Our wedding rings!

N and I met up at a bookstore where I bought a handy-dandy map of Manila (very useful, I tell you!). We outlined our route, went off, and hit about 75% of the list.

I *heart* this map.

Click here if you want to go directly to find out our choice.

The Itinerary:

• Santuario de San Jose, Greenhills, San Juan
• Santuario de San Antonio, Forbes Park, Taguig
• National Shrine of Sacred Heart of Jesus, Makati
• San Sebastian Church, Manila
• San Agustin Church, Intramuros, Manila
• Manila Cathedral, Intramuros, Manila

Our first stop was Santuario de San Jose, by virtue of proximity to my and N‘s meeting place. I liked that it was in a private, posh village, but I wasn’t impressed with both its interior and exterior. On the plus side, it’s air-conditioned and it was located in the middle of Metro Manila. If M‘s preferred reception venue had been available, we probably would’ve booked it.

Santuario de San Jose, exterior. Photo taken from Blissful-Weddings.com

Santuario de San Jose, altar. Photo taken from Blissful-Weddings.com

M & T‘s first choice was really Sanctuario de San Antonio parish in Forbes Park. The location was posh, the church was air-conditioned, both interiors and exterior was nice, and lots of good reception venues nearby. If they didn’t block weekends exclusively for parishioners, we would’ve booked this church straight away.

Santuario de San Antonio, exterior. Photo c/o John Mateos Ong and Blissful-Weddings.com

Santuario de San Antonio, altar. Photo c/o John Mateos Ong and Blissful-Weddings.com

Our next stop was a discovery from Blissful-Weddings.com: National Shrine of Sacred Heart of Jesus. The exterior was so-so, but the altar looked impressive in the photos. Too bad we chanced upon it when a Mass was ongoing, so it rather put us off.

National Shrine of Sacred Heart of Jesus, exterior. Photo taken from Blissful-Weddings.com

National Shrine of Sacred Heart of Jesus, interior. Photo taken from Blissful-Weddings.com

After that, we were off to Manila city. We dropped by San Sebastian first. The location was not the most ideal, but I must say, the interiors really caught me by surprise! Jaw-dropping! The down-side: limited parking spaces and no a/c.

San Sebastian church, exterior. Photo taken from Blissful-Weddings.com

San Sebastian, interior. Photo taken from http://heritageconservation.wordpress.com/

After that, we were off to the walled city, Intramuros. Unfortunately, both churches were already closed at the time.

San Agustin Church was where a couple of my aunts got married. It’s historic and definitely grand. But I wasn’t quite sold and honestly, I don’t know why.

San Agustin church, exterior. Photo taken from http://www.sarangenge.com/

San Agustin church, altar. Photo taken from http://www.sarangenge.com

M & I also considered Manila Cathedral primarily because it had a/c. I also loved the exterior, but I wasn’t quite impressed with the interior.

Manila Cathedral, exterior. Photo taken from http://www.weddinginthesky.com/weddingblog

Manila Cathedral, interior. Photo taken from http://manila-photos.blogspot.com

The Decision

In the end, we booked San Sebastian Church. It was lovely and unique. I loved the ceiling, the chandeliers, the stained glass, and most importantly, the altar. When I entered the church, I had “a moment”. There’s nothing like that “moment” to tell you, “this is it.”

I can’t wait for June 2011!

{ wait here, I’ll post pictures of references }

One thing that held me back, though, is how to incorporate our colors and damask into a nice design.

Well,  here’s an attempt:

Monogram with Damask, in purple and gold

Is it too much?

* * *

If you noticed, I switched around the T and the M. Because when I showed the unofficial monogram to M, that was his only question.

“Why T&M? Why not M&T?”

To that, my friend’s comment was.

“Men!”

In our colors

Just imagine that the foreground color is gold. ^_^

Purple has always been my favorite color since my age was in single-digits, so it was an easy choice. The difficult part was finding the perfect color to complement it.

After some serious thinking, I’ve come upon a brilliant idea: purple and gold! It’s classy and elegant, and it reminds me of royalty. I love it!

Keira Knightley in a Matthew Williamson dress at the premiere of Pride And Prejudice.

Seeing the above dress worn by Keira Knightley sealed the deal (link to source of image here). It even served as an inspiration for the dress to be worn by my maid-of-honor matron-of-honor.

Since M and I got engaged February 27, that would have left us with eight months to plan. I say it’s feasible. In fact, we immediately started with the planning. The church, reception venue, and photographer were all booked in no time.

Unfortunately, we had my mother to deal with. And since we didn’t want to start off our marriage with rocky relations with in-laws, we had to give way. My mother wanted to catch my brother’s birthday, which was in June.

And so June it was.

Hay. Ang tagal!

But I couldn’t resist!

Hello world!