Inside a Bridal Designer’s Dream Wedding: Andrea Tetangco Takes Us Through Its Creative Process
For nearly two decades, fashion designer Andrea Tetangco has built a career curating ready-to-wear collections and bespoke bridalwear, with each thread aiming to sew every bride’s wedding vision to life.
Earlier this month, she found herself facing a question she had never quite had to answer before: What does my own dream wedding look like?
From Pinterest boards to endless wedding trends, it was not a simple equation of following a formula or set of rules to match a specific aesthetic.
While most weddings usually anchor towards conforming to certain traditions and expectations. For Andrea and Filipino-American sports executive and entrepreneur Banjo, it was found in something much simpler—creating a celebration that felt unmistakably like them.
“We wanted it to be an authentic reflection of who we are as a couple. Intentional, intimate, spontaneous, and, above all, true to ourselves,” Andrea said in an exclusive interview with Metro Weddings.
The couple first met in Los Angeles in 2022 during Andrea’s first vacation trip after the pandemic, while Banjo was in town for a business trip. Until one fateful evening, they met through a mutual friend.
That eventually created ripples into a love story they never knew they were walking toward. Four years later, Banjo proposed to Andrea at home in April 2025.
Andrea expressed her delight at the proposal. As a fashion designer, people would assume she would have a grander and more elaborate proposal. However, she had always mentioned to Banjo that if he were to propose, she preferred it to be simple and intimate.
Banjo laced that dream with roses and candles at the house, which added a romantic flush to it.
“There were so many candles that he almost set the house on fire! That still makes me laugh when I think about it. But beyond the beautiful setup, what touched me most was knowing that he had personally thought of and prepared every detail when he could just ask someone to do it,” Andrea said.
Having spent so much of her life creating beautiful things for others and celebrating their milestones, with her work and achievements displayed in public. Andrea told Metro that she had always maintained a sense of privacy when it comes to her personal life. Hence, Banjo’s effort for the ambient proposal was all the more meaningful to her.
“The beauty was in the intention, the effort, and the fact that it was a moment that belonged only to us. It reminded me that romance isn’t necessarily about how grand a gesture is, but how deeply personal it feels. And in that moment, I felt so loved,” she added.
For once, a 20-year-old girl who began creating wedding gowns and spent two decades bringing other brides’ dreams to life, Andrea surprisingly never had a dream dress of her own. Until she finally became the bride.
When she finds herself facing one of the most difficult questions of her career: What did she actually want to wear?
While endless ideas come into play, Andrea admits she also faced the pressure that comes with it, with both the role of being the client and the designer.
“There were countless silhouettes, fabrics, and possibilities I could explore, yet none immediately felt right. I had to step away from the designs and the expectations and really reflect on myself,” she said.
Andrea navigated the conflict with grace by asking deeper questions: “Who am I as a designer? Who am I as a bride? And who is the woman I have become after all these years?”
Those questions became the primary anchor of Andrea’s own design journey. Instead of discerning what a bride is supposed to wear, she began reflecting inward—the journey, aesthetic, experiences, and different versions of herself to guide the woman she became.
“I eventually created three looks, each representing a different expression of who I am. They were not simply dresses for different moments of the celebration; they were a reflection of my evolution as a designer, a woman, and now, a wife,” Andrea said, highlighting that every look, the three dresses, felt personal as it represented a different part of her story.
She realized that perhaps the reason she never had a dream wedding gown was that she had been waiting to eventually be the woman who would design it.
“I finally understood that my own wedding dresses didn’t need to fulfill a childhood fantasy or follow a particular bridal tradition. They simply needed to feel like me,” she said.
That the beauty of designing her own wedding gown is not for the bride in front of her, but for the woman who had spent all those years becoming.
The wedding did not begin with a specific motif. It began with a feeling.
The couple followed a philosophy of elegance but never pretentious, intimate yet full of life, and sophistication without losing its sense of fun. That same philosophy guided them to their venue.
Andrea recalled that with her career creating wedding gowns and being part of people’s meaningful celebrations.
Long before she became a bride herself, one thing was certain: she did not want to get married at a hotel—an environment closely related to her profession.
“I wanted to experience my wedding as a bride, not feel as though I were at work. Banjo understood this from the very beginning and was incredibly supportive of what I envisioned,” she said.
Andrea also shared with Metro that although they considered celebrating their wedding outside of Manila, and even abroad, they prioritized the experience they wanted to create for themselves and their guests.
“Neither of us wanted an elaborate planning process that would become stressful or take away from the joy of getting married. We wanted something intimate, thoughtfully planned, and effortless for everyone involved,” Andrea said.
Fate eventually led them to the Manila House, a private club that resonated with the intimate atmosphere and understated elegance the couple was looking for: character and warmth that brought an intimate setting to it.
“It was important to me that our own wedding felt different from the celebrations I had become so familiar with professionally. This time, I wasn’t creating a wedding for a client. I was creating a memory for us,” she added.
Other than the cocktails at 5:30 p.m., the evening and other playful details unfolded with a whimsical note to the otherwise formal sequence of the events.
Still following the couple’s philosophy on an intimate wedding and authenticity, Andrea mentioned that both Banjo and she personally curated the music of the evening, from cocktail hour to dinner party.
“We were equally particular about the lighting and the atmosphere, making sure each transition felt distinct and intentional. A DJ and saxophonist set the mood during cocktails, while flowing champagne, caviar, and canapés made it feel like a chic, intimate soirée,” Andrea told Metro.
While the traditional cake-cutting schedule was traded during the cocktail hour, the couple added a whimsical twist to it by having the large cake be the canvas for guests to write their personal messages on it using icing.
Andrea recalled the event as memorable and expressed love that everyone could leave their own little mark on their special day.
Not long before dinner was to come by, the couple shifted the rhythm to a wistful moment of nostalgia and romance—with a candlelit setting and a jazz band weaving their melodies, evoking an old-world atmosphere that they both loved.
“Banjo and I gave our speech immediately after we were introduced as newlyweds rather than waiting until the end of dinner. We wanted to express our gratitude while everyone was gathered and the moment still felt fresh and intimate,” she said.
As the night loosened its tie, the celebration took on a new energy by bringing in a second disc jockey (DJ), transforming the after-party with a livelier energy.
“We even had a separate photographer dedicated to capturing the after-party because we knew those candid, carefree moments would be just as memorable as the more formal parts of the evening,” she added.
True to their desire not to allow the planning process to consume their lives, the couple prepared the wedding in roughly three months to not take away the excitement of getting married.
“Having been a bridal designer for 19 years, I’m quite familiar with the world of weddings, so I had a good understanding of how things work. But this time, I was experiencing everything from an entirely different perspective,” Andrea shared with Metro that it is not about a designer bringing someone else’s vision to life, but a bride creating a milestone of her own.
Andrea’s philosophy leaned towards the virtue of partnership. Perhaps the wedding itself is not about crafting every single detail or decision, but the process of doing everything together.
“Planning a wedding gave us another opportunity to discover each other in ways we might not have otherwise. We learned more about how we think, how we make decisions, and how we navigate discussions as a team,” she said.
Andrea expressed admiration that she loved the process of exchanging opinions and talking things through with the person you love. She appreciated how effortless everything felt, from revealing how aligned they are with their taste and the things they valued.
“We trusted each other, respected each other’s opinions, and made decisions that felt right for us as a couple,” she added.
Looking back, Andrea emphasized that the celebration of marriage is like a little glimpse of a life of marriage. In her words, “We weren’t just preparing for one special day; we were learning, in our own way, how to build a life together. And that was the most beautiful part of all.”
Andrea’s bridal journey does not end with the celebration itself. Beyond gowns, the love, and everything in between, she also left her biggest piece of advice for brides-to-be, which is: “Enjoy the process, but never allow wedding planning to consume you or your relationship. There is so much more to look forward to than the wedding day itself.”
As a bride herself, she expressed the importance of not losing sight of what makes a couple unique, and that your wedding does not have to meet anyone else’s expectations–-the shared values, individual taste, and other things that genuinely make you happy.
“Planning can sometimes bring pressure, especially when you feel the need to get every detail right or make everything perfect. When that happens, take a step back and remind yourself why you’re doing this in the first place,” she said.
Not every detail needs to be extraordinary for it to be meaningful. What matters is how you feel, the person standing beside you, and the people you share the moment with.
Above all, Andrea reminds brides to stay excited, not to let logistics overshadow the magic of the moment, but to remain present, laugh through the little mishaps, and enjoy making decisions together as a couple.
“After all, the wedding is just one day, but the marriage is a lifetime. Make sure that while you’re creating a beautiful wedding, you’re also nurturing the beautiful relationship that brought you there,” Andrea said.
For Andrea, every process deserved to be savored. “When you look back, you want to remember not only how wonderful your wedding day was, but how happy you were getting there together.”
Photos by @_pearlstudio
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