venue fiasco, changing church

yes it's been a while since i last posted anything with regards to our wedding preparations. i was about to, three weeks ago but the difficulties of dealing with our ae in ilustrados made me weak to the bones to make me blog these details. i was completely devastated of what has happened, and now we're just moving forward. anyway, here we go with our latest updates...

to date, we have decided to just let go of ilustrado restaurant. we just don't want to deal with anymore stress regarding package inclusions and alterations. it just sent us into more fear that in the span of one year ahead, there would be more movements in the deal that we made with them and we just don't like that idea. so better to pull off the plug right this early and find another venue.

for the past three weeks, we have been searching for a possible venue that would suit our taste and budget. we have looked through father blanco's garden, a venue behind san agustin church. we asked for their package rates and compared against ilustrados. after a week of researches and calculations, we came to the conclusion that costings for father blanco's garden is relatively high, and moving away from our initial budget, and so we decided to find another one.

along the way of searching, we considered having it in a nice function hall. and we came across ba lepanto penthouse in makati. a fellow w@w's wedding came just in time to give us a glimpse of how weddings are done in the place. at first call for inquiry, i was turned down because ms. revi, the managing officer for lepanto, said that the place would undergo renovations next year and she's not sure when. she said i should get back to her on january 2007 to inquire again. both my shoulders dropped in dismay as i hung up the fone.

i came across ramon magsaysay center, kind of a historic place. when the day came that i needed to inquire about the place, the line was busy. so i said to myself that i'd like to try and ask lepanto again when is the renovation starting. ms. revi told me that they only accept bookings til august 2007. my spirits where dampened... and she asked, when is our wedding date. i told her we're scheduled on dec. 27, 2007 at 4pm. she just immediately said that it's ok to book lepanto after christmas! hooray! i was able to pencil book our date and hopefully by end of november, we'll be able to send in our reservation fee. along our conversation, i inquired about the possible caterers we can get for the place. she recommended swan lake catering, somehow i had this idea already since they were the one's who made a fellow w@wie friend's wedding a success. well, thats another story. i'll be posting a separate blog entry for them once we touch base with their ae (accounts executive).

with these changes, we're now planning to change our church to nuestra señora de gracia in guadalupe makati. it's really a nice peaceful church, our 2nd option to san agustin church. we were thinking of getting nsdg if we ever get a venue in makati, and san agustin church if we land a venue in manila. so now, we are changing from san agustin to nsdg so that it would be accessible to our guests and us.

i'll just post again when we've finally decided on these matters and paid the required downpayments. *cross fingers*