{ weddings by vatel manila }: May 2006

OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR DESIGN

REFINED SIMPLICITY. This is something we work hard to perfect. While we may have differing views on what is "elegant", we humbly present here our guiding principles in design.

1.) Simple and tasteful. The Filipino's current penchant for the "production number-act" is something we have discussed and studied thoroughly among ourselves.

This may be something we have acquired from television and from our increasing buying power. In the end, our homes end up being filled - to every crook and cranny - with things: huge aparadors and dividers go side by side with knick-knacks from our travels, as well as with our seeming fetish for souvenirs from just about any event and place. In short, horror vacui. However, Filipino design as gleaned from our history and traditions, hardly border on the loud and boorish.

The work of our indigineous peoples and local weavers attest to the beauty of our artwork. This concept - simple and tasteful - is at the core our design sensibility.

2.) Conversation-friendly and comfortable arrangements. Although the aim to make our designs conversation pieces in themselves is already a given, VATEL MANILA draws the line on the theatricality that pervades the current design concepts of many catering and event firms in Manila.

In our review of current practices, many design firms resort to the "shock policy" - that is, they capitalize on their ability to shock guests with venues teeming with flowers, lights and other pompous what-nots like employing yards upon yards of fabric, supposedly to make it "an event like no other" or "an event to be remembered".

Sometimes, even tables - from the main sponsors to the guests tables in a wedding setting, for example - are filled to the brim with flowers designed to block guests from seeing each other thus impeding conversation; tables are bathed in silk or organza, apparently designed to astound the visitor BUT without consideration of their comfort or safety.

The end result: uncomfortable and crampy arrangements. While we only suggest and can provide suggestions as to how to put life into your own concepts, the overall idea, really, is to effortlessly evoke images of the grand and the sophisticated without being distracting and obstrusive.

In the end, the true winners will be you and your guests - with the reward of pleasant memories arising from the things your ideas and our guidance / expertise can do together.