Fruitful trip home

As was mentioned in the last blog entry, I flew home so I could take care of wedding concerns. As I write this current blog entry, it is my last day in Bacolod (I fly back to Manila tomorrow) and I just wanted to share what a fruitful trip this has been so far.

I arrived in Manila on the morning of September 5th (Wednesday) at around 7 am local time. My arrival was only slightly delayed despite the long delay leaving SFO (due to the PAL computers being down) since the flight was not full and we were able to fly direct to Manila without requiring a stop in Honolulu for refueling. Later that morning I was able to go to the US Embassy in Manila to get my Affidavit In Lieu Of Statement Of Legal Capacity To Marry. Thankfully the line at the US Embassy was virtually non-existent; I was in an out of the embassy in less than an hour. Mitzi was kind enough to fly to Manila later that morning to meet me so we spent the rest of the day going around Makati.

I arrived in Bacolod on the evening of September 6th (Thursday). Mitzi and I were on separate flights back (I took Cebu Pacific while Mitzi took PAL) and while I was originally supposed to arrive in Bacolod before Mitzi, the delays of the Cebu Pacific flight (almost two hours) caused it to be reversed; Mitzi sent me a text message saying she had just arrived in Bacolod just as I messaged her saying my flight to Bacolod was boarding. :-P

From then it has been a lot of visiting of vendors, going to venues, talking to people, arranging things for the wedding, etc. Some of the things we have been able to sort out are:

• Get our marriage license from the civil registrar (this was the big one that necessitated my flying over since this required that both parties planning to contract marriage make a personal appearance).
• Finalize who will do our photos and video as well as arrange for a photo shoot in between the wedding ceremony and the reception.
• Finish paying for our wedding reception venue at Marapara a.k.a. Negros Golf and Country Club. I finally got to see it (we were not able to sort out this venue when I was last here in January) and I wholehearted agree with Mitzi's choice. It has plenty of room to hold 150 guests, is laid out quite well and has a good view of the golf greens.
• Make downpayments for our wedding cake as well as the deposit for the cake stand with Ann Co Pastries.
  
• We decided on our invitation wording and am working with a friend of my sister Ani to make the invitations.
• We are working with a friend of my brother-in-law Onggie regarding our honeymoon in Palawan. We have a tentative itinerary already, we just need to iron out some details before we are all done.
• Sat down with Sir Nel Dingcong who will be in charge of the choir who will sing at our wedding to go over the songs we will be singing at our wedding ceremony.
  
• Talked with Michelle of Misyel's Catering to discuss timetables, serving cocktails, lay out of the reception and some special concerns for some of our guests who may have to leave the reception early.
  
• Made downpayments for the use of a sound system, video projector and screen (for the audio-video presentation) from Psalms Sound Equipment.
• Met with Beng of Trims And Treasures to discuss flowers, more layout stuff for the reception as well as items we want to use to accent the reception venue. We also asked about setting up a gazebo in one part of the reception venue to use for photo shoots with the guests.

Thankfully, despite our busy schedules of trying to sort all of this stuff out, we have still had some time for ourselves to just enjoy each other's company and for me to feel like I'm actually on vacation. :-P