A Date With The Wedding Planner - Day 1It sure is hot in the Philippines during summer. Nevertheless, I've enjoyed every minute of my short vacation. Met a lot of friends, caught up with family matters, stories and issues, and of course, spent time working on our wedding preparations.
A couple of days before my vacation, Cha and I agreed on spending 2 whole days together for planning and bonding time (",). The activities were not well planned but the most important tasks to be done during those two days were 1.) conduct an occular with cha at the wedding and reception sites, 2.) food tasting courtesy of our chosen caterer, and lastly 3.) measurement taking for my barong.
Day 1 with Cha covered the first two tasks. We had a sort of a fun (or should I use the term funny instead) trip on our way to the occular site. We took a wrong turn and ended up passing by Tagaytay to get to Silang Cavite. ^_^;; I'm really not that inclined to observe and memorize the roads I pass especially if I'm just a passenger at the backseat. That day I learned my lesson.
Visiting La Salette for the 2nd time, our first target was the chapel. When we set foot inside, the first thing I noticed was Cha going into her own private world.....walking slowly and looking at all the details of the chapel as if calculating something. As to be expected, she was already compiling mental images of the wedding ceremony. If you don't know or haven't noticed through the pictures, The La Salette chapel has a unique shape. Cha already envisioned the entrance of the entourage as well as Mel's grand entrance too. It's going to be dramatic though a bit challenging for our photographers. ^_^ (Wanna see how it turns out? Better be present during our wedding. :-D)
Chapel done, we went to see Sister Mirna to inquire about the possible rooms that we could use to stay the night before the wedding. We have the option of staying at some hotel in Tagaytay but Fr. Sal (Mel's uncle) offered that we could use the rooms they have that is usually utilized for retreats. So we went and took a peek to see if the rooms were adequate for a bride to be on the night before her wedding. Of course with her make-up artists, photographers and all. It should also be good enough for the groom but since the bride's requirements are almost always higher than the groom's.....hehehe ^_^. Investigation results : the rooms in the Jubilee Center building are good enough based on my (and Cha's) opinion. It'll still be all upto Mel's decision though once she sees the pictures.
Next is the reception site. One look at the Pilgrimage Center (gymnasium type building), Cha said there's no way we're going to have the reception in there. ^_^;; Well, she didn't actually say that straight to my face but I kinda felt she would have said that if we were good buddies. Hehe, she made do with changing the topic to "sayang naman, nasa garden na tayo tapos gymnasium reception yung gagawin", hehehe.
So there we go, instead of sticking with the original plan of having the wedding around lunch time and staying under the shade of the Pilgrimage Center during the reception, we moved the time of the wedding to 4 pm. ^_^ And now we have a garden reception to look forward too. Yep, can't wait to see how it turns out. La Salette does have impressively vast and fairly beautiful grounds.
Moving on, we went back to Bicutan and met with my Mom and my younger brother before going to the food tasting place. It took some minutes to prepare the presentation and the food so I had some time to take pictures of the sample arrangements of tables and decors offerred by Mrs. Cortes and co. (our caterer for the wedding).
I was expecting to have a taste of all the offered dishes in their menu. It was a bit discouraging when I learned that that was not the general case during food tastings. In any case, the food we were served with were great. For a rating from A to E A being the highest, I'll give it a B. The Oriental buttered chicken and Roast Beef Tips with some sort of gravy tasted really good. What worries me is that my younger brother made a remark that the food tasted like my Mom's cooking. So it's either my mom can really cook restaurant quality dishes, or the opposite which means.......anyway, I just hope it's the latter. Haha! ^_^;;
