1. Purchase a less expensive plain white dress and buy the applicas at a yardage shop by the yard to enhance the dress with simple stitches.

2. Expand the flowers for table décor with 2/3 greenery to 1/3 flowers.

3. Use mirror rounds under the flowers to expand their appearance on tables.

4. Have the bridesmaids carry one long-stemmed flower keyed into your wedding bouquet.

5. Selecting “in-season” flowers for your bouquets and décor can save a third of the costs.

6. Learn how to do your make-up prior to the event date and complete your own prior to putting on your gown.

7. Hiring an event coordinator will often save you time (time is money) and funds by selecting from his/her recommendations of experienced vendors and ways to save. Most specialize in cutting costs.

8. Take advantage of wine sales the months prior to the wedding day.

9. Event location fees can be less when you hold your event mid-week or on a Friday or Sunday.

10. When evaluating the funds available for the wedding and reception, take into consideration the people in your circle of family and friends who can do the vendor work as part of their gift to you.

11. Shop for a specific price per slice on your cake. This can range from $3. to 9. per slice.

12. A Band or a DJ is often countered with “a D.J. is only one or two meals extra, but a band can be 5 or 10 meals.” Negotiate to not feed the band a full meal, but a nice boxed lunch. Some will agree.

13. Have the photographer shoot only the formal shots. Have a qualified friend take the rest of the day with a HIGH resolution camera.

14. Go to discount houses for your wedding and attendant dresses.

15. Some tux formalwear companies give the tux free for the groom when they bring four or more men in to be fitted for a wedding.

Yesterday, June 19, we attended Manny and Marie's (w@wie) wedding @ San Agustin Church, Manila followed by reception @ Baluate San Diego, Intramuros. It was a garden wedding... ganda ng set-up ng VS&F...sarap din ng food. With String Minstrels as their string quartet...so Romantic! and Mimi & Karl as their photographer!

The world for me,
And all the world can hold,
Is circled by your arms
...James Weldon Johnson

A heart that loves is always young
...Greek Proverb

"Love is promise, love is a souvenir.
Once given, never forgotten,
never let it disappear
...John Lennon

True love never grows old
...Proverb

Your love to me was like an unread book
...Countee Cullen, Poet

For what is love itself, for the one we love best?
An enfolding of immeasurable cares,
which yet are better than any joys outside our love
...George Elliot, English Novelist

A woman who is loved always has success
...Vicki Baum, Austrian Novelist

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides
...David Viscott, Author

'Tis better to have loved and lost,
then to never have loved at all
...Lord Alfred Tennyson

There can be no deep disappointment
where there is not deep love
...Martin Luther King, Jr.

True love's the gift which God has given,
to man alone beneath the heaven
...Walter Scott

For news of the heart, ask the face
...Guinea Proverb

Eternity was in our lips and eyes;
Bliss in our brows bent
...Cleopatra (Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra)

Love is a friendship set to music
...E Joseph Cossman

Pure love is a willingness to give
without a thought of receiving anything in return
...Anonymous

Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others,
and the delight in the recognition
...Alexander Smith

Love in its essence is spiritual fire
...Emanuel Swedenborg

Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfill them,
for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves
...Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, French Jesuit Priest

Life is a flower of which love is the honey
...Victor Hugo

Behind every great man there is a surprised woman
....Maryon Pearson

Who so findeth a wife, findeth a good thing
...The Bible

The man who says his wife can't take a joke,
forgets that she took him
...Oscar Wilde

Husband: a man who buys his football tickets four months in advance and waits until December 24 to do his Christmas shopping.

I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry
....Rita Rudner

Today I begin to understand what love is. . . . When we are parted, we each feel the lack of the other half of ourselves. We are incomplete like a book in two volumes of which the first has been lost. That is what I know love to be: incompleteness in absence.
...Alexandre Hazen Dornback

"There is no difficulty that enough love will not conquer; no disease that enough love will not heal; no door that enough love will not open; no gulf that enough love will not bridge; no wall that enough love will not throw down; no sin that enough love will not redeem...It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble; how hopeless the outlook; how muddled the tangle; how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all."
...Emmet Fox

Love is patient, love is kind.It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.It is not rude, it is not self-seeking.It is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.Love never fails
....Bible, I Corinthians 13:4-8

"Love is friendship set to music."
...E. Joseph Crossmann

"Love is the flower you've got to let grow."
...John Lennon

One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life.
That word is love
.... Sophocles

The first duty of love - is to listen
...Paul Tillich

I spread out the days before me - the days we have spent together - some bright as frost stars, some glowing with an opalescent magic, some cool as water-tumbled pebbles, some flashing with fire. What would they have been without you? Dates crossed off on a calendar
....Marion C. Garretty

A husband is a man who when someone tells him he is hen-pecked, answers, yes, but I am pecked by a good hen
....Gill Karlsen

Gladly I'll live in a poor mountain hut,Spin, sew and till the soil in any weather,And wash in the cold mountain stream, if but
We dwell together
....Japanese Lyric

When two people are at one in their inmost hearts,
They shatter even the strength of iron or of bronze.
And when two people understand each other in their inmost hearts,
Their words are sweet and strong, like the fragrance of orchids
....I-Ching