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It was Dan's birthday last saturday :) The Santoses and Arboledas headed off to MOA since we made reservations for dinner at Via Mare. The restaurant was at a row which had a view of Manila Bay. The buffet was set up there (a lot of other restos had the same arrangements) and we were front and center of the show :) It was China vs. France (or Germany?) Anyway, it was awesome. It rained hard for about 30 minutes but the fireworks went off as planned. People were cheering and clapping all throughout the show and we were all awed by the spectacle. We were all kids again, even if it was just for two hours :)
when dan and i booked santuario de san jose, we set out to look for reception areas nearby so that our guests wouldn't have to travel far (knowing how traffic can be terrible in ortigas on the weekends). we purposefully avoided hotels, knowing how stuffy hotel receptions can be. hotel food has always been a hit or miss with us as well. so one of the first places dan and i went to was the wack-wack golf and country club. however, wwgc only had 2 accredited caterers, which meant that we were stuck with their caterers both of whom were pricey (VS&F and the Plaza). so dan and i went around, even going to bramante (renaissance towers) which depressed us because that condo building is in a serious state of disrepair! we imagined our guests going up the flight of stairs (the elevators then were broken) and seeing the torn-off ceiling boards and water stained walls leading to the pool area, with plants that were barely alive :(. haay! i told dan that maybe we should check out crowne, it was a fairly new hotel and if it still didn't work out, we could always go to the nearby galleria to console ourselves with some cinnabon :)
when we went up to crowne, there was a reception being set-up and we saw the ballroom! it was the right size to accommodate our targeted numer of guests (220 max then, which went up to 300, then 320 on the wedding day itself!). it didn't have any dark wood, it had a foyer for cocktails, it was modern and new. dan liked it right away!
so, we went to cinnabon, did a cost-benefit analysis of renting a pavillion at wwgc and ballroom a at crowne and they both came out the same! the benefit of booking a hotel reception too is that there are a lot of inclusions like the cake, bridal car, rooms, etc. plus, annav, one of my maid of honors who used to work in the food industry assured us that the food would be wonderful. friends who attended events at crowne also told us that they really loved the food there. if there was one non-negotiable for our reception, it would be the food.we wanted our guests to enjoy the food, sayang naman ang bayad if the food would just be bland and unexciting.
crowne and our AE, sanna lopez met our expectations. but, it really really helps to have a coordinator to set things straight, especially during the day of the wedding. first, dindi found out that the tables were being set up for 10 people well in fact, we arranged it for 12. dindi got on top of it and so was able to fix this right away. second, we were supposed to have a confetti shower for our first dance as part of crowne's wedding package. it was a new inclusion and we found out about it a week before our wedding. we opted for the shower but on the day itself, susanna apparently forgot to inform the supplier. the supplier was still in wack-wack when dan and i were about to make our grand entrance (our first dance was after our grand entrance). but que cera cera, it was not part of the plan anyway. dindi made do with her large poppers na lang for our grand entrance hehe. thank god for dndc :)
we kept our program short. we hired missy ferrer-litao to emcee to keep the pace of the program. we originally thought of having friends host the program but we wanted them to enjoy our reception as guests. we had two AVPs, one by shierdan and one by mimi + karl. we didn't have other AVPs anymore. honestly, i thought that having two was already being self-indulgent :P speeches were given by our best man (with an interpretative dance), our maid of honor, my dad, dan's parents and my tito lito (representing the limbagas). we said our thank yous after mimi and karl's AVP was shown and it was party time right after :D
we left at 1 a.m. and bid our goodbyes to dan's manresa friends who were still finishing up a bottle of chivas regal :P we were really tired at the end of the day but we were in bliss. after one year of preps and worrying, we were finally married!
dan and i had several non-negotiables when we were planning our wedding. one was that our church and reception be in the middle of quezon city (i live in tandang sora) and paranaque (dan lives in tahanan). the ortigas area was a pretty good compromise and i knew of several churches there that we could look into. exactly a week after dan proposed, we went to santuario de san jose in east greenhills. i knew this church as i attended masses with my family here when i was a kid. i still remember their old and kind irish parish priest who has since passed on. i love this church for its altar and its stained glass windows. it was also just the right size.
the agenda for the day was to visit this church and mary the queen. when dan saw santuario though he made the decision to book the church then and there. we paid 5k for the deposit and a church for our union was thus booked :)
on the day itself, the wedding before us took forever to finish and ate into some of our time. i actually dozed off inside the limo as i was waiting for them to finish. while waiting, i saw dennis, ayoy, jsan and philip. i saw our ninongs, family and friends who made the effort to set aside their saturday to be with me and dan.
then the driver moved the limo to the front of the church. i saw the entourage lined up and saw dan milling around with all our other friends. mackie, ina, joanne, bles, anna and taps came up to me to wish me well and it was wonderful to see them! mimi went inside the limo to take some shots and we chatted about the movie, 27 dresses hehe.
then arlene from dindi's team came up to the car to tell me that "it was time". i screamed! i literally screamed AAAAAH! hahaha! it was an unbelievable feeling. i went outside the car and saw kitty, ton, karla and jeff outside. they were taking pics and were telling me not to cry! so of course on cue, hot tears started to well up in my eyes! i had to stomp my feet and tell myself "don't cry don't cry don't cry!", which actually worked! hahaha!
i went up to the door and i heard hangad's rendition of pananatili. another non-negotiable for me was to have a choir for the wedding. i grew up in katipunan and singing jesuit-penned liturgical songs were the norm for me and ej. so hangad was THE choice for me and my brother. ej gladly gifted us with them (ej! you're the best!). ironically though, i didn't hear much of hangad's pananatili when the doors opened, all i could hear was the beating of my own heart. it was sooo loud! i kept thinking to myself to not cry so i wouldn't do that ugly half-smile and half-cry that would look horrible in pictures.i was looking at everyone and i was looking for dan at the same time. then i walked up to my parents. it was surreal! dad told me "o sige dahan dahan, dahan dahan" aaargh, it was unbelievable that i didn't cry at that point. i felt i was walking on air though! i felt i was floating! it was all unbelievable! and then i saw dan...i walked up to him and he asked me, "ready?!" i said, "yep, this is it!"
i think i only slept for 5 hours and i woke up as soon as my alarm went off. i was trying to figure out whether i was feeling nervous but i wasn't. i remember feeling very anxious though. i was nervous that things may not go as planned but i had to let go as i wanted to enjoy the day. so i took a deep breath and exhaled all my worries away.
michelle, anna, kyra and ira were there with me (they spent the night with me at the hotel) and they made me laugh and kept me sane. anna, having been married a month before me knew what was needed to be done and thank god for her help and advice.
the first text that i got was from ej litiatco, our 2nd make-up artist, she set-up shop in ate sheila's room and everyone who needed to be done either went to her or to chichi. chichi was the 2nd to arrive, then dindi, then shierdan then mimi and karl. it was all just a blur, but i remember feeling absolutely happy. i was surrounded by family and great friends (whom i also consider family) and i knew at the end of the day i'd be marrying dan wally, the yin to my yang :)
these are pics taken by mimi and karl during our preparations. we were all squeezed in at room 1113 of Crowne Plaza's executive suite. we were all laughing and singing "panakip-butas" and chatting away like excited little chipmunks. chichi said this was one of her most fun preps ever. dindi's team couldn't believe how noisy we were also haha :D but once in a while i'd look around the room thinking how lucky dan and i were to have all these people working with us to bring our union to fruition. and then i snap out of it. the day was turning to be overwhelming and i was trying not to cry hehehe. i didn't want to ruin chichi's make-up haha!
It's been almost a week after the wedding but Dan and I have yet to really recover and we both still feel really tired (oist get your minds out of the gutter! haha!). I still can't believe I'm married. The reality has yet to sink in. Nakakalimutan ko pa rin isuot wedding ring ko whenever I have to go out, sa bahay kasi di naman namin suot yung rings. Dan and I have also been exhausted, having to live out of our overnight bags since Feb. 1 and shuffling between hotels, QC and Paranaque. Syempre Feb 1 asa Crowne kami, then Feb 3, I was at Tahanan, then Feb. 4-6 saw us cocooned at the Manila Pen. Mom booked us a room there as our house in QC was filled to the rafters with the crazy Arboledas (who are on a roundtrip chika tour of the Philippines as we speak). We went out on our last day of stay at the Pen to have lunch at via Mare and check out Greenbelt 5. I passed by Kiehl's to buy lotion and one of the attendants there asked me to fill out a card. As my usual practice, I wrote down, Neva Adelane L. Arboleda and then I quickly added "Santos". My whole name filled the top third of the card! hahaha! It was weird seeing my name like that. It's just so me though that this supposedly special event is connected to shopping :P
Haay Feb 2 went by so fast. I couldn't remember anything really except that Dan and I both felt really honored and really loved as we saw all our friends and family in one place celebrating our union together. But still, thank God for friends who blog and for friends with digicams. As I wait for Mimi + Karl's official pics, here's some pics from EJ, Mackie, Ben, Shei, Laurene, Mariel, Ali, Anna Asuncion and Kate (sana wala akong nalimutan hehe thanks guys for letting me grab the pics)
At the church:
At the reception:
Our pics from Fotoloco, Konsepto's Photobooth (backstory of my photobooth chenelyn is found here)
Also, Karl was experimenting with a new camera during our wedding. Grabe ang liit nung camera! I actually thought it was like a lomo camera (ano ba naman ang alam ko diba, I couldn't even operate the timer on my own digicam to save my life!) but no, it was a newfangled point and shoot cam daw that has the qualities of a basic dlsr...haaay basta, take a look at his pics na lang kasi ang galing! As I posted in their blog, it's not the equipment really but the talent behind the lens. Iba talaga sina Mimi and Karl. Dan and I really invested in our wedding pics and the returns have been nothing but wonderful!
Here's the link to Karl's post and some pics of the wedding:
Ben did a very gracious and very thoughtful wedding edition of his "whee of the week!". Thanks Ben talaga, it was really heartwarming (as in nakakainit ng taba na nakabalot sa aming puso! hehehe). Anna Asuncion also posted a blow-by-blow account of the big the day in her blog: http://bluelawbyanna.blogspot.com/2008/02/neva-and-dans-big-day.html
Haay maraming maraming salamat sa inyong lahat sa pagdalo at pakikisalo! Mwah!! Si Osang naman sunod! Hehehe =D
I was on leave when the standoff happened and watched everything unfold on TV. For the whole day, I was texting and calling my team, friends, Dad and Ej who were all stuck in Makati when it all came down. I was checking my office emails where people were updating everyone on what was happening. At first I scoffed at what was happening but hearing the gunshots on TV made me immediately call Dan. My hands were shaking and I felt a pit form in my stomach. Dan answered and I caught myself getting emotional. I stopped myself from crying and told him that shots were being fired. I heard Dan telling his team not to go out of the building yet. I tried calling Dad and EJ after but the network was busy and I never got through. Thank God for SMS.
Seeing the troops on tv, the tanks on the street and hearing the shots being fired made me remember the time when my family still lived at 11th ave in Cubao when the country's bloodiest coup attempt happened. We lived just a block away from Camp Aguinaldo and I saw the blazing fire that was raging in one of the buildings in the camp. I remember feeling confused and panicked and my parents telling us to throw our clothes on top of our bed and to use the sheets to wrap them up. There was no time for us to get our bags, we needed to get out right away. Then we heard a knock on our front gate. It was a soldier telling us to evacuate. My mom gave him a rosary and asked him to be safe. My dad drove us to Diliman where we stayed at the AIT Hotel. I felt safe but it felt artificial. I was in grade school then. I didn't know what was happening but I was scared and I wanted it to end.
The coup did end and we went back to our house. There were still soldiers in our block. My mom made corned beef sandwiches and coffee and gave them to the weary men who were patrolling our streets. She thanked them for knocking on our gate that night to evacuate our house. The soldier told him that there were no government troops who were deployed in our streets that night. We realized that it was a rebel soldier who asked us to leave.
No one wins when this happens. We all lose. We are all hurt. I pray that we all get through this peacefully as a nation. I'm not sure what's going to happen next. My biggest fear is that the standoff might be enough of a reason for the current administration to declare martial law. I'll be married in a few months and hopefully Dan and I will be raising a family soon after that. I don't want this for my kids. I don't want them wrapping their clothes up in their bedsheets in a panic and us driving off somewhere never knowing when we'll get home soon.
Be safe everyone.
For the complete coverage of the standoff click here: GMA NEWS
The official "badness" of my day started out when at 1 a.m., when I was just about to press save for the last shortform that I was doing when our DSL connection went *pfft!* I couldn't connect to the Ashburn VPN, I couldn't refresh aceweb, haaay! our line went dead (PLDT DSL --> *boo!!*). So, I just continued doing the analysis in MS Word so that I can just paste the whole analysis onto aceweb in the morning. I slept at around 1:30 a.m. dead tired.
The alarm in my phone rang, it was 6:20 a.m. I rushed to my bathroom, took a quick shower, threw on some clothes, packed my breakfast -- mom's schublig sandwiches -- and went to the garage. EJ asked me to back the Revo out of the garage.
*BOOM!* I backed into our neighbor's car. Honestly, I thought I hit our village's garbage can but nope, I hit our neighbor's 1980s Mitsubishi Colt. I got out of the AUV, waited for EJ and we both sincerely apologized to our neighbor. We promptly told him that we'll pay for the damages as soon as he gets them estimated. I admitted my mistake and again apologized because there was really no use arguing. I bumped his fender and broke his signal light. Haay was I wrong to assume that our neighbor would be neighborly.
keerraash...
What EJ and I got was a judgmental man who kept saying, "Whether you like it or not, I'll have my car fixed!!!" Uhhh manong, why wouldn't we want your car fixed? He also pointed to our house then asked if we lived there (no we're just boarders, we kiss the lady that sends us off because we're weird that way) and told us, "I just spent Php 50,000 repainting our car!" I raised my eyebrows then because hello, if he really did pay that much for his car's paint job, he got screwed.
50,000? really?
Ok so I admitted my mistake, and I told him AGAIN that we'd pay for the damages, no questions asked. EJ,bless his heart, was doing most of the talking by then because but the old man kept mouthing off that "whether we pay for it or not he WILL have his car fixed". So EJ told him that he shouldn't worry about us running off because first of all, he knows where we live and second we already told him we'll pay! But nope, he wasn't finished with us. At one point in his monologue, he ordered us to have the car fixed ourselves and threw the car key at us. Yes, he did that. EJ and I just watched the key fall to the ground, near the drain -- too bad it didn't fall in the drain =p EJ told him, "I'm not going to pick that up''. I had to ask why he was raising his voice at us and what is it that we were doing that was getting him madder by the minute. It was then that my mom came out of our house and asked him to not make a big thing of what happened and for us to settle the accident like good neighbors. He then told us three, "You know I can be a bad neighbor" to which I replied out loud, "You already are!" Haay...
But it doesn't end there folks for when I got my camera to take pics of the damages, the old man freaked out!! He asked me why I was taking pictures and if I was planning to report this to the police. I told him as calmly as I could that I just need to document what happened for insurance purposes and to also protect our interests since we'd be paying for the repairs. As expected, he flipped! He shouted, "So you think you're the only one who can take pictures?? I!I!I!can take YOUR picture!!" He then went inside his house to get his dinky camera. Our other neighbor who was watching the whole thing, called out to me and motioned me to come to their gate. He told me to not mind the old man and to not pay a cent. His exact words were "Ipaglaban mo!" (Fight for your right!) I got the feeling he wasn't fond of ole grumpy. When the old man came out, do you know what he first did? He took pictures of ME! ! He then took pictures of our house, the road and of me and EJ driving away!
I smiled. Seriously.
Before we left, I gave him my calling card and wrote down my mobile and our home phone number so that he can contact me when he's got his estimates ready. He looked at my card and smugly said "Oh, so you're just a manager.." I didn't hear that comment though, my mom did. Haay! If he does think me of as just a manager then he should know that I can't afford his 50k paint job! He then told me, "You know, you're not the only one who has a card!!" (naman...) and gave me this:
Ernesto S. Raval, CPA - Lawyer, Assistant Director - Ret, Central Bank of the Philippines... who knew??? Geez, you'd think a man like him would be more civil, to say the least.
Mr. Raval, I understand the hassle and the expense of having a car fixed but that doesn't give you the right to talk down to us and throw your grimy car key at us. You know, if you were kinder and more understanding, I would've gone straight to your house after work and asked you right away about your car. But no, bastos ka, binastos mo kami. You didn't even acknowledge my mom and talked to her as an adult. You lumped us three and bombarded us with your incomprehensible arguments. Please Mr. Raval, don't threaten us how you could be a bad neighbor, we know you already are--and we don't really care. (Sabay sumbong kay Dan! haha)
EJ - thanks for being there and for talking sense to the rude neighbor and most especially for making me laugh about the whole thing on our way to Makati even if you were already 2 hours late for work wattaguy!
ceremony: shrine of jesus reception: emerald garden, roxas blvd.
johann matthew was the big kahuna last saturday (7/28/07) as his family and 20 ninongs and ninangs celebrated his entry into the catholic world. nakataas ang buhok ni mokong e, kala namin nake-gel, oil lang pala hehe. see you again johann!
wattaguy! 
