizing essential services only, we couldn't plan for it.

- During this period, we were happy that we were able to spend time together on weekends. Cy would stay over and vice versa. We were lucky that Cy had an IATF pass to get through the chekpoints.

- Almost wedding with friends and family on May 1, 2020 - via Zoom, we had a virtual get together with family and friends (one for friends, one for family) where we had someone perform at the beginning, asked everyone to introduce themselves to the group (one by one), played a short trivia game via Kahoot, and ended with a CHEERS. It was a nice way for our guests from both sides to get acquainted and have a reason to get together during the quarantine period.

- Cheeseboards for our sponsors arrived, both international and local (as we had sponsors from the US who supposedly weren't going to make it)

- On May 16-31, Metro Manila was placed under MECQ and we were still unable to plan for our intimate wedding. It was also announced by the CBCP that weddings will only be allowed with a maximum of 10 attendees for the rest of the year. More sad news!

We honestly lost all our enthusiasm to plan for our wedding as everything was so uncertain and we weren’t sure when it could actually happen. After hearing of some success stories, we started taking concrete steps to plan for an intimate wedding. The limited office hours of the local government units and church offices made it seem impossible to process all the necessary requirements in a timely manner.

GENERAL COMMUNITY QUARANTINE (June 1- June 30, 2020)

- File marriage license application on June 3 (on the third try given the limited office schedules and skeletal workforce) at Pasig City Hall. They only allow applications on MWF and pick ups on TTH from 8am-12pm. We even tried applying in Cavite, but they had the extra requirement of the family planning certificate, and that would've taken longer given the extra step (which wasn't required by Pasig). Pick up for the marriage license was on June 16 onwards.

- Pick up wedding rings (with May 1, 2020 engraving huhu!) and clean engagement ring - thank you J's Diamond!

- We decided to get married at my parish in Holy Family in Barangay Kapitolyo as we thought it would be more efficient, given their limited office hours (Tuesdays only from 10am-12pm). We submitted our requirements (including baptismal and confirmation certificates) together with the marriage license.

- Mid-June, we finally decided to move our "big" wedding to May 1, 2021. We wanted it to be an actual celebration - without having people think about sanitizing and social distancing the entire time. Plus, there were too many protocols and policies in place that would just mean "organized fun" haha. We are glad that our suppliers agreed to push the event back to next year!

- Buy intimate wedding gown from Ever New PH as they had really nice good quality dresses on sale!

- Pick up marriage banns for display at the groom's parish

- Finalize date one month before! Due to government policy we were only allowed to invite a handful of people!

- Book Sunday Morning Studios thanks to the Bride and Breakfast Deals Fest as well as postive feedback from friends! We were more than happy to have worked with Belle and Alyson to make our special day even more special!! The pictures are amazing!! (as you can see in this post)

- Purchase bridal jewellry at Lady Karat

- Order bridal mask from Shape Her (thank you to our Ninang)

GENERAL COMMUNITY QUARANTINE (July 1-31, 2020)

- Send out invites for the attendees (we were allowed a maximum number of 15 guests) and online call via Zoom

- Canonical interview with the priest and confession, return marriage banns, and process payment for the church

- Borrow veil, arrhae, cord, pillows from MOH and friends

- Order bouquet from Graciabelle Flower Shop - I wanted a simple bouquet with mainly just baby's breath

- Book Iya Gueco and Renzo Lusterio for HMUA - I knew it would be hot inside the church and so needed Airbrush powers! So happy with how my hair and makeup turned out as it looked so natural!!

- Book Airbnb within Ortigas for the preps (hotels weren't accepting guests yet and the others required rapid tests a few days before)

- Arrange for the small dinner at Bar Pintxos - thanks to one of the best men for this!

- Purchase and assemble the giveaways - face masks and alcohol in burlap pouches, with personalized note cards

- Online bridal shower by my MOHs - love you both Julia and Inez!!

- Order cake from Cake Rush

- Print sintra board (designed by the groom)

- Make copies of the missalette

- DIY centerpieces - dried flowers from a bouquet that Cy gave me for Valentines Day that I put inside wine bottles!

We didn't hire an on-the-day coordinator nor a videographer so the groom had to do a lot of legwork beforehand! Together with our entourage, they made sure that the cameras were in place and the Zoom call was arranged. We were also very grateful for the best men Bots and Chino for making sure everything was set for the small dinner and short program, and for providing us another wedding cake! Thanks also to one of my MOHs Inez for this "same day edit (SDE)"!

At the height of the pandemic, it was quite difficult to stay positive due to the constant changes in regulations and the uncertainty of everything. Eventually, we learned to accept the realities and stick to what’s important. At that point it was best not to have any expectations, let go, and be thankful! Our rings have been engraved with May 1, 2020 yet we decided to keep it that way as it tells a unique story and reminds us of the journey and learnings that came with planning for our wedding. It was unexpected and challenging but in the end, the experience allowed us to prove to ourselves how much we really wanted to be together. (To those who are wondering, our current set up is that we are alternating between Cy's and my parents' house every week! This is the compromise that we came up with - until we are able to move in to the condo. Unfortunately, we are still unable to renovate as the building does not allow it under GCQ.)

Although the actual marriage rites had been completed, we plan to still have the big celebration with our original suppliers in May 1, 2021 - hopeful that everything will be better by then. To the couples going through the same thing, just power through! I know how disheartening everything can be right now :( I completely understand!! But believe that you'll get through this together!! Marriage is about celebrating the union of 2 people. It doesn't need to be fancy to be special <3 just remember that love wins, always!

Check out a feature on our intimate GCQ wedding at Bride & Breakfast! :)

This post's INSPIRATION is on: love, positivty, and celebrating the simple joys of life!

#intimateweddings #lovewins #gcqweddings #loveinthetimeofcovid #cykimwedding #kimsayscydo