Hi mga sisses!
We had our wedding last April 28 and I thought I should give a bit of feedback, as a way of paying it forward. Learned a lot from Girl Talk and would want brides out there who would want some help, too. This feedback aims to provide some nuggets of wisdom for those who are preparing for their big day.
Firstly, our wedding was beautiful (from the little I really experienced because everything tended to be a blur!). But our pics and our guests said it was a beautiful wedding.
Rating: 10/10
1. HMUA
So very professional. The team (4 persons in total) were the first to arrive at the hotel at 3 am, when everyone was barely awake. They started working right away. My makeup was very natural-looking, and though I did not have a second look the airbrush stayed beautiful until night when I had to take off my makeup.
Suggest: do think about having retouches, which sometimes is not included in the package. If it is not, then ask your HMUA if someone from the team can stay behind to retouch your face for the entire time of the reception.
Rating: 10/10
2. Photography
Also very professional. This team was composed of at least 4 photographers who each had their own styles. They were already at the hotel by about 4:30 am. Our only criticism is that they had their routine shots that they don't think outside the box anymore. For example, because our prep hotel was just across the Church, we gave up our wedding car and opted to walk. It would have been wonderful to have photos of me walking to church, but there were no photographers. All of them were in the Church waiting for me to arrive. Also, I can't understand why photographers don't tell you if your hair is in disarray, or your groom's undershirt is showing, or things like this. They just take the photos anyway, and when you review the shots you'll find that these little things do matter and should have been easy to rectify if only someone had told you right there and then. They also gave the raw files immediately after the wedding, as we requested, which was great.
Suggest: write down all the shots you may want your to take, be very detailed, about what you want and don't want, including small reminders. We also suggest to get the raw files because there are so many shots that you may find wonderful, but were not in the photogs' picks. If you have a good Photoshop program, you can edit these shots yourself; not too difficult, by the way, but tedious. My hubby strongly suggests to familiarize yourself with the scrapbook of their previous work, which you can also do by perusing a prospective photog's website.
Rating: 8/10
3. Videography
I posted several feedback about this team prior to the wedding, because my coordinator raised a concern about them and also because they weren't very good with turnaround replies. We tried many times in the lead-up to the wedding to set up an appointment. On the hour of the meet-up, which this team confirmed, we get a text message saying they could not make it after all. There was no call man lang, merely a text message blithely apologizing because they had another appointment. Turn off talaga. Needless to say, they were the main source of our stress prior to the wedding.
On the day of the wedding, several young videographers arrived early at about 4 am. The lead videographers walked in about 6:30 am and mainly directed their videographers around. They did not introduce themselves to my husband at all during the entire time preps was going on, so during the reception my hubby was asking whether the videographers showed up. By this time, the lead videographers were already missing in action, leaving behind only their subordinates to do the work. I was telling my hubby that maybe this is the service we get because we did not avail of the most expensive package they were offering. But hubby said if this was how they treated their clients, regardless of what package the clients availed of, then their whole service was terrible.
I don't know about the quality of this group's work, as we refused to have SDE. According to the contract I signed with them, the finished video will be delivered at most 6 months after the event. But if I had known beforehand about the way they do business, I would definitely not have booked them.
Suggest: do extensive research on each and every one of your suppliers. Because I did not find a lot of feedback on this particular group and the little I did find were so-so naman, I booked them, thinking we could learn more about them during meet-up. So we suggest to insist on a meet-up; this will allow you and your spouse-to-be the chance to establish rapport and see whether this is a supplier you can trust will give you excellent service.
Rating: 0/10, pending final video delivery; rating based only on service
4. Coordination
They were the last team to arrive. I had to call them pa to ask what time they would come because all the suppliers were already at the hotel. While we sympathized with the team because they finished another event coordination only about 1 am earlier, there is no excuse for coming to the hotel by about 6 am. I did not feel I had a coordinator.
The coordinators assigned to me were excellent (but really, I did not need more than one). But overall, the team was just not experienced enough, surprisingly even after 7 years. They were not visible at the church, which I later learned was not as organized as should have been. We only have a maid of honor and a bridesmaid, but both failed to march because though they were billeted in the same hotel and had been ready since 4am, no one from among the team thought about lining up the entourage in front of the church. If they had done this, people would have been escorted into church more systematically and they would have known that some people were missing. According to guests they did not notice anything amiss, but still the march was generally considered too fast.
Suggest: make a list of everything your coordinators must do, and if possible to get their names and pics so you can assign duties prior to the wedding. In the end, invest in a good coordinator. They really do make or break the event. While they didn't break mine, they also did not help it shine.
Rating: 3/10 as a team; I have to give 8/10 for my personal coordinators, 2 ladies who were very nice and tried so hard to please
5. Flowers: Dangwa
Suggest: Invest in a good florist. I agreed on this supplier because my bridesmaid was on the lookout for the cheapest and I thought what the heck, flowers weren't really a big deal for me. The flowers in the church and reception venue were all in the package we got, so the only thing we had to do were the bouquets, boutonnieres and wrist corsages. I was uneasy about this supplier mainly because it was a blind booking, i.e. there were no feedbacks at all to support it.
When the wedding came, my bouquet did not have the right color, the ribbon around the flowers was also way off the motif. I was not happy looking at those flowers. The only good thing from them was that they arrived before 6 am, after much calling on my part.
Rating: 0/10
6. Strings
Suggest: referral is absolutely a must. This was a recommended supplier from someone at work who had become friends with them. I did not regret this booking at all. The songs were beautiful.
Rating: 10/10
7. Venue
Suggest: Think about what you want to do in your reception, whether you want dancing, singing, people moving about, etc. Because our venue was too small, we had to let go of many activities that would have been fun to do. Nevertheless, the food was good daw (I was too fidgety to eat properly!). The thing was, the food was much better tasting during the food tasting. Also a suggestion, ask for discounts. We were lucky enough to get good deals with the corkage of the bottles of wine and champagne we brought to the reception.
Rating: 8/10
8. Church
Suggest: research, research, research. We cannot overemphasize this. Know the church, read up on it, and find out what you can and cannot do. We also suggest to get a priest you know to officiate the mass; it becomes a more beautiful ceremony. Our priest did not do his job at all: he mispronounced my hubby's name and we both had to correct him over the mic, and he offered the host to my hubby when he wasn't a Catholic. If he had done his simple homework, he would have known we had asked for special dispensation from the Bishop, which is a requirement for non-Catholics. Hubby's family was also offered hosts during Communion, and because they were so polite, they all took Communion. This was a source of much joking after, but really, if the priest had only asked the church staff for a background on us, he would have known all these beforehand.
Rating: 0/10
Anyway, what the other brides here have said that you should let things go and simply relax and enjoy the day is also something I would like to emphasize. I don't know if there are perfect weddings. But my hubby says, the wedding was beautiful and it doesn't matter what other people think.
