F.B.’s parents booked a two night stay at the Manila hotel as a wedding gift to us. We checked into the hotel around 3pm on Saturday. The hotel was really nice. We had a large room with a huge memory foam bed. There was a 40 inch flat screen TV in the room and in the bathroom there was another flat screen TV built into the wall above the bathtub. If you wanted you could watch TV from the toilet, hehe! There was also a huge separate shower.

Pictures of our room:

F.B. really enjoyed the complimentary robe. He showed off his karate moves! Lol!

He also enjoyed his ruffles!

At the hotel:

Out to dinner:

We spent a lot of time watching Spongebob, Nickelodeon and eating junk food on our honeymoon! Sunday we planned on going to Manila Ocean Park. They’ve been doing a lot of construction and part of the new mall is open now. We had lunch at Gerry’s Grill. Afterwards we went to get tickets, but there were so many people they were making you take a number to wait for your turn. There were over 100 people ahead of us, so we decided to head to Mall of Asia instead, which also turned out to be a bad idea because of all the weekend holiday shoppers.

We were going to watch a movie at the IMAX theater but it was sold out. So we decided we’d head to a net café, only there were no seats left. Finally we decided to go to a different mall in hopes there would be less people. We headed to Robinson’s Galleria and went to a net café first. F.B. updated our relationship statuses and I changed my last name. Afterwards we had dinner at Yellow Cab where we got Hawaiian pizza and tried their Alfredo Pasta. We picked up some bottled water and snacks to take back to the hotel.

Monday we checked out of the hotel around 12pm. We decided to head back to Manila Ocean Park since it was a weekday. This time we were able to get tickets and got to check out of the park again. They also had a special Jelly Fish exhibit that we had to pay P150 extra for ($3). It was nothing special though.

We got pictures with Tiki Dude this year! Yay!

Also… why does Tiki Dude have a little tiki?

I called this fish Crazy Eyes he just kept staring at us!

Another fish:

Seahorse:

Stingray:

Crazy cowfish, but looked like an alien fish to F & I!

This crab looked like it was meditating!

I got a cute little mouse/rat made out of seashells at one of the gift stalls:

We were planning on having Saisaki Buffet for dinner so we didn’t really have lunch. Instead we went to Robinson’s Manila and got Frappucinos and Egg & Sausage sandwiches from Starbucks. We walked around a lot and I got a new book by Jennifer Weiner. Later on we headed to another net café to check stuff online.

In the bookstore I was really confused because we saw Where’s Waldo books, only he’s called Wally over here?!

We left Robinson’s Manila around 5pm to head to Mega Mall for Saisaki buffet but we hit horrible traffic. We were stuck in traffic for 3 hours so by the time we were close to Mega Mall it was too late for the buffet. We headed to the 24 Burger King and decided to have a Burger King buffet instead, lol! Whoppers, fries, onion rings, chicken Tenders and dessert! I think our honeymoon was the weekend of eating, hehe! (After all the wedding dieting!)

When we arrived back to F.B.’s house after the honeymoon there was a sign greeting us in the dining room:

We also had a ton of wedding gifts to open when we got back home:

Tuesday we finally got to have dinner at Saisaki Buffet. We had lots of sushi and tempura and some other stuff too. And we actually got to try the desserts this time. We also picked up two pairs of my jeans from the alteration shop. They needed new zippers. We spent a long time at Mega Mall on Tuesday we didn’t arrive home until around 12 midnight!

It’s been such a busy week so far! We’re exhausted. We slept until 3pm this afternoon! And there are still a lot of things coming up, Christmas Eve tomorrow night, Christmas Day on Friday. And on the 28th we’re staying overnight at The Malayan Plaza.

To view all of our wedding & honeymoon photos click here!

Happy Holidays!!!

December 19th, 2009 was our wedding day. The day before I was still really sick, I woke up with no voice and a terrible cough. I drank hot tea all day long and was taking Benadryl cough medicine. The next morning F.B. said he woke up at 5am because he couldn’t sleep, I woke up at 6am. Around 7am we got prepared for the wedding. My cold was much better, only slight sniffles.

We arrived at the Cainta Municipal hall before 10am. The mayor had a lot of appointments scheduled so he didn’t arrive until around 10:30am. F.B.’s parents hired a professional photographer, so we posed for some photos until the mayor arrived. F.B.’s sister had my camera to take photos and her camera to take video of the ceremony, etc.

The entire civil ceremony was in Tagalog, but the mayor gave an overview in English for me every now and then. When we were holding each others wedding rings I got nervous and was thinking real hard, “Which is his left hand!?” lol! F.B. got a little teary eyed when we exchanged rings and we each had to say a little something. After the ceremony we had to sign our marriage certificate, it has to be filed at the municipal hall so we will be able to pick it up the week after Christmas. Afterwards we took more photos with the mayor and outside the municipal building.

The Municipal Building:

Photos from the wedding ceremony:

When we arrived back at F.B.’s house we were greeted with his relatives throwing rice and rose petals. It was already around 12pm by then and we needed to leave for the Manila Hotel by 1pm, so we had a quick lunch at his house. His parents had a luncheon prepared for all the relatives.

Traffic is pretty bad on weekends and so close to the holidays. Even though we left around 1pm, we didn’t arrive at the Manila Hotel until just after 3pm! We checked in and relaxed for awhile, watching Spongebob and eating Ruffles chips!

Picture of the Lobby at the Manila Hotel:

We got prepared for our wedding reception and headed downstairs to the Champagne Salon around 7pm. F.B.’s sister announced us as we came into the room. She hosted the evening, with speeches from friends and relatives. My friend Gayle came with her sister to the wedding and also gave a nice speech for us. F’s sister also prepared two cute movie presentations for us. ‘On The Way’ down by Ryan Cabrera and ‘Happy Together’ by The Turtles were our songs! She also read some greetings from my family members. They also had a giveaway for whoever could guess when we made our relationship official! (4-1-2004).

Photo’s from our Wedding Reception:

My Rose Bouquet (30 Roses) from F.B.’s parents:

The pretty ice sculpture (F & S).

Everything is so fancy at the Manila Hotel! They had a little stage set up with a table for F.B. & I. Even though it was a buffet style dinner, because we were the bride and groom we had a waiter that would bring us each course in the buffet. If we wanted a drink, or more of certain dish we just had to ask.

Unfortunately there was a ton of picture taking, with the professional photographer. We kept having to stop eating to take more photos. I thought it was really funny when F’s sister announced, “I hope you’re all enjoying your dessert.” Because F & I hadn’t even begun to start our main course! I think I enjoyed dessert best, we made the waiter bring us more of the chocolate cake!

It was also really funny when everyone began clinking on their glasses and saying, “Kiss, Kiss”. F.B. thought they were saying “Speech, Speech.” So he shook his head ‘no’ and kept eating. Everyone was like, “Ooooh!” because he wouldn’t kiss me, so I held my fists up at him, haha. (I think the photographer got a photo of that, I hope, lol!) I had to explain to him later, they wanted him to kiss me!

Most of the guests started to leave around 9pm. But F.B. & I didn’t leave until after the cleanup around 10pm to go back to our hotel room. It was a longggg day! I don’t think we got to bed until 3am. They had this neat ipod dock in our hotel room, but the alarm was set on it accidentally so it ended up waking us up at 6am! We did get a nap later on though!

To view more of our wedding & honeymoon photos you can view our photobucket album here!

Also here:

Wedding Photographer Photos

Our Wedding & Honeymoon

NOTE: If you are getting married in the Philippines and you are a US citizen these requirements from the US Embassy in Manila Philippines, will be helpful: Getting Married in The Philippines.

It’s already Wednesday December 16th here at 2am. (My blog settings are still on my home time.) We are down to just 3 days until the wedding… and even though I’ve been in the Philippines 3 weeks now, it’s the week of my wedding I come down with a cold!!!

Sunday afternoon my nose started running and by the evening my throat was really sore. F.B.’s dad had some leftover cold medicine so that held me over until we could get some more medicine on Monday. Early Monday morning F.B. went to the grocery to get me some Gatorade and menthol cough drops. (Menthol candy here in the Philippines!) Today my nose has just been running & I've been sneezing!!!

Monday we had to go to the Cainta municipal hall to pick up our marriage license. We dropped it off at the mayor’s office for our wedding on December 19th. I also mailed some Christmas cards and we picked up more cold medicine, soup and Listerine at the grocery. We went to Robinson’s Galleria that evening and had dinner at Tokyo Tokyo and Starbucks afterwards… hot coffee feels so good on my throat right now!

Last Saturday we went to Mall of Asia in the afternoon and had lunch at Chow King. I discovered I could get the Peppermint Mocha as a light blended frappucino, yay! F.B. had a toffee nut frapp.(These pictures are especially for Shannon! Sorry, lol!)

Afterwards we met up with F.B.’s parents at the Manila Hotel so we could confirm the reservations, etc for the wedding buffet dinner on December 19th. I was happy because there was free wi-fi at the hotel. I recently had to pay my cell phone company an exorbitant amount of money for blackberry roaming charges, blah. So now I can only use internet on my phone when there’s free wi-fi.

Some pictures of the Manila Hotel:

I thought I would share what our invitations look like all done up:

And these are the favors we are giving away at the wedding. They are in heart shaped boxes. It’s a keychain with our wedding date and an American flag on one side and a Philippine Flag on the other. (A big thank you to F.B.’s family for all of the wedding planning, reservations, favors, etc!)

Our titanium wedding rings!

After the Manila Hotel we decided to go to Trinoma Mall for dinner but it was sooo mobbed with weekend Christmas Shoppers that we just ended up at Big R near F.B.’s house for dinner. We tried a new Japanese restaurant named ‘Kitaro’. I had a chicken teriyaki meal and F.B. had “yakiniku” which was a beef meal. (I told him it looked like Philadelphia cheese steak meat without the cheese!) We also had our favorite sushi, California Maki. Which is just cooked crab meat & mango, mayo. (The USA version has avocado instead of mango.) Kitaro’s had little fish eggs on top too, but it was really good. We will definitely be having dinner there again sometime.

I got some more keychain mice at the 85 Peso store in Robinson’s Galleria. I’ve got a whole collection now!

We also found these weird sunglasses there- I bought them mainly because F & I thought the the “English” on the package is hysterical. I think I may have to submit them to Engrishfunny.com. (Click to make the pictures larger.) Most all of the items from the 85 Peso store are from Japan.

F.B. was excited to have Ruffles the other night, he hasn’t had any since before the flood. I was excited to find plain Snyder’s Pretzels at SM Marikina’s supermarket! (Since I'm still doing my pre-wedding dieting. Which is mainly no junk foods and smaller portions.)

F.B. likes to create sandwiches. Here’s his 3 layer salami sandwich from last week! He and my brother Seth will definitely get along; Seth likes to make 3 layer sandwiches too.

Mugwort was hanging out in front of F’s house the other night he made himself at home on the decorative stone.

Dinner at Gerry’s Grill last week:

Just hanging out at the house:

Saturday morning 12/19 we will be getting married at the Cainta Municipal hall by the mayor. (Which means at home in Philadelphia it will actually be Friday, 12/18 at 9pm!) Around 2pm we will have to check into the Manila Hotel. We are staying 2 nights as a gift from F.B.’s parents. 6pm-10pm will be our wedding dinner. It’s going to be a long day so I will probably be doing a blog sometime the week after the wedding. You can always check my Facebook page for more current updates!

NOTE: If you are getting married in the Philippines and you are a US citizen these requirements from the US Embassy in Manila Philippines, will be helpful: Getting Married in The Philippines.