Nanie Susan's surprise

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1Ozb4NLRvA
Our ninang, Nanie Susan (Melvin's aunt) surprised us with this performance. She handed out lyrics of Kahit Maputi na ang Buhok ko so that the guests can join her in singing. :-)

This I Promis You video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZlrDzOkTQY
- Aileen's video of the performance by Kuya Dodie and Uncle Reynold

We asked kuya Dodie (hubby of ate Ian the host) to sing and Uncle Reynold (hubby of my aunt) to play this song for the wedding. This is another side story on how our families made our wedding day really special. Kuya Dodie is from Melvin's side of the family and Uncle Reynold is from mine. They only met at the wedding and practiced separately. But it was still awesome. =) We're so lucky to have really talented and thoughtful family.

Chipangang Kumunoy Band's first concert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcZ8fVOwvwk
- mga trying hard na maging rock stars. haha!
- our version of Life by YUI. a song from the anime, Bleach
- ena on vocals, na2r on guitars, kuya Duke on bass, AC on drums, Ishy on the side

Pictures By Jen

http://mamajeng.multiply.com/photos/album/14/Anna_Melvins_Wedding
pics from our wedding taken by our friend, Jen.

The Day I Turned Into Mrs. Melvin De Guzman...

We finally did it! I’m now officially Mrs. Melvin Joey De Guzman...or should I say, na2r’s now Mr. Anna Dayot? Bwehehe!

Anyway, our wedding story is somewhat different than the usual and at the same time full of the same normal wedding tales. For starters, I was never into the whole wedding hoopla from the beginning. I never had my grand wedding dream when I was just a little girl. I haven’t a slightest idea what wedding do I want. I was naive to think I can invite only 60 people to a wedding. And my only wish for the wedding is to have a great party. That’s not too much ask, right? But boy was I wrong. Having those “requirements” need a lot of hard work and patience. And I would vouch that all those who’ve planned for a wedding would agree.

Having no expectations of what I really want proved to be both a hindrance and a blessing. It’s hard for me to decide on things and I would just mostly rely on the people around – mostly Melvin. There was a point when they told me that I should have the last say on a decision since I’m the bride. Okay payn... I need to channel my bride-to-be mode. Also, it was a blessing since I really don't have any expectations so I can just go with the flow.

With only three months of planning, it was an organized chaos for us. We didn’t hire a wedding planner, so we just did most of the errands ourselves. We relied on our family and friend’s help for other stuffs and we’re very thankful to have a full support system. It wasn’t easy having little baby bunny either. We had to juggle going to the OB and the modista, church, venue, etc in one day. We worked on wedding stuffs only on weekends since the weekdays proved to be all work and no play for us (well, most of the time...if we have time for play, it wasn’t to plan for a wedding. Haha! )

We had our priorities, and one of them is to not hire a professional photographer/videographer.  I’m very happy and thankful to have friends like Mike Ong and Sonny who immediately said yes when I asked them to help in the pixies. It was Sonny’s first time to cover a wedding and we baptized him. (Sonny kapag yumaman ka sa pagwewedding photographer, huwag mo kaming kakalimutan ha! ) We wanted to buy a Sony HD camcorder since summer and decided that this is a great opportunity to do it (excuse to splurge on another gadget. Hehe!) So we bought the SR-11, which costs us almost the same as hiring a pro photographer but we thought “forever naman ito, hindi pang-isang araw lang” hehehe. In the end, we were really happy to work with Mikez and Sonny. And I hope they did too.

Of course our biggest priority is having a great party. We just wanted to have fun and for people to enjoy our wedding as well. Again, being the DIY people that we are, we just hired band instruments and decided that we’d play in the reception ourselves. We’ve always wanted to play YUI’s song, Life. Since it’s our day, people had no choice but to listen. Haha! Although there are those, I think, that opted to go home. Hahahaha! We practiced really hard for this and devoted time for the debut of Chipangang Kumunoy. We had a blast! I do love too how ate Ian worked the crowd and really upped the fun level of the party. Thanks, ate Ian!

The biggest bloopers – slash – disasters of the wedding happened in the church. Our wedding is early, as in the first wedding of the day (on a side note: thanks to those who woke up really early to attend ) The church “coordinator” always was telling us to be at the church 30 minutes prior to the ceremony. Melvin and his entourage (the guys) were there at around 8:15. Hindi naman kasi sila excited. But there was no “coordinator” that met him. He had to run to the church and the parish office back and forth to find kuya Daniel. Kuya Daniel kept telling us before that they would assist us in the church, give out instructions to the secondary sponsors, etc. But when he finally showed up, he just told the entourage to line up and then left to attend some matters; which happened to be being the priest’s attendant as well. I was there at 9am (I was planning on being there at 8:30, but good thing I didn't since my makeup would’ve melted by the time they started the ceremony) and they started at 9:30. Not our fault, since we were there on time. Which brings me to the next blooper. Our officiating priest “forgot” that he’s doing a wedding. I’m not sure how the parish office works but they didn’t even have the effort to remind their priest. And to think that he’s just living at Sto. Domingo and left minutes before our wedding! I think that’s the reason why we started late. They had to find a replacement at the last minute. It turned out okay though since the priest that wed us, although bummer that he didn’t actually know us, had a really nice and funny homily and I think he did a pretty well good job with so little time to prepare. And then the last part of the church saga was the choir. If you were there last Saturday you’re probably thinking “anong choir itong sinasabi ni ena?” And you’re right. Anong choir? Asan ang choir? WALA!!!  We paid for a choir to sing at the mass and there wasn’t any. Sige lang, keri lang. Tawa na lang kami... at hihingi ng refund! Haha!

There were other stories on the side but it just added spice to the entire wedding. It wasn’t the perfect wedding but it was truly OUR wedding. Full of laughs and comedic moments at the church and at the reception,  but that’s just us. I would never have wanted it any other way. 

Marrying the man that I love is the greatest blessing that I have in my life. That is perfect enough for me.

Some people just don't get it...

Or even respect what WE want.

It's so frustrating how at the last minute they seem to just turn and hit us right in the face.

No matter how much we explain, they just don't want to understand.

And it's coming from the people who WE expect to understand us in the first place.


Thank God for all the other people who at least get us and are there to support us. Thank you! You know who you are.

12 days of Christmas

I've been wanting to blog about our wedding preps but with everything that's been happening with the preps, baby blues and work stress... the most I can do is open my multiply and click Add new blog entry. Then close the window.

And so.. we're down to just twelve days before the "BIG" day but I won't dive into the details of the planning anymore. I'll just share our suppliers because I found this really useful while I was searching for our own. Who knows, it may even be useful for other future brides-to-be.

Sto. Domingo Parish Church

537 Quezon Avenue, Quezon city
Telephone: 743-7756 / 743-2124
Contact Person: Daniel Yebra

Betty's Place

101 M. Cuenco St.,
Sto. Domingo, Quezon City
Telephone: 712-1752
Contact Person: Grace Reyes

Imperial Palace Suites

Timog Avenue cor. Tomas Morato Avenue,
Quezon City
Telephone: 927-8001
Website: http://www.imperial.ph/

Suarez Wedding Rings

2nd Level, West Mall, SM City North Edsa
Quezon City
Telephone: 920-8610
Website: www.suarezweddingrings.com

Michael Ong and Sonny Sacedor Photography

Perfect Sizes
(for the bridal and entourage gowns and men's suits)

(E) 6 K-4th St. Kamuning, Quezon City
Telephone: 497-7570
Contact Person: Jheng Dinglasan

Top Cakes

Telephone: 412-3179
Website: http://topcakes.multiply.com/
Contact Person: Mary Ann Cuenca

Band and Sound System by Marvin Panilan

Studio 31
31 Palawan St., Bago Bantay
Quezon City
Telephone: 456-2097
Contact Person: Marvin Panilan

Notes and Flowers

1607 Laong-Laan St.,
Sampaloc, Manila
Telephone: 480-3991
Website: http://www.notesandflowers.com/
Contact Person: Tes Alparas

Hmmm, that's it for now... I'll try to update na lang soon... and will blog about their performance come Day 0.