How to Plan for a Beach Wedding (Our Dream Beach Wedding)

July 4, 2023August 22, 20238 Comments

It’s been two months since we did our dream beach wedding! It happened on May 5, 2023 at 5PM, dusk, my fave time of day. Happy 2nd Beach Wedding Monthsary to us! My blog is on US Time Zone but it’s July 5 now in the Philippines. I’m starting a beach wedding series and this would be my first blog post about it. If this is your first time to get to know me, you can go back to my previous post about our pre-wedding film which would also connect you to a series of my wedding engagement posts. I’m sort of an OC kind of person and I just want the documentation of my memories organized. This is in case I get Alzheimer’s in the future (I hope not!) and honestly, just doing it this way makes me so happy. It’s like I get to relive each moment as words pour out of me… Teehee. So, let’s start…

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Secret Civil Wedding: Becoming Mrs. Villanueva Part 1

December 30, 2022August 22, 20237 Comments

It was supposed to be a “secret wedding”… We wanted our partnership to be legal and official even before we lay out all the plans for 2023, one of which is being able to do our dream beach wedding. Blame it to my “segurista” and OC personality, I just want everything ironed out on the legal front before the year ends. And I’m very grateful for the fact that Mahal has always wanted to marry me and supports me all the way, til forever and beyond… ❤

Actually, if we didn’t have the funds to do a beach wedding next year, a simple, “secret”, intimate civil wedding one is what we’ll really do. We are both introverts after all. I was even content to just have a piece of thread tied to my finger as a promise of his love. But thank you, God, for blessing us with a beautiful engagement, complete with an engagement photoshoot and engagement video shoot, and even an engagement honeymoon in Camotes Island which I’ll share here soon. We really feel so grateful plus I feel like such a celebrity (lol!) doing 2 kinds of weddings. Actually, even before J.Lo and Ben Affleck did their two weddings, doing the same had always been my plan… the two stars just beat us to it! Lol!

Didn’t JLo say

“Life is an art… and we are the artists… make it as beautiful as you want and create exactly what you want it to be…”

So that’s what we did!

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BEHIND THE SCENES – The Making of Our Engagement Photoshoot and Teaser Video

December 22, 2022February 2, 20243 Comments

This is the making of our engagement teaser video. If you haven’t watched it yet, you can check my previous blog post here: Our Engagement Teaser Video

Or head straight to my vlog. It’s a beautifully done romantic and fun video, and Mahal and I never get tired of watching it. This is connected to my Shangri-la Mactan 5-star vacation post.

Before, I used to envy couples who get engaged and share their pre-nup videos and I kept wondering if something like that could ever happen for me. I wondered how they had done it? What preparations, sacrifices, situations did they face to reach that blissful phase in their life? Now that we’re doing it, and we’re doing it just the way we want the whole engagement and marriage done, I couldn’t be any happier! My time has finally come! Hihihi!

Actually, I had no intention of sharing the raw videos of our photo and video shoot but when I watched them, I realized how “bungisngis” we were, meaning, we were really just laughing all the time, enjoying each moment of the shoot, and just appreciating this wonderful time in our relationship.

Anyway, you’ll know what I mean when you see the video. So without further a do, here it is:

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A DIFFERENT KIND OF ENGAGEMENT

April 27, 2022April 7, 202311 Comments

As J. Lo wrote in her inner circle newsletter “On the JLO: “Life is an art… and we are the artists… make it as beautiful as you want and create it exactly as you want it to be…” ❤ ❤ ❤

Growing up, I never really had a clear vision of what getting engaged and getting married should be like for me. I remember attending very few weddings during my childhood and teens and it always left me with feelings of lack and sadness coz I felt like I can never have that kind of wedding. My automatic negative thoughts were: “I’m too poor to be able to afford that.” “That will never happen for me”… etc. True enough, you attract what you think. Despite the amount of money I’ve had in my early adult years, I never had that kind of engagement nor wedding.

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