Official Wedding Location...

    As was mentioned in our earlier posting, location is one, if not the most important item in a wedding. Couples should make sure that they have to scout a location and book that location as early as possible (which also means that a wedding date must be settled asap). It would be heartbreaking (especially for the ladies) to have finally found the perfect location but unable to reserve it because the place was already booked. And believe us some good places get booked years ahead.

   Our tactic, which may help couples out there as well, was to start looking for our location as we decide on the wedding date. This way we can hit two birds with one stone. We made sure that we call possible locations and ask for appointments. And since there are a slew of good locations out there, we had to have a criteria to help us narrow down our choices. Those who reply within a day gets our attention first. So just as we were on the verge of deciding our date, we made an appointment to have a visual of a place that Jags was starting to really like. So we went and that was it for her. The place that we went was the perfect place for her.

   Now, as the other entity in the party, I told her to keep her options open as we may still find other good places. But as the saying goes ...... I actually don't have any saying but anyway we went the first time and she fell in love with the place. When we went the second time, she wanted to seal the deal already but I was still hesistant. I was just trying to be "practical". But of course, I crumbled under her mesmerizing eyes and we sealed the deal with Swan-E-Set. Good thing because from what Tegan (the wedding coordinator and a very sweet and nice young lady) showed us, 2011 was getting filled. (By this time we already had settled on a date). Good thing the date (October 21, 2011) that we wanted was still available. So now our "location" has been ticked as "done". We will post some pictures that we have taken of the place and post some thoughts as to why we chose the place.

The Official Date!

   It is with much pleasure and joy to announce that we now have an official date for our wedding. We have been praying and discussing as when our wedding date will be for months. And we thank God for we have finally arrived at a perfect date. The Official date of our wedding is **drum roll** is October 21, 2011. It is going to be on a Friday at 4 pm sharp as in sharper than a samurai sword. Picture, golden brown leaves falling of a Birch tree as the majestic snow-covered coastal mountains serve as our backdrop. (Which coincides with the motif that Jags has prepared). Cool autumn breeze caressing Jags' long flowing hair as she walks down the long walkway towards the terrace. Oh man, I can't wait... Wahooooo!!!

CompleteWeddings.ca

    JAGS and I, have been working on our wedding plans and indeed we have made progress. We have contacted most of our principal sponsors and talk to a few people that we need to help us out. More about that on our next post. Currently, our main concerns are the video and photography for our big day. We know that there are tons and tons of good video and photographers out there, so we need to have a starting point and this website www.completeweddings.ca has been very good. The website has extensive lists of vendors from bachelor parties to cakes to scrapbooks and of course video and photography. The list of photographers, specifically, is still overwhelming but the good thing about this site is they list all vendors that have websites first. And from there, we just look at websites and list (or copy and paste if you will) the vendors that we like. We also made sure to look for websites that has at least pricing (investments for some) information on them.
Now the next thing for us to do is to start contacting these vendors and see where it will lead us.

A Budget to Remember...

During one of our "deliberations", one of our topics came to be the budget of the wedding. This is probably one of the most sensitive items if not the most sensitive item a couple has to discuss with each other. After all, we don't want to have an issue with money. It's never a good thing. Our approach was quite simple, though. Well, partly because we agreed to split it right down the middle. We came up with three questions that helped us come to an agreement with how much we are aiming for. (It may be more than two for others. You can come up with questions that can help you better decided by all means.)

1. How big do we want our wedding to be?
Meaning how many people are attending. From what we've heard, if the attendeeds are less than 100, it's going to be a small wedding. 100 - 199 is a medium sized wedding and 200+ is a large wedding. So if you're looking at an intimate wedding (less than 100, your budget can prolly be between 7k-15k and so on.)
2. How extravagant do we want our wedding to be?
This us a bit tricky because, men in general want something simple and women wanted something a bit more complicated to say the least. Find a focal a point where both of you can start of and go from there. Both Jags and I agreed on an elegant yet sophisticated wedding (much like her). And we rolled from there.
3. How much do you think should we spend?
I asked Jags this question and I told her what my target amount was. I had to ask this question so that we can come up with a "budget radius" (add the two amount and divide by two. Round of to the nearest dollar). This also gives us a focal point to either decrease or increase the amount.

Asking questions around about wedding budgets will also help you create a ball park amount where you can work around. We had known a few wedding budgets from weddings that we have attended in the past. That actually helped us a lot.
Of course, we didn't come up with a set numbers right away. More questions will come up and sometimes numbers will not come up right away. But don't give up or lose hope. This is a good way to strengthen your communication as it did us. Also, this is a good idea that I picked up from somewhere. Say you already came up with a budget. Let's say both of you decided to have a wedding budget of $30,000, max. It would be a good idea to subtract five percent from that max amount (30,000 - 5% = 28,500). Think of the remaining amount as the just-in-case-we-need-something fund. Now you have $28,500 as your targeted amount and your ceiling amount is $30,000.

Disclaimer: Photo courtesy of psdgraphics.com

Scouting of Location! Mayfair and Riverside in Richmond!

MAYFAIR LAKES GOLF AND COUNTRYCLUB
As we drove pass the entrance gate we were kinda impressesed by what we saw. The place is basically a country club for golfers. It was a good sunny Saturday so we saw a lot of them. Which turned Jags off right away. She pictured people walking around during our wedding and golfers yelling "FORE". But all that was erased when she saw what could be a wedding arch. She loved the place and her imagination started to run wild and I didn't mind it. Since no one was there to talk to us, (Hint: It's always to good to call ahead just to make sure that you have someone to meet with you.) we let our selves in and started scouting the place. Because it was a golf course the place was very open.They also have a lake right in the middle with a huge fountain. We spotted a huge tent that can accomodate approximately 120+ people. The tent was too close to the main entrance. We're not sure if it can be moved. All in all, the place was good but what killed it for us was the fact that Mayfair's airpspace is a busy route for airplanes. We weren't there for more than 30 minutes and about 4 planes have gone through thier airspace. We could already picture a scenario where either one of us had to say "Can you repeat that please" or "Do you take her as your wedded wife?" and I would reply with "Sorry, I didn't catch the last line." Maybe a bit of exageration but little nuisance like that affect the feel of the wedding. Believe me, I went to a wedding in UBC gardens and during the ceremony, I heared a dump truck baking up with its loud "BEEP-BEEP" and not mention a gardener mowing the lawn during the ceremony. That just killed it for me. So if you don't mind the planes, this could be a contender.




RIVERSIDE BANQUET HALLS
Next stop was Riverside but because we only wanted to see the place we didn't call ahead. (Big mistake, call in ahead always.) And because of that we weren't able to go in as there was an event happening. So we only took a picture of the outside. Since we haven't seen the inside of the hall, it would be unfair to comment. Remember, "Don't judge a book by it's cover."

Scouting of Location! Brock House Restaurant!

    So as was previously blogged... it is very important to have a good location and did we mention how important it is to have a very good location? So, recently we went to a few places to scout some good location. (Hint: It is good to have a vision of what you want for your wedding. Both of you must agree to have it this way. As for Jags and I, our options are either by the beach or a garden wedding. Both of us had a single mind on this decision.)
    First stop was the Brackhouse Restaurant. First impression was good, though the place looked like a haunted house at first glance. And it didn't helped when one of the managers on site said something about the upper level being haunted. We definitely don't want an uninvited ghost crashing our wedding.    But good thing the actual wedding reception is not held inside the house but outside their spacious garden overlooking part of the Jericho beach. They have a huge tent could accomodate more than 100 people on their north lawn.
Chairs can be aptly placed facing the direction you desire within their lawn. The view of the beach can be spectacular!

   Their menu consist of seafoods and north american cuisine. You can either have a choice entree, a buffet or you can make your own.
   The manager that we spoke to was helpful and very upbeat. We didn't get to tour the whole place because there was an event happening at that time. It was only inside the tent so no big deal. All in all, Brock House would be a contender. Oh and a neat trivia... the Brock House is actually a heritage building!

A Shout Out!

    For all those who are contemplating, planning or wanting to get married in the Philippines and to be more specific, in Cebu, we found a very good wedding planner. Not that we have had any experience with their services but just because they were accommodating and they replied promptly to our emails. So we thought they deserve a shout out. Their website is http://www.joyfulweddings.ph. The owner and lead wedding planner is Esmie Yap. You can contact her through email at joyful_weddings@yahoo.com.ph.

A Serious Meeting

   We cannot stress enough how important location is to a wedding. As one can almost hear a good director yell "Location, location, location!" So must couples yell "location, location, location". So Jags and I opted to dicuss the location first before the actual date. (This may vary... couples can select a date first and then the location.) And so here we are in Caffe Argitiano in W. Hastings, juxtaposing the pro's and con's of getting married in the Philippines vs Canada. (BTW, Caffe Artigiano's coffee latte is of the hook. Too bad they no longer have their coffee supreme for $10.) So together with our trusted blue book(Hint: writing everything down will give you a better view of what you want to come up with) we needed to come to a resulotion as we no longer what to waste time. So the final verdict was, as mentioned in the prior post, Vancouver was our final choice.
    So then we have to actually start looking for an actual wedding location. We already have a bunch of options. As a matter of fact we already contacted a few resorts and scheduled an ocular visit. And we have scoured the internet to find a list of good questions that we can ask the reception coordinator during our meeting. This website http://www.bestweddingsites.com/Articles/0305_ReceptionLocation.html has a long and thorough list of good and useable questions.

P.S. Location, Location, Location!

Hello World!

   After accidentally stumbling into this website, Jags and I decided to have our own wedding blog. This would be a great tool to share our emotions and thoughts on our wedding (stress-reliever anyone?!) Hence, the title Jigs2 and Jags Wedding Adventure because we know for sure that we are in for an adventure of a life time.
   But first things first, though we may have chosen Philippines as our wedding location, we ended up deciding to have our wedding here in Canada. It would have been great to get married in the Philippines but (since Jags is an accountant) it would not make economical sense to have our wedding there. After careful thoughts and major prayers,Vancouver, Canada was the logical choice. And with that, we need to move our date, It won't be April 16, 2011 as was announced. As of this moment, we are still in "deliberation" as to what the final date would be.
   Hey at the very least, we are getting our hands and feet wet on planning our own wedding. Stressful? Yes! Exciting?! Definitely! We wouldn't have it any other way!