#4- Find My Dream Wedding Dress-- CHECK!!

30 hours in New York City. That includes eating and shopping in Brooklyn, getting dessert in Little Italy,  attending service in Queens, getting a complete hair and makeup makeover, hanging out in East Village, having pizza, going on 2 hour train rides, and getting about 2-3 hours of sleep. Oh... and somewhere in there, trekking up to Madison Ave to find my perfect wedding dress...

fyi- this is not the one but i did try it on. gorgeous! 

Oh Vera, how overly expensive you are but how you make me feel like a bride. :) And money is second when it comes to the most important day of your life, right? At least that is what I tell Mr. Suit, my fiance (perfect name for him, huh?! haha).

And is it just me, but why is everything that I do that has to do with the wedding always so rushed when it is still eight months away?! Time is absolutely flying... At least one more checked off!

Big shout out to my wonderful ladies that helped me and let's say... were very opinionated. ;) Love you guys!

#7- Take Engagement Pictures in Europe

"Dove è la migliore pizza e pasta?"
Even though I am beyond excited that we are fulfilling our dream of taking engagement pictures in our favorite cities in Europe, I am primarily concerned about how much time will I be allowed by our photographer to eat at our favorite restaurants and whether I can pull off some outfits with elastic bands. :P  Or would it be possible to bring back some tiramisu in my luggage?... Ok, I digress. Perhaps I will go into the foodie part of the trip in an upcoming blog. :)

What enticed us to fly a photographer into three cities in Europe, spend thousands on airline tickets/hotels/trains, plan an itinerary with multiple wardrobe and location changes, and do it all within four days in three foreign countries? As we discussed the theme of our wedding, we knew that the one thing that we love doing together is traveling. However, the "travel" theme for a wedding has been done so many times in different ways so we wanted to make it very unique and thoughtful. So we figured that we would take our favorite cities to our wedding and guests. The best way to do that would be through a journey... a journey of pictures so that our guests would feel that they could travel with us (you'll have to wait to see the invites!). Therefore, our itinerary for April spring break is the following:

Paris 

Venice

Barcelona

Since we've spent a good amount of time in each city, we hope to leverage our knowledge of them to manage our time well and to hit all the good picture-taking locations. Any suggestions? Or more importantly, food recommendations?

And to my parents who will also be doing their European vacation soon, big hugs and "Happy Birthday" to my very young and handsome papa! ;) Love you!

#2: Plan My Perfect Wedding-- CHECK!!

Wedding magazines, binders, stickers, see-through pocket sleeves, post-its, Skype headphones, sketch pads, fabrics swatches, multiple laptops, and torn print outs. This is the arsenal of a bride in the war for the perfect wedding. Let me tell you, there have been many casualties (dented walls, flying objects, and storm-outs), battle scars (broken egos), and health-hazards (late night budgeting and guest list sessions with passive-aggressive family members are always dangerous). After a whirlwind 10 days in Manila, we are finally back in DC finalizing all our vendors. We are relieved that the major decisions have been made and now we're just tweaking details. :)

Wedding Coordinator: Rita Neri Events Planners -- CHECK!

Church: Bel-Air, Makati, Philippines -- CHECK!

Reception/Caterer: Rigodon Ballroom, Manila Peninsula -- CHECK!

Videographer: Jason Magbanua -- CHECK!

Photographer: Oly Ruiz, MetroPhoto -- CHECK!

Event Stylist (Flowers, Theme, Decoration) -- CHECK!

Entertainment: Manila Philharmonic Orchestra -- CHECK!

Emcee/DJ -- CHECK!

Invites -- CHECK!

Cake -- CHECK!

I've always been the little girl that dreamed about my wedding. Now I am actually seeing it come to life! :)

#2: Plan Wedding- My Wedding in a Week

6am- Alarm buzzes and groggily trudge out of bed

7am- Leave early to try and avoid Manila traffic

9am- Meet with minister and church officials to arrange ceremony details

11:30am- Early lunch with my family

1pm- Meet with wedding coordinator

2pm- Meet with Event stylist for venue conceptualization (flowers and decorations to the non-“wedding language” speaker)

3:30pm- Cake tasting

4:30pm- Meet with photographer

5:30pm- Meet with conductor of Manila Philharmonic

7:30pm- Dinner with the soon-to-be-in-laws

9:30pm- Hang out with Manila friends/family or get massage (decision depends on how much energy is left at the end of the day)

*REPEAT THE NEXT DAY*

That has been our life for the past four days here in Manila.  Swap out a couple different vendors each day and multiply the number of vendors by two or three (since we want to meet with several before making a decision), and you basically have our schedule for the week. Our goal was to meet and book all the major vendors early since Dec/Jan is peak wedding season in the Philippines. I do have to say that it’s quite overwhelming and not exactly our idea of our first trip to the Philippines together (and the fiance’s first in five years!), but it has definitely been an interesting trip so far!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s been extremely fulfilling and very productive, but wow… squeezing a year’s worth of planning into a week is extremely exhausting.  There must definitely be some venting site out on the internet for destination wedding brides. :P Regardless of all the sleep deprivation and close to fatal exhaustion, we’re totally getting excited about seeing our dream wedding come into fruition. That is the one thing that keeps us going. Well… that and the $10 massages. J

Below is our "Mood Board" for the vibe of the wedding. What do you think? 

The Beginning

I'm a list person. On my phone, scraps of paper on my desk, back of fliers/receipts/mail, on mirrors with whiteboard markers... I have lists everywhere. A sense of accomplishment guides my pen across the page to cross off each task. A smile passes my face from the small triumph of the moment. A little OCD, yes, I know. Therefore, when I got engaged last December, my first task was to list out the things I needed to do, plan, and accomplish in the short year before I officially become a "Mrs." on January 3, 2012. :) By starting a blog, I knew I would be able to hold myself accountable for getting it all done.

So what do I want/need/long/hope to do before I get married? My list turned into a hybrid of wedding checklist, bucket list, and although I thought it may be some single-ladies-only nights outs, I found that most of my items weren't necessarily things I wanted to do prior to getting married. They were things that I wanted to do in general; whether it be for myself, by myself, or with my fiance. I found that my future wedding date was just a good date in general to put myself on a strict timeline.

Therefore, without further ado, my "12 Before 2012":

1. Learn how to take great pictures on my SLR-- Last year before a trip to Barcelona, we got an DSLR. Although I take it out for big events, I still haven't learned how to use it to its potential. This year, I hope to actually learn how to use it and document my journey through this blog.
2. Plan my perfect wedding-- Since we both grew up in Manila and most of our family is there, we've decided that we'll be getting married in the Philippines. This poses many logistic, execution, and communication problems along with the regular stress of planning a wedding. I know I am stressing out my wedding planner already!
3. Scuba dive-- Ironically, growing up in a country made up of islands, I have not yet done this. So here it is.
4. Find my dream wedding dress-- Self explanatory. All girls need this on their wedding list.
5. Bungee jump-- Parasailing, check. Rock climbing, check. Skydiving, check. I guess this one should be easy, right?
6. Learn Zumba/Kickboxing/Pole-dancing-- Hopefully helps me fit into my dream dress (see above). :)
7. Take engagement pictures in Europe-- Being on the east coast, our travel bug always takes us to Europe, so would love to have that integrated in our special day.
8. Fly a plane-- I'm always riding one, so why not learn how to fly?
9. Take a French or Italian cooking class-- I'm a foodie. Hopefully I can learn something to share with my fellow foodie friends.
10. Go somewhere new for my bachelorette party with my favorite girls-- Any ideas?
11. Learn more about my family history, my parent's stories, and their life lessons-- Would love to pay tribute to my parents and family by putting something together and that I can share with my own family someday.
12. Marry my best friend. <3 

Thank you to Celine who inspired me to start this blog and document my own journey!