Wedding Diva? Maybe just a little.

I thought it would be a good idea if before I start throwing tips and suggestions at you, you knew a little about myself first. I mean, how can you trust someone with your wedding planning if you don't know who they are??

Well, to start even before that, I met my husband when I was 19 at Indiana University. After we graduated, we did a year of long distance while I went back home to Chicago to pursue my MFA and he stayed in Indianapolis to purse his MS. After his program was done, he moved to Chicago, and he's been living here ever since. Surprising to most people, we took a few years to "get to know ourselves", and it wasn't until we were 26 that we got engaged... that's 7 years after being together! Seems long, but when you start dating at 19, it's just what seemed right :)

Before I go on, I think I need to clarify that I am not a girlie-girl... like at all. But when it came to my wedding... wow! you would have thought I was a completely different person! My wedding was when I pulled out all the stops to make myself a princess for my special day.

So now to the fun stuff! After we got engaged, I pretty spent every single day for the next 1.5 years planning the best wedding I could for my husband and myself. I am Filipino, and if you know anything about Filipino weddings, they are MASSIVE. We invited 310 people, and about 230 came - and yes, we were close with almost all of them except for maybe 5 or 10 people that my Mom made me invite. In Filipino fashion, I had 18 bridesmaids/groomsmen, 20 Primary sponsors, 6 Secondary sponsors, 4 readers, 6 ushers, 3 flower girls, 1 ring bearer, 1 coin bearer and 1 Bible bearer.

As you can imagine, the planning for this wedding was extremely intense... but I had a BLAST doing it! And honestly, I would jump to the chance to do it all again! And the best thing about it? I totally kept my costs down as much as possible. Ohhh that's what you've been waiting to hear! Don't worry, I will get into costs often, as this is 98% of the time, a huge factor when planning a wedding. 

Now I am 30 years old, married for over 2.5 years, 1st time home owners in the suburbs since this past June, no kids yet, but parents to 2 very funny looking dogs. 

St. Giles Catholic Church, Oak Park, IL

So now that you know a little bit about my wedding experience, I hope to help you with yours! Please come back often as I will update my blog with as much useful stuff as I can.

Happy Planning!