Month: November 2011

Day 27: Fonts our wedding invites are made of

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27/30: Typography. I love words and fonts. I can spend hours browsing these sites, drooling and staring at fonts I can’t afford. I’ve collected fonts through the years and I feel so bad for failing to keep a back-up. You see, when that creep (whoever he is) stole our MacBooks, he also stole my font collection. *sad face*

Anyway, enough about things we can’t anymore change. (:

Imagine my restlessness when I was choosing fonts to use for our wedding invites. I must have changed the layout and the fonts ten thousand times. In the end, agreeing that we want the invites to look simple and modern, we settled with Avenir, Chapparal Pro, this pretty (and not to mention free!) sans serif Bebas Neue, and a vintage script, BallPark Weiner. Those fonts are all over our love story too.

And.. I have nothing more to say today. :P

Last 3 photographs, coming up!

Day 26: Live a life you won’t regret

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26/30: From a distance. Here’s more from Exquisite Photography. (:


I just love how I’ll never run out of beautiful wedding photographs to share! (:

I keep coming back to Jennie Perillo’s blog, quietly watching her life and cheering her on from a distance since I found her blog a couple of weeks ago. I know I only started following her story after the death of her husband, but seeing her wedding photos for the first time made me tear up like I’ve known them for a long time. I don’t think she’s ever posted their wedding photos on her blog until now.

I lost my Dad too five years ago, and I remember finding refuge in the pages of my blog and writing about my grief as my way to cope. Although the loss of a husband and a father may be two very different things, I do know how it’s like to be a daughter, seeing her mother rise above her grief and be strong for the sake of her children.

It’s my Dad’s birthday today. He’s supposed to turn 62 years old. It feels like a long time since he passed away, but relieving his memories still brings tears to my eyes, making me long to see him and hear his laughter again.

There’s really no easy way to cope with losing someone you love over death. They say getting over your grief gets easier each day, and while there may be some truth to that, there would still be that empty seat no matter how far you’ve come.

It’s easy to take things for granted in a marriage, especially when the number of ordinary days you spend with your spouse begins to trump the extraordinary ones. But Jennie’s story is a real, honest-to-goodness reminder for the rest of us to treasure every moment with our loved ones and appreciate each day’s big and small things.

Be kind to the ones you do life with, Bobbie Houston said. God gave us one short life to live and we never know when it’s going to end, we might as well live a life we won’t regret.

Day 25: Inspired by a one year old post

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25/30: Close-up. This photograph is courtesy of Ate Imelyn‘s mad make-up skillz, and Sheila‘s beautiful photography. Thank you, loves, for making *feel* beautiful that day.

On a different note, someone messaged me this morning about a blog I posted one year ago. And since I’m running out of topics to talk about, I thought I’d share this instead:

I was lurking at one of your blogs like I always do, I came to read this entry. I was particularly drawn to these lines:

“You know how it feels like when you’re back with an old love affair after exploring and testing other options, realizing that he is still the love of your life, maybe you didn’t even stop loving him after all? Forgive me for the tacky illustration, but that’s how blue is like to me. Home, puppy love turned love-of-my-life, the color that I want to wake up to in the morning, surround me the whole day, the last thing I see before I close my eyes. I’ve seen all the other colors, but it all comes back to blue. I can’t wait to see how my blue room is going to look (and feel) like.”

And then I thought that you could be describing Kuya Bud! Seriously. It’s like siya yung blue ng buhay mo. I am not sure if it makes sense. But I tried to substitute the color “blue” in your entry with “Bud” and it just fits! Haha.

This is me saying after all these months, that I am completely amazed at how God worked in your life. He is indeed a sovereign God who is constantly molding you. And boy you are really beautiful now more than ever! I never imagined saying this but you add inspiration in my ordeals/life now. I’m glad to know you more and more.

Yes, it was Bud! In fact, when I blogged that last year, immediately, two of my friends messaged me and told me that my metaphor was too obvious! (:

My message-sender is right, God is really amazing. Beyond amazing. I know it with all my heart—that God did something extraordinary with this ordinary life of mine—and whenever people tell me and affirm that to me, I just feel more in awe. I feel undeserving to be an inspiration to someone (anyone!) coz I know how much I stumbled and failed and repented and crawled back up all these years. Ohh those mistakes I made when I was younger! But I’m glad that even with my failures, God was gracious to me and still made a beautiful story out of this life.

Thanks, Pat, for your delayed reaction. It made my day. Tara, let’s do Dreamerie again! (:

Day 24: I remember how happy I was that day

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24/30: Something pink. We finally got a copy of our official wedding photos from Exquisite Photography. Kuya Bim, our dear friend and Kuya who agreed to take our photos, did a really good job with them. There were hundreds of beautiful photos but the MacBooks were stolen even before we found time to choose which ones to upload on Facebook. I guess uploading them is not going to happen anytime soon.

EP uploaded some on their official FB account though. And this photograph is one of my favorites, yay! I looked really happy in this, no? (: That’s because I was. I am.

This reminds me that no matter how stressful, sometimes heartbreaking, the days were leading to our wedding day, I still woke up on the morning of August 13, 2011 with so much peace and hope in my heart. I’ve waited for that day for so long, and when God finally made it happen, there was nothing or no one who could take away the joy in my heart.

We’ve been heavily warned about getting married. Some people even questioned our decisions and challenged us to reconsider, while others gave us their full blessing and support.

We were told that marriage isn’t all love and bliss, that it involves a lot of work, and that it can be a painful thing if not done right. You might think that I’m not the right person to validate these claims as I have only been married for 3 months, but if you’d take my word for it, I say, yes, married life can be really challenging, but the fact that it’s a God-given gift does not change. I say, it’s truly worth it.

Day 23: That spot where Dad would have been

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23/30: Sunflare. 23 photographs down, 7 more to go. It’s a challenge blogging the past days without the MacBooks. I’ve been a blogger nomad since Friday, blogging from other people’s computers and laptops. Yesterday, I even blogged from our Ipod Touch. Right now, I’m in Xaris‘ workstation. Hello from Xaris’ MacBook! Ahhh, feels good to hold a MacBook again.

Ok, posting this quick.

First photo: Mom and Kuya Nikos walking me to the altar and giving me away. Second photo: Mom and Kuya Nate watching us as we had that first kiss.

These two photos make me think of two things:

(1) I know my Mom and my whole family are truly happy for me, but I wonder how it feels to be a mother (or a brother!!), and to watch your only daughter, the one you loved and took care of for 28 years, finally get married. Hmm. I’m glad I don’t have to know, at least not in the next 20-30 years. Haha.

(2) I wonder how my Dad would feel if he was still around. I had mixed emotions about this. On one hand, I wish he was there to walk me down the aisle and to have that one last dance with me. Dancing to Butterfly Kisses with my Dad on my wedding day has always been my dream. It’s sad that I never saw that dream happen in this lifetime. On the other hand, a part of me was glad that he didn’t have to experience the pain of letting her little girl go and all the drama that came with it.

I miss my Dad everyday, but how can I not be thankful when I have two brothers (and a bunch of surrogate fathers here and there) who lovingly took Dad’s place, doing what they think Dad would have done the best way they know. So thanks, Kuya Nate & Kuya Nikos. I know we don’t say it often because we’re macho, but I love you two. :)

Day 22: People around us are getting married

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22/30: Hands. Here’s one last solo picture of my pretty engagement ring. Shortly after this picture was taken, a wedding ring has taken up residence on the same finger. Since then, you’ll never see me wear one ring without the other.

I’m not sure when it started to feel like everyone is getting married! College org-mates, high school friends, cousins, relatives, colleagues, friends of friends, and childhood barkadas are suddenly taking the highway to marital bliss, one after the other. There’s an entire wedding industry, with thousands of wedding suppliers, that does not run out of things to do! In our office alone, 3 ladies got married in a year. Normi got married about two months before I did. Ivy is currently planning her wedding too.

When we were in Boracay, we received news that our friends Jasper and Darlene officially got engaged. We knew that Jasper was planning to propose in front of family and friends but even though we weren’t there to witness the proposal firsthand, we were truly happy when we heard that he finally did it! And then there was another friend/in-law, Ate Che, who got engaged last week. I can’t forget the smile (and the blush!) on her face when she showed us her ring, it was lovely.

Marriage is such a beautiful thing, and I’m really excited for our friends. I’ve always had a thing for engagement and wedding stories, each one unique and different from the rest. Just like I said in the past, I love how they remind us that love is always at work, and that God is who He said He is — Faithful, Perfecter of our faith, Author of love, Maker of all things beautiful.