Every bride is beautiful on her wedding day. But we wouldn’t bet on her being so on the weeks leading to the big day when she becomes a nervous wreck as she attends to every single detail of the event. So we asked wedding planner Nona Castillejos-Clemente why any woman in her right mind would want to go through the headaches of arranging someone else’s wedding – hello, it’s like getting married 12 times a month!
Nona, who has organized more than 250 weddings, laughs and admits that she likes the idea of helping couples achieve their dream wedding. "As a wedding coordinator, you never really get used to it. You still cry during weddings."
Nona co-owns C and C Creative Concepts, a one-stop wedding shop that can arrange everything – from the invitations to the honeymoon. C and C stands for Castillejos and Clemente. Nona’s partners are her husband Jojo Clemente of Rajah Group of Companies, who takes care of the honeymoon options they offer couples; her mother Florina Castillejos who started the business; her sisters Malou (who designs wedding gowns) and Ada Castillejos; and brothers Jomar and Ferdie Castillejos, who take care of the transportation needs.
Now, the group is targetting a bigger market. Nona and company are coming out with a new wedding magazine called Dream Weddings and Dream Weddings Catalogue, the first of what’s going to be an annual catalogue with a nationwide directory of wedding suppliers. With Nona as editor in chief and her mom as publisher, the catalogue and magazine will be launched tomorrow, March 10, at Makati Shangri-La’s Rizal Ballroom. The event – open free to the public – is from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. with an exhibit of more than 120 wedding suppliers – florists, printers, photography and video outfits, souvenir makers, designers, cake artists, caterers, etc. And let’s not forget the wedding singers and musicians who will be performing in the afternoon.
The catalogue launching and bridal fashion show will start at 5 p.m. Designers are Barge Ramos, Eddie Baddeo, Fanny Serrano, Gener Gozum, Eric Pineda, Edwin Uy, Malou Castillejos, Edward Teng, Joel Bautista, Jontie Martinez, Boyet Dysangco, Joel Pros, Paola Angela, Cherrie Carriaga, and Maryanne Lazaro. Raymond Villanueva directs. Sponsors include PAL, Audio Compulsion, Tony Rodriguez, Nelson Villarica, Weddings@work.com, RJ 100 and DWKC.
In a market already overflowing with magazines vying for precious advertising and readership, why launch another one now? Nona says, "Dream Weddings will be different because we know the wedding industry, we’ve spent years organizing and coordinating with all sorts of wedding suppliers on behalf of couples with different budgets."
She says the magazine looks at weddings from the wedding industry’s point of view instead of simply from the couples getting married, which is why putting up a suppliers’ directory – complete with contact numbers, service descriptions and photos – became a priority for the magazine.
"When Jojo and I got married, we were both working and we had a difficult time planning the wedding even though we were used to organizing and even though my sister was a designer. When we put up C and C Creative Concepts, we put everything into the first wedding exhibit that we organized. It was called ‘Weddings at the Palace’ held at the Coconut Palace. It was very successful. More than 2,000 couples attended the one-day affair. We came out with an exhibitors’ directory and every wedding supplier who joined the show got a lot of business from it."
It was the wedding suppliers who urged the group to put up a catalogue and magazine, says Nona. "We started doing a newsletter at first. The pages went from 8 to 36. So we called our friends from the industry and they encouraged us." The annual catalogue contains 200 pages while the maiden issue of Dream Weddings is a slim 36-page read with Beth Tamayo on the cover.
Nona says it was difficult at first to translate all her experiences as a wedding planner into print, but having organized more than 250 weddings, she’s pretty confident that Dream Weddings will be a magazine brides-to-be would find very useful. "Even couples who can afford a big wedding want to be able to save money, and sometimes it’s a matter of knowing which supplier will fulfill your needs at the prices you want. The suppliers we work with offer services that cost from very high to very reasonable."
Take, for instance, the edge C and C has over other wedding planners. With Nona’s husband Jojo Clemente at the helm of Rajah Tours, the inbound arm of the Rajah Group, they could offer special rates to honeymooners. On C and C’s second anniversary, the company even offered free trips to Boracay and Bangkok.
The hardest part of planning a wedding, says Jojo, is budgeting. "We tell them what kind of budget they should prepare for what type of wedding. We can bargain with caterers, the reception venue, which couple sometimes don’t know they can do. There are clients who are so nice; anything you tell them they will follow, there are some clients that are difficult – from the parents to the brides. Even when you give them the most terrific wedding and all the guests are coming up to them and saying it’s a beautiful wedding, they’re not happy. Then there are those who are really appreciative. It balances out in the end."
Nona relates, "There’s one wedding that was so funny. The couple both come from families of singers. The mother of the bride called me up and said, we have a surprise for the bride; the groom will sing while the bride is walking down the aisle. Then the mother of the bride calls me and says, Nona, may surprise ang bride, she will sing to the groom during the grand entrance at the reception. Then the bride calls, may surprise kami for our parents, we’ll sing at the cake cutting ceremony. The sisters of the bride call, may surprise din. The youngest sister will sing for the couple."
Weddings like this make all the work worthwhile for Nona. But don’t be surprised to see her crying sometimes because every wedding, apart from being a stressful event, is also one of the most beautiful events in life.