MARCH 2015
We’ve been together for 2 years now and we started planning — unofficially — our BIG day only a month ago. From the short span of doing research about the current wedding trends back home (Metro Manila and Zamboanga City to be specific), we were utterly SPEECHLESS by the extravagant and lucrative business Wedding suppliers have hit! By the measly income that we both have as OFWs in Kuwait, we soon realized that we needed MORE research and time to finance our dream wedding. As much as we wanted the best-of-the-best wedding suppliers in town, their fees seem to increase as fast as the world’s inflation rate! So our goal now is to find the best wedding suppliers with an affordable rate.
May God help us! 😉
OUR BUDGET DREAM WEDDING 
Hi! I’m a December 2017 overseas bride and I’m really following your timeline as we’re planning to have our wedding at San agustin and la castellana as well. If you don’t mind can you email me the details on how you arranged your suppliers? maryrose_martinez@y7mail.com thanks in advance goodluck with ur wedding prep!
Hi Mae. Thanks for following our timeline. It’s nice to know that we have the same church and venue. Well, as you can see in our timeline we have booked majority of our suppliers online. For those whom we can’t check personally, we asked our relatives for help. After researching for who we want for our team, we email or message them and requested for online meetings especially for coordinators, photo, video, and those that we feel we need to have a more personal connection with. I hope these tips cane help you and your fiancé in your wedding preps. Good luck!
If you don’t mind, did you get la castellana wedding packages? As that includes hotel accommodations,lights and sound etc. or did you just booked it yourself? Thanks
Hi Mae. No we didn’t get the packages with La Castellana because we wanted to personalize our wedding prep details except for their ceiling drapes because our AE Mr Christian prefers their in-house supplier and that would mean less corkage fees for us. Please note that if you only get their venue-only rental, try to check their accredited suppliers first so you won’t have to pay corkage fees unless you don’t find their services suitable for your wedding. I highly suggest for you to email him directly at lacastellanaevents@gmail.com and inform about what you want. Also I tried to respond back to the email that you posted but it won’t let me. Good luck! 🙂
Congratulations on getting married!
Simply wanted to thank you for openly sharing your experiences and journey as you plan your dream wedding. As someone involved with my sibling’s wedding preparation, your website certainly goes a long way! It makes it seem that translating the dream wedding to reality is achievable without too much stress in the mind, heart and wallet.
God bless you! I hope your wedding is as spectacular as you envision it to be, and your marriage blossoms as years go by.
Thank you for the kind words and wishes Crystal! We’re so glad that you find this blog helpful in planning your sibling’s wedding. In case you need any other info that we can help with, just ask away! God bless and happy preps! 😊
i love your blog. its a BIG help for the BIG DAY!
Hi Janelle. Thanks for appreciating. Happy preps on your big day! 🙂
I think your blog just saved my sanity! Being an overseas bride as well, I find all your posts sooo helpful. Thank you. 🙂
Hi Michelle. You’re welcome. If you have any questions, just feel free to message me. Happy preps! 🙂
when you said you booked/reserved online, like for church and reception, do you also pay as early as 10mos-1 yr ahead of your wedding date? or they allowed to have it pencil booked. then give you like at least 5months before the big day? we have no budget yet, but we wanted hopefully to have it next year. But wondering if we can reserve the church and reception for now since that’ s the most crucial part of the preparation.
Hi MayoMay. Churches and venues doesn’t accept pencil bookings. To secure your reservation and date you have to pay for the down payment. For our church and venue, we paid the deposit on the spot more than a year before our wedding. They don’t do reservations without payment.
Hi, so blessed to find your blog. Its a big help for me as a baby events planner, thank you for sharing it 🙂 God Blessed your wedding as you enter your life journey together!
Hi Mariel. Thanks for the kind words. Good luck on your business/endeavor. 🙂
Hi G&A!
I just wanted to let you know that I stumbled upon your blog a year ago while I was also researching for wedding suppliers. You see, I was also an overseas bride and I just got married to my wonderful guy last week. With that, I would like to say thank you for writing your posts as they were very helpful when we were planning our wedding. Happy preps and have a lovely wedding!
-R&J 12.11.16
Hi Joan. Wow thank you for the kind words! It’s really great to know that somehow our own guide has also been helpful to other overseas couples like us who are planning their wedding.
Again congratulations and may you both have a blessed marriage! Love to ll december 2016 couples like us! ❤️
Hi Ayie I’ve been reading your blog since last november and you became my top reference for my wedding preparation 🙂 me and my partner are both ofw as well. I need your guidance regarding San Agustin Requirements, our wedding will be on February next year, do they allow PRECANA Seminar to be done outside the country? And do they allow CANONICAL interview to be done 2 weeks before the wedding date?
Hi Kish. It’s Aiki 🙂 Thanks for following the blog. With regards to your question about Church requirements, I have two posts about that called WEDDING LEGAL REQUIREMENTS and CERTIFICATE OF FREEDOM TO MARRY. As I have stated there, PreCana can be done overseas just just as long as you inform your church. Canonical Interview should be done a month before the wedding but if you have problem with schedule, inform your church about it. In San Agustin Church, pre cana schedule is only every Saturday 8am-12noon and Canonical Interviews is usually done only on Thursday at 8am-12noon.