6/365 days of blogging.

So my friend’s daughter is turning 18 this September. She and her husband decided to give her a traditional Filipino 18th birthday called a cotillon or a debut.  She’s asked me to help her because these parties have a tendency to be big.

We’ve been planning it for about a year now.  Since we’re trying to minimize the expenses without sacrificing on the quality of the event, we needed a long time to prepare for it. Picking out the venue is the biggest thing.  There’s a lot of venues out here in the Baltimore and metros.  But to pick out the one that won’t be a drain on the budget but would still work takes a lot of research and leg work.

Finally, we’ve picked out a venue and have made an arrangement already for our date.  Since it’s not a flashy place, it would take a little bit of imagination to make it the perfect venue.  A couple of weekends ago, we were able to create a prototype of the centerpiece we are planning to do.  We already have some ideas on how to decorate the drabby wood panels of the wall and the “stage” without using up too much set up time.

The color of her daughter’s gown is finalized and a sample of it the clothe was already sent to the Philippines where the dressmaker is.  We’re ordering stuff for the souvenirs to be sent here from Divisoria.

I’ll be chronicling the details of the party here so that you guys can also have an idea of what needs to be done to prepare for this kind of event far away from the Philippines.

So just as a teaser, and I will write up a whole entry about the save-the-dates later, here are 2 samples that I made and showed my friend (altho none of these came up to be the final one).