Our Blissful Wedding – His side of the story

(A Complete Documentary)

Until now, I can still hear the kissing bells ringing and all I want to do is to hug my wife and give her a tender sweet kiss but I think this kiss will wait for a couple more weeks until Anne arrive here in Singapore. It’s exactly a week ago since our wedding day and as I remember by this time, the situation in our room in the hotel was very tensed. We are scheduled to leave the hotel by 12:45pm and with this very limited time, there are still lot of things to attend to. The photographers and videographers need to take a shot on my wedding attire first before I put them on thus I can’t wear them right away.




Anne gave me a very nice bracelet as a gift before the photographers and videographers do the pictorials so it will be included in the pictures. She asked her friend (one of the secondary sponsors) to give it to me, but maybe because there are so many things occupying my mind that time, I misunderstood her and thought that it’s her wedding gift to us. So I immediately thanked her and put the gift inside my bag. If I only knew, I should have opened it right away because until now, I’m a bit disappointed that it was not included in the pictures.


I also need to settle the bills with our coordinators for our suppliers. And also, since I checked in my relatives at Hotel Intercontinental Manila, I need to settle the bill first to avoid over staying penalties. So from the Manila Peninsula hotel, we went to the Intercon Hotel to settle the bills first before going to the church. Not only that, on the way to the church, I’m burning a vcd copy of our tribute to the parents AVP to be played at the reception. Stressful isn’t it, but definitely exciting. =)


Before I proceed with my story, let’s travel back one more week from the day of our wedding. It was Dec 29, 4:10 am when I arrived in Manila. I hardly take a sleep in this almost 4 hours of travel, too much excitement I guess?! Anne together with my parents fetched me at the airport and to start the day right, we had a scrumptious breakfast where else?! at jollibee! Hehehe. I really missed the longanisa meal at jollibee. There are KFC and Mcdonald’s here in Singapore but they do not serve rice. Too bad for rice-loving persons like me.

Day 1
I was very energetic that day even though I only had a little sleep that night. I guess it’s the adrenaline to be with the persons you love that gave me the energy for the whole day. I had a very busy first day in Manila. After the breakfast, we headed straight to our home in Taytay to unload my things and also meet my other relatives. Then we went to the church in Pasig for our 9 am canonical interview with the priest. After that, I was scheduled for my confirmation ceremony at San Miguel church in Manila at 1 pm. We are suppose to be having our lunch at Megamall together with the my parents, my Uncle and Auntie (they will also stand as my Ninong and Ninang in my confirmation ceremony) but because of lack of time, we just take out our lunch and ate in the car before we enter the church. The ceremony ended around 4 pm. After that, we contacted the person who will make my barong and we set a fitting schedule at 6pm at megamall. We also do some shopping there for my pants and my parents shoes. After my fitting, we take our dinner at Mann Yann but Anne was not able to join our dinner since she still need to go to Las Pinas together with our Maid of honor and bridesmaid for their respective fitting. After their fitting, they they surprised Anne as they meet some college friends for another bridal shower for the nth time.. =) We arrived home around 11pm and man, I was sooo tired. As I laid my back on my bed, it was less than 5 seconds before I went to sleep.

Day 2
It was Dec 30, Sunday – church time. I attended our thanksgiving service in our church. I really had lot of things to be thankful to our Lord. I was so excited because I will also see my church mates and friends. I really missed my ministry in our church as the keyboardist, and as much as I would like to play the keyboards that time, my hectic schedule would allow me to. They prayed for me and for the success of our wedding and its very heart warming. I can really see the joy and sincerity in their hearts. Around 630pm when I left the church because I need to meet my fiancé at Makati around 730 pm for our last minute shopping for some stuffs for our honeymoon. That night, its videoke time! We sang song for each other as we wait for the next day to come….

Day 3
Dec 31 – Happy Birthday Sweetheart Love!
Its my fiancé’s birthday today and I wanted it to be very special because it will be her last birthday as Ms. Anne Marie Cate. I always wanted to be by her side every minute of this day because I want her to be very happy on her special day. We went to festival mall for our lunch date and also to buy our “red” shirts. At night , we delighted ourselves with some fireworks which Anne bought from dragon firewords and it was very nice. She also bought a hundred kwitis for me.. Very sweet! Around 1:30 am, after all the fireworks display, we went to my aunt’s house at Las Pinas were another birthday celebration party awaits her. It was a surprise for her and even I myself was not aware about it. My relatives waited for us and didn’t go home until we arrive even though its already 2am. If we only knew, we could have arrived a bit earlier.

Day 4-6 (Jan 1-3)
For the next three days, we are very busy as we resume to attending to our wedding preparations. We need to visit the suppliers one by one to finalize the contract and settle some payments but since they are not strategically located with each other, we could only visit one or two suppliers in a day. First we went to dangwa for our flowers supplier because we need to make some modifications with our package. Then we went to Hotel Intercontinental in Makati to make some bookings for our relatives since we planned to let them stay there on the night of our wedding day to avoid any hassles since most of my small cousins are part of the entourage. The next day Jan 2, we went to Paranaque for the part 1 of our choreographed dance practice. I’m really not into dancing but because its our wedding day, I would gladly want to give it a try and give my best shot. Hehe. Around 630pm that night, we had our rehearsal dinner together with most of the members of the entourage as well as the emcees and coordinators at Max’s Glorieta. The next day, we went to Makati Sports Club (reception venue) to confirm the expected guest count, finalize the menu and settle the payments. That night, I started not to feel well. My temperature rose to 38 degrees. Maybe because of over fatigue because we haven’t really gotten enough rest and sleep since I arrived. I took some paracetamol and I was worried that I might not be feeling well on our wedding day but I know God would not allow it.

Day 7
Jan 4 – Friday
Our car is coding this day, so the plan was for me to bring the car early in the morning (7 am) to Manila Peninsula and I will stay at Reinassance Hotel were my balikbayan relatives were staying until I can already checked in at the hotel. I am the only one to do this because my parents have to attend some engagements that day and they will just follow to the hotel around 7pm. I also planned to buy new wedding pants because I was not satisfied when I fit my pants the night before. I saw one store in Glorieta where they can finish a pants in just 24 hours. But when I woke up that morning, Im relly not feeling well. My temperature even rose to 38.5 celcius degrees. I cannot manage to go rise up from bed so my mom just let me take a rest instead of letting me leave very early. But this one is a blessing in disguise for me. In the morning, we went to a doctor. After that, we went to one tailoring shop in Taytay and I requested if they can finish it by that day as I will be using it the next day. At first they are hesitant since there are a lot of customers but at the end , they gave me a positive reply. Cased closed! From there, I went to visit some old friends from highschool to personally invite them since we cannot reach them through their cellphones. Im very happy because despite the very late notice, by best friend in elementary and highschool still managed to render a song number during our reception.

In the afternoon, after taking some medicines, I started to feel better. We rented a van to take us to the hotel since our car is coding. My father will just wait until 7pm so he can bring our car and follow to the hotel. But still no time wasted because by 630pm, he will get my pants from the tailoring shop. We went first to Hotel Intercontinenetal Manila to have my relatives checked in. For our dinner, since we have we have 7 kids with us, Jollibee is the perfect place to be! Hehe. While waiting for the dinner, I went to National bookstore to have our misalets photocopied. I also went to Kodak photo center to have our 2 photos developed for our signature frame. Its already 11 pm when we go to our hotel in Manila Pen, and before going to sleep, I made the AVP for our parents first. But since I’m already very exhausted plus I’m not 100% feeling well that day, I cannot afford to finish it and burn it to CD that night.

Day 8 – the BIG day!
Its Jan 5, 2008 and its our wedding day. Surprisingly, I woke up feeling better than ever. As if I didn’t had a fever the day before. And my temperature drops to 36.4 degrees from 38 degrees last night. I knew it. God is so good and He will never ever let me down, especially on this very special day. I can clearly see his plans why I got fever the day before. Its because He didn’t wanted me to leave early in the morning to beat the coding but instead, He wanted me to have a complete rest. Jesus You are so good!

As I have said, the situation in the hotel before going to church was very stressful for me since there are still lot of things to do and there’s a little amount of time left. But as always, God is there to help, and as expected, everything goes well.

During the wedding ceremony, the feeling is so very overwhelming and indescribable. I felt like im floating in the air. And as I saw my bride walking in the aisle towards me, i got teary eyed that i want to go near her and give her a hug. This is the moment we've both been waiting for, and in a matter of hours, we will be united and start building our own family. As she slipped the ring in my finger, I felt that I became a different person - someone who no longer thinks of his self alone and his own priorities but is now concerned and focused all his priorities to his new family.

We are very fulfilled and very pleased that everything goes well in the church and in the reception. We have prepared for this for one year and it really paid off. All the sacrifices and all the hardships in the preparations were clearly reflected in the flow of our wedding. We are also very satisfied with the performance of our wedding suppliers – threelogy (for our video), smartshots (for our photo) and velvet mood (for our strings quartet) to name a few. Threelogy did a great job with our onsite wedding presentation. They really met if not exceeded our expectations with them regarding their craft. We are also very happy to hear positive feedbacks from our guests. In the first place, we really wanted our guest to really enjoy this wedding celebration.

At the end of the day, these 3 words gave so much meaning to our lives - "YES I DO!"