Sunday, January 28

The making of a blushing bride


trial hair and makeup last week with angie cruz and ojie rayel. i'm just posting the one with the updo because the lighting in the other photos is crappy.

i was not only amazed that angie managed to cover up my seven (yes, seven, it was horrible) zits, but that he/she didn't drop his makeup bag and run away screaming when he first saw them. he called attention to them rather tactfully, which impressed me: "is your skin, er, under treatment?" my mother and i tripped all over ourselves to assure him that the breakout was highly abnormal.

angie's just gotten signed to do makeup for shu uemura, and ojie's done a couple of preview and cosmo covers. the lighting in the photos is bad, and my sister just took them using her sony ericsson daddy phone, but the quality was superb, rates even better. booked 'em right away.

must thank loi for referring them.

Slowing down

lately i realized how fast-paced my life is. so many things have happened to me, and i haven't had time to really stop and write about them. that's worrisome, because many times blogging helps me savor, learn from and immortalize the moment. i'm worried i've been letting too many of those moments just zip by.

suddenly the tour is three months behind me, and in not communicating how meaningful it was to me, the meaning itself is beginning to slip away, and the details are beginning to lose their crispness and clarity.

i have been wearing my newfound identity as a bride for a month now, and all the little unfamiliarities and insights and surprises that came with slipping on that identity are also fading.

things go by so fast! i often find myself too tired to write about all the things that have happened to me. the iffy internet connection at work lately hasn't helped either.

i need to slow down. weekends like this -- quiet, at home, not a lot to do -- help, but sometimes they're just too short.

--

this weekend was nice though. friday morning, i spent with a young and enthusiastic designer who not only totally got what i wanted, but trimmed his rates so that they fit neatly into my budget. and let me tell you, after all being confronted with one heart-stopping quotation after another, plus a slowly inflating budget, it was all i could do not to jump up and down and clap my hands with delight.

in the evening, a despedida for gutsy at her place. she's leaving for oz to study for a year. intimate party, lots of great food, and (as the theme for the evening) lots of embarrassing photos of ourselves. there were almost too many embarrassing photos of jd and andrei, considering they weren't even at the party. my photos were reverse-embarrassing: i was so thin pre-marlon that i'm embarrassed for myself now! not good. as sir jojo once said to me as he attempted to snatch a piece of iloilo butterscotch out of my hands:ang traje de boda!

we ended up staying at gutsy's until 5 a.m., since mimi, our designated driver, was knocked out cold by a heavy dose of cough medicine. oneill fell asleep on the chair in gutsy's sala that is extremely cushy but looks uncannily like a giant sanitary napkin.

had giggly wedding talk with the girls, and -- surprise surprise!-- jay tamayo, who assured me that our wedding budget was commendably low for tagaytay. grabe. everyone is so excited for this wedding. it's the next big gc/acs wedding after aui's. a full third of all the guests are the choir. wonder what it will be like when they all stand up to sing -- sasabog ata ang chapel on the hill.

--

stayed in bed most of the weekend and caught up on my "to watch" pile of dvds. marie antoinette last week, misery and little miss sunshine this week. i must say misery is one of the creepiest films ever -- so much nail-biting tension packed into one slow zoom-in of james caan's face as kathy bates' character puttered closer and closer to his bedroom door. (it also helped that he had some very expressive winces and facial tics. galing.)

went to a bridal fair and found a great deal on white gold wedding rings, so i paid the reservation fee after discussing it with marlon and sleeping on it. eavesdropped at a couple of bickering couples ("hindi, hindi ko naman sinabing walang kwenta yung wedding cake!"). was dumbstruck at how crappy some suppliers are and how much pretense they employ to get people's business. generally enjoyed being by myself since everyone was hounding the couples.

finally, thankfully, got to blog.

and it's sunday night all too soon. another fast-paced week coming right up.

Friday, January 19

Huwhapakkkkkk

this can only be cosmic retribution for every time i crowed over a 33.3-peso purchase at an ukay-ukay or a 200-peso pair of sandals at landmark.

this morning, i found out what a wedding gown costs. and now, at 7:10 p.m., my heart has resumed close-to-normal functions, finally sending up some much-needed blood to my brain, and i am actually capable of having thoughts on the matter.

i can't believe that i will be spending more on approximately 12-hour use of a couple of meters of cloth than on a 24-hour rental of a 2-hectare farm and garden.

i can't believe i've dreamt of wearing this garment my whole life and now i''m mentally running for the first burlap sack i can find, and dying it white. (with maybe some touches of gold.)

i can't believe marlon and i are going to spend so much on me. can't the four bridesmaids, two mothers, three secondary sponsors, two flower girls, three ring/coin/bible bearers, best man, maid of honor and marlon wear it too? can't we all just share and be happy?

i can't believe that wedding dresses in singapore cost at least 24 times more.(kamusta naman at wala talaga akong tiwala sa mga sastre nila doon.) this information was volunteered just a couple of minutes ago by marlon, to explain his unnatural calm when i told him the figures.

magtanan na lang kaya kami.

or maybe i've been shopping at too many ukay-ukays for far too long.

Sunday, January 14

Just indigo?

seems like too many of my blog posts recently are just quick ones to let everyone know i'm still alive. the backlog of wonderful, funny and complex things to write about is growing more formidable by the day, and i'm just praying for time (and a decent office internet connection) to write about everything.

but for now, a surprising discovery: while deciding on a color scheme for the wedding (yes! the wedding!), i realized i couldn't remember what the indigo girl in rainbow brite was called. remember rainbow brite? yeah, i drew upon my childhood for color inspiration.

[a brief digression: just last night, i also found out that one of my very good friends from acs, and our very first wedding ninang, sang an astounding number of commercial jingles from my childhood: rebisco, chokies, dingdong ("masarap malutong dingdong!"), tanduay ("pour out the good times, pour out the good times, pour out the good times with tanduay five years"), mr clean ("labadami, labango, labalinis pa!") and many others that i forget now. "wow dadapots," i cried, "you were my childhood!"]

okay back to indigo. i finally googled her this evening and found out that she was the only color kid in rainbow brite who didn't have a first name. the others had names like lala and patty and buddy; she was just indigo! kawawang bata.

it's funny to look indigo up now and see that she's asian, has wavy dark hair, loves acting and being on stage, and is kind of artsy-fartsy -- just like me! so i guess picking her as my primary wedding color is a lucky stroke. :-)

hmmm. suddenly i want indigo streaks just like hers. ayayay.