The Day of the Despedida de Soltera

Tonight is Stella's Soltera. For those who don't know it, the Despedida de Soltera is essentially a huge party thrown by a bride-to-be's family as a "going away" party for their daughter. The party is the family's way of saying goodbye to their daughter as she embarks on a new life of marriage. It is also a time to get to know the families of the groom and bride, as the immediate families and some extended ones will be in attendance.

For this important party, of course the whole family was in a hullabaloo with regards to preparation! We always are, actually, but of COURSE we all had to look nice and regal and oh-so-formal. Egad---I absolutely HATE these kinds of parties! Hehehehe.

I come home from Hong Kong only to find out that the boys did NOT have any barong tagalogs to wear. This is the Philippine formal wear and the barong tagalog looks like this:
Simple enough, yes. And I just KNEW that Rogan had at least a couple of barongs at home, the most recent one being the one he wore at the wedding of Boydee and Bang...but they were nowhere to be found!!! Aaargh!

So off I go to Shoe Mart in Megamall....THE place to go to when one is in a pinch, hehehe. And true enough, in this store called Kultura (Culture), they had a plethora of beautiful Filipiniana things! And while I was looking at the kids' barongs, the only thing that was going on in my mind was "oh where or where was this store when I had to find something to wear during the Shrine's inauguration?!?!?" Sigh!

And voila! A barong for Rogan, Ranger, and Riley (Elizza had called me almost in a panic like I was, because Riley had no barong as well! hehehehe). I then rush over to the SM department store to get some camisa de chino, or the plain white shirts the boys wear under their barongs.

Here's a pic of my handsome little men all dressed up in their little barongs:
Are they cute or are they cute? Hehehe. Biased Mama here.

As for the girls, they were pretty much set....until I found this cute little burgundy number for Raegan, also at Kultura. It was a bustier with a long skirt, similar to the gold one I got her for Thanksgiving last year, which was what she was supposed to wear at the Soltera. Raine had a girly-dress that was ok and nothing major. So when I saw the burgundy outfit, I bought it; Raine was ecstatic when she found out because she knew was going to be getting the gold outfit to wear tonight, hehehe :)

Here are my girls....and I canNOT believe how grown up they look!!!
Aren't they gorgeous? I can brag all I want....it's MY blog after all! Hehehe :)

As for the grown ups.....after all the rushing I did, I went to La Vista to have my hair and make up done by this gay guy, Edgar, and his assistant, Dong. Funny pair, especially Edgar as he kept up a running commentary throughout the entire time he was doing make up for 6 of us!

My hair was of course very thin when compared to Elizza's and Zhar's...but it was long. Actually, all of us girls with the exception of Mom and Tita Belen had long hair, which made things all that much harder and time consuming for poor Dong, who was the hair specialist. I did want nice, long, thick hair though...so I'm writing that down officially as one of the things on my "I want" lists, hehehe. Anyone up for a visit to Dr. Larry Shapiro? :)

Here's a cluster of photos from the Soltera:
I'll be saving some pics for my scrapping obviously. Also, I have NO nice pics of me on my camera. I'm hoping Rodney has some few nice ones of me :)

TTFN!