Rating Legend:
5 – highest
1 – lowest
After deciding on our reception venue, we searched for nearby churches in that area. The first one we considered was SSJ, and we never looked any further. Situated inside a subdivision, there wouldn’t be any problems with vehicle noises during our wedding celebration.
A day after the 2011 Easter holidays, M was ringing them to pencil book, but was unsuccessful. After nearly 100 missed calls, and on a desperate move to be able to talk to someone from their office, M searched Facebook for any SSJ group and we found a page for their youth group. M sent a message to 3 of their admins to ask for any other contact numbers. One of them replied right away and paid the church a visit and told us the employees were still away on holidays and will be back by Wednesday that same week. On that Wednesday, M tried ringing them again on the dot, and was glad that someone answered the phone only after 3 attempts.
We asked the help of one of our friends to book the church for us – read here.
The first time we visited SSJ was when we had our pre-cana seminar in July. We were amazed by the altar! And the surroundings - serene.peaceful.quiet.
Everytime we rang them to ask questions, we always got the right answers; the staff were more than accommodating, especially when we booked our canonical interview even without the complete paperworks yet. They also did not require us to submit any papers from the Chancery which was a relief.
A few days prior to our scheduled interview, we were told we needed to change the schedule as the priest had something to attend to. We rescheduled for the day after. The priest who conducted the interview was really nice – he did not ask anything more than what was in the questionnaire. We were in his office for less than 10 minutes.
The list of songs we preferred for the wedding rites was only given to Sir Ronald, their in-house organist, 2 weeks before the wedding when we should’ve given them at least a month notice – but we did not hear anything from him to say he won’t be able to do it. The day before the wedding, he rang us and asked us to send him the list again via e-mail.
On the wedding day itself, the church was really nice – it had white roses in the aisle (we did not pay for the flowers’ upgrade). Some of the songs we specified were not followed, i.e. the song we wanted for the groom and entourage march, but they were able to play the bridal march that we requested, which Tess, R’s cousin, sang. Their in-house singer was good as well.
After the wedding, we had some concerns with the marriage certificate, and when we told them to wait for us before they submit the paperworks to NSO, they did.
Package Cost: PhP 25,000 + PhP 3,000 for additional songs.
Package Inclusion: Simple flower decoration, soloist and organist, Lighted chandelier, Red carpet, Use of electricity for video, use of airconditioning unit for 1 ½ hours (including the 15mins pre-cooling time).
For the music: Song for groom + entourage march, Song for bridal March, Songs for the duration of the mass, Songs for pictorial and recessional.
R&M’s rating: 5 (church) / 4.5 (music)
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