Yahoo, the Wedding Essentials team’s newest baby, Beautiful Weddings 2006, will be available at all leading bookstores and mag stands starting this week.

So, just what is Beautiful Weddings? It’s a collection of wonderfully inspiring stories celebrating beautiful beginnings by real brides and will be sold for only Php 120.00 – a real steal for something almost as good as love!
It’s been a little over two years now since our EIC Marbee called me to discuss the possibility of building ((Yep, the task daunted us very much since both of us are from advertising and have had no experience in the world of magazine publishing, ever.)) a wedding magazine together. From scratch! It’s been her wish to come out with something like it and I guess it took her by surprise that it was a dream project for me too. And whaddya know, since then, we’ve released four thick volumes and I can wholeheartedly say that yes, with equal parts passion and determination, and a whole lot of crazy logic, it can be done.
Every WE issue is as exciting to work on as the last one. How is that possible, you ask? I guess it’s because (1) both Marbee and I have a love affair with weddings (well you can tell by how I obsessively lovingly planned mine); (2) I can’t ask for a nicer team of girls to work with – Marbs, Charlene and Ria are always full of fresh ideas and are a ton of fun to be with. More importantly, we share the same vision about what we want to convey through the mag: that “beautiful weddings” are not restricted to celebrities and people in high society. That no matter what budget you have, you can have the wedding of your dreams.; and (3) I get to flex my dormant – now – that – I’m – out – of – advertising creative muscles. Planning the design and layout of 250+ pages ain’t no picnic, my friend, but it’s a great big challenge each time.
That said, I know you’ve heard this enough from me but please, please support Wedding Essentials and WE Beautiful Weddings. We may be novices in the field but you can be sure that everything we do comes straight from the heart.
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So how have you been? After I finished working on the magazines, I wanted to be away from the computer as much as possible so I took the chance to catch up on Veronica and the gang at Neptune ((I finished watching both seasons already! I want more! More, I tell you!)) and it’s official: I’m hooked. The following video is for Lia and Neva and everyone else who loves the show: Go, watch, and sing-along.
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By the way, I’ve somewhat been busy at the Phlog and in Multiply.

Hip-hip-hurrah! Yes, there is reason to rejoice because the fourth issue of our magazine, Wedding Essentials (July-Dec 2006), is now available at all leading bookstores and magazine stands. Hope you can check it out (pretty please?) Marbee, Charlene, Ria, the staff, and I have been working on it since January this year.

In this issue, we celebrate sometihng close to home, the Filipiniana wedding.

Who says it has to be confined to pina, jusi, and barongs? Who says there is only one true Filipina? Wedding Essentials explores what Filipiniana is in this issue. Four beautiful brides, each representing a Filipina archetype (chinita, dusky, mestiza, and morena) grace the gorgeous fabric (yes, fabric!) cover of this constantly innovative magazine. Be inspired by over 250 pages containing gorgeous bouquets, top designers’ beautiful reflections on what Filipiniana is, picturesque setups and venues, and dream themes ranging from Victorian Elegance to Romantic Hacienda. Truly the quintessential guide for the modern bride, Wedding Essentials, as always, has happy stories from recent brides, tips from industry experts, and many ideas for every detail of your dream wedding…from the invitation to the honeymoon.
For those who’d like to experience the making of WE4, I’ve just uploaded a ton of behind the scenes photos.
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For the past few weeks, WE4, the Beautiful Weddings special, Veronica Mars ((Thanks to Lia for giving me a copy of the entire first season of the series, I am now a devoted follower. Go pirates!)) and life in general ((Of course I’d rather spend my free time with Arn, Abbas and with friends and family rather than the computer, diba?)) has kept me away from this blog. Regular programming will resume as soon as time allows it.

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UPDATE: There are new pics in the phlog!

Because I’ve been extremely pluggy ((Yes, proof that you can take the girl out of advertising but you can’t take the advertising out of the girl!)) these past few weeks months, I thought I’d be educational for once and post a new “What’s the Story Morning Glory” entry. Since there hasn’t been time to leaf through my archives of sleeping projects ((read: projects that have already been put to bed. Ahehe.)), it was best to go the easy route and reprise my presentation at this year’s MBD – the one that started this whole “What’s the Story” thingy to begin with.

Presenting, ta-dah, the UltraelectromagneticJam album design and the story behind it.

SonyBMG called up to say that they want us to design for a yet-untitled all-star Eraserheads tribute album. All we knew was that different bands were gonna perform the music of the Heads. Because it didn’t have a title yet, I thought of the following visuals:

1. Legs of a couple of guitar-playing rocker chicks with the cord forming the name of the band. The idea I was trying to convey is that the album is all about other people playing Eraserheads music.
2. A “pop machine”, which also happens to be the title of one of the Heads’ hits. It’s supposed to be a vending machine that churns out, well, their hit songs but I wasn’t able to figure out how to visualize it, which explains why the visual is empty. ((Another idea was to have a landscape of guitar picks signed with the names of the participating bands and artists but it was hard to execute as I didn’t have the lineup of artists yet so I eventually junked it.))
I know I know, they were somewhat flimsy. Thankfully I didn’t have to submit them because Sony calls just in time to say that they already have a title for the album, “UltraelectromagneticJam” – derived from the title of the Heads’ very first album “UltraelectromagneticPop“.
And then in a Eureka! Moment I saw in my head what “look” this album is meant to have: a 70’s hippie, all-night party-in-Sunken-Garden feel.

3. I developed a quick, rough study. They liked it so…
4. I made a cleaner version, hoping it would be the final study already because, dear oh dear, hand-lettering all the bands and artists names ain’t no picnic.
Sony then informed us that we can’t use photos. Ack! Relayout! ((You think I would have learned my lesson but no, I still insisted on having everything hand-written even if it had to go through numerous revisions because the lineup only got finalized a week or so before its release. Imagine having to rewrite the names of the bands and songs in every possible order until we the sequence got finalized.)) I then had to seek the help of my dear husband for an illustration that will go with the look.

And in the end, I’m quite happy with how it came out. 😀 ((And even if Budz, Raimund, Marc and Ely think that it’s not yet time for a tribute album, Arn and I were able to thank them for their music in our own way.))

Related entry: The story behind the Blow-up Babies website.

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In case you haven’t noticed, the titles/subjects of my last six blog entries are from various songs I happened to be playing in my head at the time I posted them. Anyone who can give me the titles (and artists too, if you like) of the songs they were derived from wins a…er… plug on this blog. 😀