our artbook

thick, heavy and you can easily recognize it from a mile away. that’s what a typical wedding album is. then photographers started offering “coffetable” albums. they’re a bit thinner with pages pasted on thin cardboards. they look more like baby books than coffeetable books. 😆

and then there is the artbook.




the artbook is a unique product offered by fol rana jr. it has the look and feel of a true coffeetable book. a unique product indeed that’s why we wanted one for our wedding. it took a while but we finally got ours just today. 🙂

even though we already knew what it would like (layouts are pre-approved before printing), it’s just different seeing the layouts printed and bound together in a book. heck, even the smell is different. 😀

the printing quality is exquisite, giving justice to the elegant layouting done.



besides absolutely loving the album, we love the way it was packaged too. to protect the artbook, it has:

• a classy leather case
• a printed hard case
• and a book jacket

the front and back cover layout couldn’t have been more perfect. to top it off, our love story is printed at the back. 🙂


just to give you an idea how thin our artbook is, that’s 6 five-peso coins stacked beside our artbook. even my phone is twice as thick as our artbook. we haven’t seen a 50-page wedding album this thin other than the artbook.

browsing through the pages of our artbook brings back memories of our wedding day. that’s more than enough to bring a smile off our faces. 🙂

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on print

almost a month after getting the news, it finally made the papers. thanks to john rana, w@w co-founder, for the info on when it’s gonna be out. if not for him, we wouldn’t have known when it will be printed.

we knew it would come out today but we still almost forgot to get a copy. thankfully we remembered as we were on our way to tagaytay to attend a wedding (more on this on another post). buti na lang 7-11 still has copies of the paper. 🙂



our wedding’s writeup by bob nicolas though was cut-short for the paper. here’s the complete article straight from w@w.

Angel Diokno & Selle Felizardo
January 20, 2007
Bella Vista, Tagaytay

This couple booked us for an American backyard, spring-themed wedding at Bella Vista, Tagaytay slated at 6:30 in the morning. At first we thought they were kidding but they were not and so come wedding day, we started to shoot at 3 am, our earliest shoot to date.

The wedding of Selle and Dyoks was a very personal wedding… not grand… not big… but something simple and uniquely them. Wanting to feel the whole experience, the couple prepared the wedding all by themselves, deciding not to get a coordinator. They were very detailed, meticulous and hands-on from day one until the very day itself. From invites to reception gimmicks and everything else in-between, the couple showcased their creativity and put their personal stamp on their wedding which all the more made it beautiful.

Weddings are about love and this one was overflowing with it. Love from friends who involved themselves for free by customizing the couple’s unity candle, acting as officiant, musicians, emcees and on-the-day coordinators. Love from God who let His glory shine on a wedding which had no plan B in case it rained. Love for each other which was highlighted by their emotional exchange of vows. Kind-hearted and spiritual, they went way beyond the typical supplier-client relationship and treated their suppliers as friends… something that their caterer, makeup artist and photographer can attest to as well.

True to being a friend, they always have nothing but high praises of my work as evident by their several referrals and our sudden recognition in the W@W community this year.

Intimate. Emotion-filled. Simple yet elegant. When none of the guests are late for a sunrise, out-of-town wedding then it has got to be a very special affair. Yes, it was very special indeed. A wedding we will never forget.

Bob Nicolas
http://www.bobnicolas.com
W@Wie Awards Top 10 (2007)

thanks to those who have congratulated us. we still find it surreal and hard to believe making the list… but we’ll take it. 🙂

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whoa!

we were just surfing through the net and look what we found…

2007 weddings of the year

an interesting topic. imagine our reaction when we saw our wedding on the list! 😀

who would’ve thought? we certainly didn’t. when were planning our wedding, we didn’t set out to wow our guests. of the so many grand weddings around, ours was not even close to being one. due to these, some may argue that ours had no business being on this list. but bob nicolas thought otherwise. 🙂

this is heart warming to say the very least and God deserves all the glory. what a nice surprise recognition just in time for our wedding anniversary. 🙂

kudos to the other couples who made the list. most of you look familiar as you’ve been featured in your respective supplier’s blogs (yes, we’re blog hoppers. 😉).

and, bob, salamat, ha. 🙂

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exactly a year ago…

…and around this very minute, our wedding ceremony has long been over, the venue’s empty, all the guests have left and we’re already off for our honeymoon .

to celebrate our first anniversary, i made this audio visual flashback of our honeymoon as a surprise gift for my wife. 🙂



i just started this project about a week ago, editing late into the night when selle’s already asleep as to not ruin the surprise. this proved to be tricky and i almost was not able to finish due to lack of time (and opportunity 😀) but thankfully i was able to render it all just last night (past midnight to be exact. buzzer beater talaga. 😆).

therefore, i was able to greet selle as she woke up with this video… and she loved it. 🙂

in a few minutes we’ll be off to celebrate our anniversary. we pushed back our initial plan to next month but we’ll celebrate today nonetheless. more on this on a seperate blog post. 😉

ps a bit of trivia about this video. early this week, i mentioned in passing to our videographer, bob , during one of chats that i was editing this video for selle. imagine my surprise when bob volunteered to edit the video… for free! ah, grabe. syempre, i politely declined kasi nakakahiya naman knowing how busy he is with his numerous clients. besides, i wanted to do this myself kahit na alam kong mas maganda ng d hamak kung si bob gagawa. 😀 bait talaga… 🙂

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it’s official

after almost 11 months, we finally got our hands on this… 😀





we didn’t think it would take this long but it did. we didn’t mind at first until recently when suddenly we really, really needed to get our contract in order to beat the tax exemption deadline (sayang din yun refund, ha. 🙂) which was up this very week. special thanks to our best man, mike and especially his dad for pulling through.

whew, that was a close one. 🙂

it ain’t over yet though. after this, we need to get the nso certified one. hopefully, that would not take another 11 months. 😆



actual contract signing photos during the ceremony (photos by fol rana jr)


post-ceremony contract signing by our officiant and sponsors (photo by mike crucillo)

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due to insistent public demand

a couple of weeks ago, we blogged about our wedding video. because of that blog post, we’ve received A TON of requests asking us to post our actual video. so we were thinking, “what part of our video should we post?”

fast forward to this past weekend’s expo. as stated in our previous blog, we stayed at bob’s booth at the expo. as always, whenever he has a new sampler, bob gave us a copy (we just admire his work). at home, we watched the sampler and was surprised to see our own wedding video in it. 🙂 sneaky bob… d man lang cnabi na andun pala kami. 😀 this is what jap was referring to when she was talking with bob… just before she met us. straight out of her blog post,

one particular AVP made me cry twice and yes, i watched it twice.

bob has got to read this. 🙂

it was our second time to be featured in bob’s video samplers. the first one was our onsite video included in last march’s expo video sampler. tapos ngayon, a chapter off our wedding video. bob must love us… or must be proud of what he did to our videos… or both. 🙂

without further delay, here’s the opening chapter of our final edited video. enjoy. 🙂



this chapter is a fusion of the preparations and highlights of the ceremony. the song and editing approach was a perfect setup for the following chapter which was uberly dramatic. now that one made us cry. 🙂

wanna see that chapter also? then drop by our house. 😉

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surprise, surprise…

to unwind, we went out and saw a movie this past weekend. while amidst the heightening suspense in the movie, the invasion, i suddenly received a call (we do practice phonetics and our phones were in silent mode. 😛). it was from our dear friend, wengi:

“kuya, nasa bahay kayo ngayon? dun ako ma2log mamaya, ha.”

surprise, surprise! 🙂

but it was a welcome surprise. 😉 it’s been a while since we’ve seen wengi and spending time with her, be it unplanned, was something we would not turn down. she was having her gown fitted (she’s a member of the entourage for 2 consecutive weddings this september) while we planned to buy some groceries after the movie so we decided just to meet up at our house.

at about the the same time we we’re unloading our groceries, wengi arrived. what soon followed was hours of conversations mainly between selle and wengi. natigil lang kwen2han when we were watching our wedding video. 😀

wengi has such positive energy and a distinctive laugh (watch our wedding video raw footages and you’ll know what we mean. 😆) which made her short stay a pleasing one.

the following day, we all went to manila. wengi went home while we decided to visit our friends/suppliers at the wedding expo… just like what we did during last march’s expo. unlike last time though, only 2 of our favorite suppliers were present. apparently, september wedding expo have limited slots that’s why slots were raffled out. unfortunately, fol and lanie didn’t get their names picked. therefore, only bob and kaye were at the expo (the siytangco’s (bella vista) don’t join fairs).

bago tumambay sa mga booth nila, we strolled through the whole exhibit area first (we even bumped into an ofcmate who was surprised see us there 😀) and had the following notable observations:

• the photo booth is the latest craze. karl and mimi started it last march with clique booth but now there’s a whole plethora of photo booths suppliers. in a span of months, there’s now at least 3-4 more new photo booths.
• jason magbanua is really into lomography. he had 2 lomo-walls flanking his booth. very eye-catching.
• kaye stands out and never runs out of ideas. we really like the plant box centerpiece that was displayed. it’s both refreshing and unique.

after roaming around, we went to bob’s booth at nakipag-kwen2han na. 😀 it’s always a pleasure talking with bob and let because they’re innately nice people. tapos andun pa friend nila na si joey boquiren, a photographer extraordinaire in his own right, na super kulit at masayang kausap. kaya naman d talaga namin namalayan oras habang andun kami. we were so into our conversations that we forgot to take our camera out to take a quick snapshot. that’s why this post is a photo-less one. todo-kwen2han namin pero, of course, we didn’t want to disrupt naman bob’s business kaya everytime may potential client na lalapit, eh tigil muna kwen2han.

during one of those times habang nag-e-entertain c bob ng guest, interestingly, eh bigla kaming tinuro ni bob at tinawag. yun pala, bob was talking to jap, a fellow w@wie that we got to exchange mails a couple of weeks ago.

surprise, surpise! 🙂

to quote jap,

been exchanging mails with this couple & they’ve been so helpful! i finally met them sa booth ni bob. i was just telling bob that i cried watching selle & dyoks’ avp & he said, heto cla o.. hehe.. andun pala cla nakikichicka..=)

kakatuwa, no? 🙂 ayun, kwen2han kami ni jap na, according to her mom, “like we’re college friends.” funny but it sure did feel that way. mainly because she’s nice and bubbly (teka lang, that’s sounds like a drink. 😆). after she left, selle and i can’t help but smile on just what happened. it’s still a bit early but we’re sure that jap, being the positive person that she is, will have an amazing wedding. 🙂

balik na naman kami sa kwen2han and later on, we realized another w@wie, to whom we referred bob, booked him also just the day before. throughout our stay there, bob was constantly being approached by couples and b2b’s. we’re extremely happy that he is beginning to be recognized… he deserves to be.

we left bob’s booth after a couple of hours or so. we came back to kaye’s booth but unfortunately, we just missed her again. anyway, we’ll see her naman at our friend’s wedding in a couple of weeks. 🙂

we capped-off the day by having dinner at our favorite restaurant in festival mall… bangus. there we are always treated with warmth and friendliness by the owner and the head waiter. parang family na kasi kami dun. 🙂

this past weekend we were a recipient of a couple of pleasant surprises. who knew that those things were to happen this weekend? we certainly didn’t. life is definitely full of surprises which that makes life worth living… and we only have God to thank for that. 🙂

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unsung heroes

our wedding video has been in and out of our hts and pc for the past week. we’ve watched it a gazillion times, both the edited and the raw footages, and we still can’t get enough of it. 🙂 ganun naman ata talaga, eh. videos capsulize the wedding day and, if excellently made (like ours. 😀), present it in a cinematic way. watching it brings the couple back to their wedding day, one of the most significant if not the most significant day in their lives.

sarap mag-reminisce. 😉

and while reminiscing, we can’t help to be feel blessed… blessed by all the grace God has given us to make our day extremely special. kaya naman we are very vocal in showing our appreciation to those God used to channel His blessing through. even with a highly-detailed suppliers rating and an extensive thank you speech at our wedding, we had a feeling we might’ve left somebody out… and as we watched our wedding video, yun nga, we did fail to mention a few people. 😦

and so today, as the nation celebrates national heroes day, we think it’s quite appropriate that we ourselves give homage to our wedding day unsung heroes.


mommy rose. the matron-of-honor. when everybody else have left balai taal, mommy remained with the bride. she was the one who gathered and arranged all the ceremony stuff that was left at balai. sya na din syempre nagdala sa ceremony site at nag-ayos lahat. during the ceremony, whenever needed, she was there for selle. when everything was over, she was still there. hanggang sa pagdala ng mga regalo sa bahay namin, sya pa din. 🙂


mike. the best man. with the exception of pastor ado, he was the busiest during the ceremonies. handling the mic, the communion elements, the rings… and many more. hanggang ngayon nga d pa din namin alam pano napunta sa kanya wedding rings namin, eh. 🙂 after the ceremony, he became our unofficial backup photographer, snapping shots here-and-there. he also took care of all our wedding documents. 🙂


sapul siblings. a secondary sponsor, an usher and an usherette. daisy and julius were responsible for placing all the table cards… at 5 in the morning. since there was a mixup in transportation assignments, julius also became our instant bridal car driver… and their vehicle, our instant bridal car. mother (tintin) became our reception coordinator… instantly also. she was the one who thought of bringing the lcd screen at the veranda… an ingenious move. 🙂

these are people who are close to our hearts… and, as their actions suggest, we are close to theirs also. there were no direct assignments. there were no orders given. they themselves initiated to do what they thought would be nice to be done. and that’s what heroes are made of.

to our heroes, we are so blessed to have friends like you. if it ain’t obvious enough, we truly appreciate what you did on our wedding day. we truly appreciate your friendship. 🙂

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simply cinematic

we love movies. we love visual arts. as long as it’s captivating, moving and has story to tell, we love it.

just yesterday we were able to watch the movie, the bourne ultimatum. a fantastic movie. the action scenes were crisp and edgy. jason bourne’s journey… surprisingly touching. the storyline… plot twist filled.

but this blog post is not about that movie.

it’s about another movie.

a movie we’ve been eagerly awaiting…

we now have our final wedding video! 😀

we were so excited that upon arriving back home, we immediately popped our hts open, placed our wedding dvd and watched it 2 straight times… and then the raw footages… not withstanding that it was around 2 am already. excited, eh, no? 😆

and our excitement was immediately justified. the initial scene of a 3-dimensional tour of a map of tagaytay was an early indication of how meticulously and excellently done the video was. as that brief introduction raised the bar extremely high, the succeeding scenes did not disappoint.

our wedding video was everything we wanted it to be… and maybe more. bob nicolas did a splendid job of coming up with a video that was visually captivating, emotionally moving and a story well told. WE ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. 🙂

bob’s technical brilliance in video editing was in full display in our video. precision cuts, dissolves, picture in picture, time-lapse… etc. being a video editor myself, i just appreciate usage of such techniques. also, we now appreciate more the power of his dvx camera with its warmer, more saturated colors and its capability of shooting at 24p thereby making our video more film-like.

but beyond technical skills, bob’s ability to capture moments and emotions has always been his strength. his unobtrusive style and strong belief that the day is special in itself helps him achieve this. our bouts of giddiness and excitement, our overflowing happiness, our longing, our anticipation and all the stolen moments were stringed altogether producing our wedding video. a wedding video that only cements bob’s tag line, life really is like a movie.

astonishing cinematogaphy + creative camerawork + sharp editing. cinematic indeed.

what makes things even more amazing is bob had to do with somewhat limited material. we didn’t have the conventional bridal march (ours was different yet bob still managed to make it dramatic. galing talaga. 🙂). we didn’t have a first dance. we didn’t have the usual ceremonies: cake cutting, garter toss, dove release. these are scenes that are critical ingredients in most wedding videos. without such is like asking a coach to go to basketball game without his key players. but it didn’t matter to bob… at least, it seemed like it didn’t. 😉

even the raw footages were commendable. nakaka2wa din panoorin because you get real behind-the-scenes look at how the day transpired. madaming magagandang footages that it seemed like it’s an edited video minus the musical score. i’ll probably toy with these footages and make our own amateur wedding video. 😆


an inside look of the elegant looking dvd case.


embossed label on the parents’ copy dvd case.


our edited dvd’s… and raw footages.



screen captures of the the menu screens. these photos do not truly represent the beauty of the design. the tilted tri-screen previews scenes within the video… and in the case of the scene selection screen, it goes with special effects. superb! 🙂


we never thought that watching credit roll will be this entertaining. galing-galing. 🙂 btw, that’s my sister, brother-in-law and our ring bearer giving their best wishes. 🙂

it’s quite obvious that we are more than satisfied with the final output. aside from the things we’ve said already, we want to point out one last thing.

we gave bob free reign in editing our video… except for one request. we told him, “gus2 namin yung video namin eh yung maiiyak si selle, ha.” astig sa request, no? 😉 but you know what? at very first viewing, we found ourselves holding back tears while watching. just this morning, i was watching alone while my wife sleeps and i was shedding tears also. our wedding video brought us back to our wedding… the height of the emotions, the love that was more than evident and the glory of God.

bob, we can’t thank you enough for what you did. you’re blessed with skills way above everyone else. it’s nice that you get to use it to infuse happiness to people… something they’ll carry for the rest of their lives. we certainly will. to you, let and the kids, we pray for nothing but success in all aspects. salamat. 🙂

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admiring another ad… a different kind

our last blog post has been receiving a lot of visits (including a welcome surprise comment from a prominent wedding supplier 😉). as a sequel of sorts, we want to showcase another ad, one filled with ingenuity and creativity. when we first saw this one, we can’t help but smile… and be proud as well. you see, the owner of this “ad” is someone we know fairly well. 😉




lanie’s marketing strategy was simple and subtle yet extremely effective. the first photo above was a screen capture from videography outfit playback documenting our fellow w@wies peejay & jon’s wedding. the second photo was from another w@wie’s wedding, captured by nelwin uy, this time from a photographer’s point of view.

the chair is unique and eye-catching. it seemed like it was taken straight out of a hollywood set. the label is straight forward. this is why it is easy to understand that “the chair” has been featured twice by different suppliers of different mediums (video & photo) on different occasions. most likely, these images would’ve been shown during the reception and/or will be in the final products. if so, the marketing strategy definitely worked… and lanie, our dear makeup artist, need not do anything other than bringing “the chair.” 🙂

to lanie, 6 months after our wedding and we’re still filled with overflowing gratitude to what you did in our wedding… and in our prenups… and everything else in between (even if “the chair” wasn’t around yet during those times 😆).

to those who are looking for a makeup artist, we suggest you get lanie acedillo. with her, you are assured of 3 things:

• you’ll be at the receiving end of high quality service from the hands of an expert
• you’ll forget all the stress of the day due to her infectious jolly disposition
• and you’ll get to sit on “the chair” 😀

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