So two years later, the husband and myself are still living under my parents roof. It's something we can't be so proud of. So much for Independence huh? Well, we have a pretty good explanation for that but I have to tell you our failed attempt at moving out first.

So two weeks after the wedding, the husband has finally found a house for us to rent. It's farther north from where I work but it's closer to our church and to husband's business. So even though the road leading to the house was an extreme challenge (during that time) because it is still under construction and is almost always muddy, we braved ourselves and rent the said house.

Our first two nights (Saturday and Sunday) are okay. Until the bebe has to go to school which we find out to be extremely frustrating. On Sunday night, it rained really hard so you already know that the road is as expected muddier than it already is. Another problem we see that day is we underestimated the saying "time flies". We wake up at 5:30 but our breakfast is still not ready until 6:30 am and bebe's school starts at 7:30 am. Add the fact that getting a jeepney ride to her school is almost close to impossible if you don't leave early plus traffic is horrible. So our fantasy "bahay bahayan" turned into a nightmare.

Therefore, our living setup return to it's complicated and unconventional state. Since we are  living about 30-45 minutes away from bebe's school (that's without traffic), my mom took it upon herself to decide that my bebe would stay with her during the school week and would go home to our own home on weekends. The bebe has no protests with that arrangement since she practically grew up under my mom's care (because I work night shift ever since she is just 4 months old). The setup is indeed weird but I have no choice since transportation and logistics isn't very favorable for the bebe's school schedule.

Anyhow, fast forward three days later (or make that three nights later), a heavy downpour of rain ruined the chances of me loving our new living setup. As I mentioned, the house is farther north from where I work but I was pretty okay with it since there is a direct jeepney ride going to work. It means no more jeepney transfers and I will get off right in front of the office. Plus the husband has one whole week off from work so he is free to give me a lift to work.

On that said night however, it rained really hard and there is no sign of it stopping. So we cannot take the motorcycle out because we'd get drenched in rain plus the husband has it customize to be "lowered" so it will not survive the mud and all the puddle of rain water on the road. That's why we decided to commute. There are no taxis available and the "tricycles" that pass by are always full so we have no choice but to ride a single motorcycle aka "habal habal". We just had our umbrella up so we don't get soaked. Then we transferred on a taxi when we arrived at the main highway. Then for the remainder of the week we are there it kept raining and we just manage to adjust to the unforeseen circumstances.

I tried to take these things in a positive light so I tell the husband that we give the place one more chance because I want it to really work out. We are able to complete one month in the house and we are beginning to get our routines in sync with our living condition.

However, the bebe got sick as we are halfway towards our second month there. I also got sick that time and have always been getting very little (disturbed) sleep. On the day the bebe is having a high fever, I decided not to rush her to the doctor just yet as I am not feeling well myself and I feel too weak to travel from our house to my mom's house to get the bebe and travel again to the doctor. So I tell my mom to just keep giving her meds and we will visit the doctor the next day.

Unluckily for me, the neighbors are having a birthday party and are singing karaoke which wake me up. Feeling sleep has completely escaped me and my cough is not letting me get some rest too, I decided to send the bebe to the doctor. So I call my mom to meet me at the doctor's clinic.

Lo and behold, traffic is at it's worst and when I arrived at the clinic, the doctor has already seen the bebe and the clinic is already closed. This become the (sour) turning point of the whole experience. I decide right then and there that we are going to move back to my parents' house.

Long story short, we get all our things packed and we move back in with my parents. A month after moving back in with my parents, the husband bought his new motorcycle and we have settled in quite easily.

We may have not gotten the independence we want but at least we live with the bebe now and public commute is not anymore something we will be having a problem with. So everything still ends up pretty much in our favor.

P.S. It is still our goal to have a place of our own but recent events have kept our plans in a limbo. My father got sick and I can't  just up and leave home because three of my siblings has already moved out of the house and it's just me and the other two younger siblings left to look after our senior citizen parents.

After I finished updating my records in PhilHealth, our next stop was at the Home and Development Mutual Fund (HDMF) office or commonly known as Pagibig. We arrived at Pagibig at around 9:30 or 9:45 am.


Experience:
It took us some time to finish updating here because I had to do two transactions: (1) Update my civil status and last name and (2) to consolidate my records with my new employer (form here). Updating my records was fast. It took me around 15-20 minutes including the filling up of the form (I already had a photocopy of my marriage certificate).

The queue on the consolidation of records was tolerable because the agency's system was organized and well coordinated. It just happened that there were already lots of people transacting there.

The good thing though, was that there were lots of counters who catered to the transacting public. And service was fast and efficient. So we were able to finish all our transactions in less than an hour.

The staff were also accommodating and friendly. I liked that their information staff was very hospitable and positive. She was courteous and always had a smile on her face.


Steps:
1. Go to Information and ask for Member's Change of Information Form (MCIF) or click HERE to get form online.
2. Fill up the form and return to the staff in the Information section along with photocopy of your marriage certificate.
3. The staff will encode your info and give you a printout of your HMDF Data record.
4. You will wait for a week before your records will update. You can check their website https://www.pagibigfundservices.com/pubreg/starter_page.aspx if your records have already updated.
 

The first stop on my government-agency-hopping checklist is the Philippines Health Insurance Corp. (PHIC) commonly known as PhilHealth. My sister and I decided to update my PHIC records because PhilHealth office was the farthest from our home. So the transportation was a lot easier because the other two agencies were "on the way" to our home.

Experience:

The updating process and the queuing system was commendable (or maybe because we were there early on a midweek). I had a feeling that our timing was the key for an efficient updating because there were lesser people transacting with the said agency.

Another plus point for me was the accommodating staff who handled my queries and requests. Although I had to go through the process twice because the staff who processed my request did not inform me that my husband still had an existing active PHIC record which needed to be updated in order for him to qualify as my dependent. But all went well because when I came back to her counter to make the necessary corrections, she was very helpful.


Steps (PHIC Davao branch):
1. Get PhilHelath Member Registration Form (PMRF) from the Information window or click HERE to get the form online.
2. Read Instructions on the back of the form and fill in the form (Make sure you bring with you a photocopy of your marriage certificate)
3. Go back to the information window and present our filled out form along with your pertaining documents and get priority number
4. Proceed inside the PHIC building and wait for your number to be called.

Additional steps (adding my husband in my dependents list):
1. Get another PMRF and fill out with my husband's information (leave all other fields blank)
2. Went back to the counter and presented the PMRF along with a photocopy of my valid ID


Updating my record in PhilHealth was easy because I already had all my documentations photocopied.

So getting married is such a great experience and one milestone in my life. I am so happy that at my age, I finally settled down. One thing that made this momentous life event a bit of a frustration though was the changing of names and civil status. Yes, I wanted to carry my husband's last name because that was part of the reason I married him in the first place.

I already knew even before I got married that I had to go through another round of government-agency-hopping-hassle because I had to update my records. I needed to update my last name and civil status. And so the fuss had begun!

About  3 weeks after the wedding my Marriage Certificate was finally released and our pastor had given it to me. That was good news because I was finally able to claim my cash gift from our company. And then our HR staff told me to process all the updating needed.

The only good news about the updating process was that I didn't need to go to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to update my civil status because the company would handle that for me. The bad news was, I had to go to the other 3 government agencies (SSS, PhilHealth, and Pag-ibig) to personally update my records.

So another 3 weeks had past before I finally had the will[ingness] to update my records. For the past 3 weeks I always cancelled my plans of going to the said agencies because I was feeling lazy. I always feared the long queue of people transacting with those agencies and I just didn't want to go through with the strenuous process. I even reached the point of asking myself why I even decided to get married! Lolz! The craziness just hit me!

Good thing, I was finally able to convince myself that I needed to get things done already so that I wouldn't have to stress myself on always thinking about it. Thank God for my very willing sister who I was able to convince to accompany me in all the updating process  I had to go through.

Finally, I was already able to update all my records on all three agencies and soon I would finally have my husband's last name in all my government IDs.

Wedding planning had so much ups and downs. I started planning my wedding for over a year ago but the stress levels reached its highest peak two weeks before the wedding and reached breaking point on the day before the wedding.

I think I was a very stressed bride on my wedding day but somehow stressing over the wedding details days before the wedding helped me because I had not felt the wedding jitters on the wedding day itself. Somehow, I was so surprised that hours before the wedding I was totally calm and relaxed even though I only had 4 hours of sleep the night before.

When my makeup artist arrived and she started prepping me up, I had not felt any stress nor any anxiety at all. I think it also helped that I was so busy posing for my wedding prep photo and video session that all the wedding jitters just flew away.

So here are what I picked up as great lessons in preparing or planning a wedding.


1. MAKE A CHECKLIST OF THE WEDDING DETAILS

This includes all suppliers list, guests list, to do lists, schedules, wedding day needs, and even wedding essentials or accessories list.

I happen to have a list of my suppliers, of my "things to do", of the guest list, but I haven't penned down the list of accessories and other things I needed for the day of the wedding. That was why I had to do a "last minute" buying and when I say last minute I mean one day before the wedding. Trust me it was super FRUSTRATING that the time seemed to run so fast and I still had so much to do.

So if you want to DIY plan your wedding make sure that you have jotted down all the essential things that are needed, tasks to be done, and people needed for your wedding. This will help you check your progress and help you keep your sanity!

Check out the personal checklists I have made here.



2. BUY OR PREPARE ALL WEDDING ACCESSORIES AND OTHER WEDDING DETAILS AT LEAST A MONTH AHEAD

I must admit I was such a "last minute" bride. I had this mental reminder of all the things to do and to buy but I never really allotted a time to ACTUALLY do it. So I ended up with last minute panic buying, which is a total NO NO for a bride to be.

All the last minute shopping and errands running added to the stress that I was already feeling. So don't be like me and have all the wedding items bought ahead of time.


3. HIRE A WEDDING PLANNER (IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT)

This one is something that "I wish I did". I think I could afford it but I just really wanted to experience the wedding planning itself. My wedding went pretty well but there were some glitches in the middle of the whole wedding planning affair.

I had to endure very minimal sleep two weeks prior to the wedding. I had to make lots of phone calls, texts/chat, and emails to my suppliers. I almost had a heart attack when I learned just a week before the wedding that we were still lacking an important file for our wedding ceremony. I also had to deal with people not responding to my text which almost made me lose my mind. I also had to schedule everything and constantly made followups which was pretty frustrating when I didn't get an instant response. It was pretty tiring and on my wedding day, I noticed I looked really haggard.

So if you totally have no clue on how to plan a wedding, I say you give that job to the experts (if you can afford it)!



4. GET LOTS OF SLEEP!!!!!!!!!

This is a no brainer. Two weeks before my wedding I had very limited sleep because of the wedding preparations not being finalized. So I ended up with dark under eyes, large eyebags, and a very short temper.

So if you are getting married please do try to sleep as much as you can.



5. DON'T STRESS OR WORRY TOO MUCH

I was so guilty of this. I worried over every detail of the wedding even if it was something I had totally no control of. It was absurd but I guess it was just my way of coping with the wedding jitters! lolz

On my wedding day, I woke up to a pouring rain and I was having a Garden Wedding Ceremony! How's that? The rain did stop but the sky was still dark and a downpour was looming ahead. I realized then as the day progressed, that I can't worry about the weather anymore because it was totally out of my control.

What I did was to just pray to for God's will to happen. By the time our wedding started, there were drizzles of rain but we managed to hold the ceremony at the alfresco area of the hotel where we were all safe from the rain. God is Good!