several months later

i've decided to check out this blog again, which i actually forgot existed.. tsk tsk only a few months later, well not such a few months.

so Lea's now 3 months pregnant. maybe the next time i blog i will have baby pictures. i dont't know. =)

everything just went by so fast. the australian honeymoon that we had was such a great blessing. and sometimes we can't help but look again at the pictures and videos and reminisce of the great time we had there. and a couple months from now, it will be our first wedding anniversary.

so many wonderful things have happened since that day, and this blog is just a great reminder for me how we all started preparing for that day which started the rest of our lives together.

*sigh*

looking forward to those baby pictures. =)

blogging from australia

Well that was the plan. =)

We just came back last night from australia. unfortunately, we were not able to access blogger from where we were staying, and it was too expensive to go out in the malls just to blog.

So we'll just recount our memories of what we did there and of course post some pictures along the way.

We are happy to be back. Australia was a dream that became a reality. And now it has become a dream again. We will cherish our memories there because of so many reasons but most of all because in God's love and grace He allowed us to experience our honeymoon there. And of course there were so many people that allowed it to happen. But since this is not an acceptance speech, I'm not going to list them here one by one. =)

So we're back! :-)

couple of days left...

it's 12:19 am. thursday. amidst all the wedding preparations, i finally decide to re-do the layout for this blog, so that it would at least be more presentable and somehow be more personal than the generic blog template that it used to have.

so, today is technically thursday. so we have friday and then the wedding.

whew! i can't believe one year's worth of planning still leaves us with a couple of days worth of stresss and cramming. but it's actually not that bad.

this evening we finally got around to checking out our rings. alas, they wouldn't fit the both of us. Lea still needs a .5 adjustment while mine needed to be 1 ring size larger. but it's okay, it should be ready by saturday.

we still haven't paid for our tickets to australia. but the good news is that we already have our visa, we already have a booking for july 5, and most importantly, we already have the money to pay for it. yey! now, the next thing we are hoping for is that we could get to Sydney fast enough so that we can still make it to the last days of the Hillsongs Conference.

we already paid for the caterer. i can't imagine that we are actually having 450 people for the wedding. well they better show up or there would be lots of food that will be taken home. but, i think we sent out invitations for 550 people, so i doubt if all the people that we've invited will come. we'll see.

the major challenge now, would be for the weather to cooperate with us. so far the rain hasn't been to hard and it hasn't been too long. so i'm hoping the weather stays this way or becomes better by saturday afternoon until evening.

since Tita Emily and Tanya came over from Australie for the wedding, Lea and I have almost been with them. And that means non-stop eating. i think Lea and I are the few couples that have to worry about eating too much before the wedding. And to think we've already passed up two dinner dates already. it's insane how much food we've taken in and how much food there is still left in the fridge.

I'm thankful that these past couple of days although very tiring aren't as stressful as last week. It's a really big help for me to not be thinking too much about church-related stuff. otherwise, i probably wouldn't be able to concetrate on the wedding. and that would really be stressful! so it's a good thing that they allowed me to take my vacation leave as early as this tuesday.

I wouldn't be able to function well anyway and I probably wouldn't be productive at church, so it's better that i took an early vacation.

i don't know if i can but i'll try to blog again. hmm, maybe i can blog from the bellevue. =)

Seasons Of Love

One of the songs included in our Wedding Album Collection

invitations and visa

it's official, we are sending out 200 wedding invitations. and they will be almost exactly like the one that one of Lea's friends made. hehe. i think our creativity juices have been drained already.
We hope to get them out by saturday, that's june 16. and send them out by june 17.

we sent the last batch visa requirements through DHL yesterday. and since it's a holiday today, it's going to be submitted to the aussie embassy tomorrow.

we're finalizing our guest list right now. so far we have around 115 invitations for 400++ people.
how many people will come on the wedding day we are still not sure though.

food tasting and gown fitting

amidst the election jitters and feeling like life stopping for most of us, including the church. it really was hard to talk about something other than the election during the past week in church. the people seemed to have these blinders where all they could talk about mostly was the election.. what does this have to do with the wedding?

well, simply with all the pressure that we were getting, it just came to the point when Lea and I talked about the wedding preparation as a way to release tension. now have you ever imagined that happening? talking about the wedding preps to relieve stress. that must have been a first.

anyway, finally after a small boo-boo on my part, i was able to sign my passport and erick managed to drop by last friday at coffee bean just to have me sign the passport, which was the only thing hindering me from finally getting my visa. so we are just awaiting the 5 to 7 working days that they said before we can have our visa finally. the next order of business is getting the other half of the amount we need to buy two round trip tickets to Australia for the honeymoon. we really don't have enough money yet. but we believe God will provide.

this afternoon, after some hesitancy on my part the other day (because of potential schedule conflicts) we managed to have Raymond join us for the taste testing at queensland. it was great to have free meriena/dinner. and of course with Raymond in tow, he was able to find out the several details of our wedding package that we still needed to prepare or haggle with the caterer. The food tasted great as usual, so we just have to hope that they continue to be consistent in serving up good food.

Lea also managed to find time to have her first fitting for her wedding gown, while Raymond and I talked about ministry and politics over at seattle's.

It was a great day. We were both happy to have done something tangible again for the wedding. And it was great to be reminded that we are indeed gettting married, and were able to enjoy the preparations once again.

oh and btw, last friday we also were able to come to terms with the florist and were able to give the down payment already. we managed to fit in going to Frances' house and welcome her Sis' newborn baby arrive at their house. She also treated us to this new pastry place at Katipunan called Banapple. The cakes were great. yum!

visa application

planning for a wedding can already be a stressful task, but when you add preparing for a honeymoon to australia to that load, it can sometimes be a little bit too much. of course, it's not exactly the worst problem to have, but then again, there are just some times, altough they are brief, when i think if all these additional stressors are worth it. and of course i remind myself that the benefits outweigh the extra work we have to do right now.

for instance, i had to go to los banos last monday just to get a bank statement and bank certification for the visa application. and that's all i did. usually, i don't want to go to lb for just one thing, i think it's such a long way off for me to do just one thing there. but hey, this is one of those times that i have to do it.

so finally, we are going to meet ate weng this thursday. hopefully all the documents that she needs will be there and after a week or two at the most, we shall have our visa finally. after that, it's just a matter of getting the money to pay for the plane ticket.