It was just recently roughly about 2-3 years ago that this designer got in touch with his cousin Katrina. The last time when we were together were at this designer's uncle's wedding which happened roughly happened 23 years ago in our grandfather's orchid garden where her sisters were flower girls and yours truly was a Bible bearer. Not until this designer made some small breakthroughs in the local fashion scene and through Facebook that yours truly got in touch with distant relatives whom we haven't seen for a very long time. 

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Katrina, fondly called as "Trina" by our cousins and her sisters was that girl with a very beautiful eyes and intelligent mind. She is also very ambitious and hard working as she trekked the very remote areas of Mindanao in General Santos, Zamboanga and South Cotabato on her own as a medical representative of a big pharmaceutical company in the Philippines. She would often tell us how she can do long drives on her own and visit two province all at the same day and go back and forth from her home in Davao City just to meet these Doctors and medical practitioners. As she hustled, she became that person that she desired to be, a strong, and independent woman and despite exhaustion she remained that bubbly, pretty and very smart girl who conquered one province at a time; And that's how she met Exzell, the young lad from Manila of whom by the rarest of chance for them to meet, destiny brought them together in the most unlikely place and city of Zamboanga 6-7 years ago. 

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Trina as she mentioned it was a love found in a hopeless place. It may be funny however, but it a very unconventional place to meet the man who is destined for you to spend the rest of your life with. Regardless of the distance, they both endured a long distance relationship in the last 6 years and Trina flies to Manila once a month as she had that privilege to travel more than Exzell due to some restrictions of his job. Most relationships would fail specially if it's a long distance set-up however for these two, distance was not an issue as they were both committed to each other regardless of their situation. For these two open-minded and very modern individuals, deciding between a church wedding and a ceremony in-front of a judge made no difference to them. So long as they do the vows and they become a legitimate husband and wife couple, it's already a done deal. However, things went for a sudden turn when they both gave in to their parents' wishes to have a wedding ceremony in a church and that's how our collaboration started. 

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To be honest, this designer was approached by Trina almost a year and a half ago to discuss her dream wedding gown. It wasn't extremely serious until she approached yours truly some time this year and made her vision clear to us specially the restrictions of the church which became challenging for us both on how to design a wedding gown that would be age appropriate, and appropriate for her body type. She sent me pegs and as her designer, yours truly was adamant to remove the sleeves as she would look 10 years more than her age if she wanted the typical 3/4's or cap sleeves with lace. She wanted something perky and agreed to do a sweetheart neckline and to put a cover on her arm and shoulders as the church requires, we decided to create a cape to make her entire look look modern and age appropriate. While she wants to keep things simple, she also wants to highlight her curves. So this designer modified the sweetheart neckline to accommodate her upper chest and extended the Basque waist to elongate her torso. We covered the nude based corset with corded lace and used illusion tulle both on the lace adorned cape and the topmost layer of her skirt to add more texture. She was very conscious with her upper chest however after the second revision of the corset, her curves became evident, her hips were highlighted and the upper chest was secured. Her dress was very simple, however her beauty shined through with the dress and she constantly received compliments from the attendees of her wedding. Something this designer was proud of because yours truly was extremely worried since her dress was extremely simple. Not a single bead was present. Only layers of corded lace filled her bodice in off-white that made her entire look pristine and bucolic which fitted her enchanted rain forest theme.

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We barely had any problem working together and what this designer appreciated the most from Trina is her right amount of inquisitiveness and curiosity which made our working relationship healthy. There were challenges along the way but this designer made it sure that her wishes be granted. This designer was not there to grace the wedding of his cousin Trina but the set up was grand. This designer was happy with how the wedding turned out while looking at the photos as every detail was followed and done just as what Trina had wished and it was even more than what she had expected as she herself was surprised. 

 

This designer can only wish them a life full of abundance and love as Trina and Exzell are now proud parents of their newborn baby boy Kite who by the way looks very handsome. Best wishes to the couple. 

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