Originally published in EV Mail.
There’s a hole in our home now. The last time I saw the person who used to fill it with big-sisterly guidance and care, and infectious joy (and occasionally, a quick temper :), she was ready with her whole life in 3 balikbayan boxes and 2 huge luggage, to move to a place 1000 oceans away from what she called home for 27 years.
This explains the morning of her wedding day when she woke up with eyes swollen from crying. Everyone panicked but the make-up artist, who coolly walked to the kitchen to wrap frozen water with a hanky and asked the bride to hold it against her eyes.
For the rest of the morning, with our hair and make-up all ready for the camera, the threat of crying hung over us bridesmaids. The mother of the bride, on the other hand, couldn’t care less about the many beautifying hours already spent on her. Through tears-stricken eyes, she did not drop her duty of making sure the bride’s eyebrows were not too thick and the cheeks were only softly colored.
It would have made for an ideal start to a highly emotional wedding, but the family preferred the drama stay at home and proceeded to the Sts. Peter and Paul Parish, where the ceremony took place like how it should: merry, delightful, and in denial that somebody is about to leave.
Tears of joy make funny storytelling later; but laughter of joy shows the face of certainty, as the bride had executed on her wedding march to a moving string version of U2’s With or Without You. She opted not to cover her face with a veil for fear it would induce claustrophobia (oh, the things we pick up from our mother!), leaving facial traces of jitters or doubts to everyone’s full view. But there was none such betrayal.
She was at her happiest, looking glorious in her all-lace Felix Yu gown, and wearing a radiant smile that I feel moved the hearts of the many who knew she deserved such pure bliss. Throughout the afternoon heat, the careful but relentless jests from cousins and friends, the reality of getting hitched, and the sweating that it all caused, Pancho Larrazabal’s smile (the one that stretched from ear to ear) also never left his face.
Such high spirits set the mood for the rest of the wedding and through the celebration. There was no need for a first shot or bottle to get the bridal entourage to do a grand entrance to the reception hall, which meant ladies in figure-hugging, flamenco-inspired gowns and men in Barong Tagalog dancing to Natalie Cole’s This Will Be (An Everlasting Love). One of the lolaswould say, “Your poise was slightly broken; but it was very refreshing and fun!”
Not to be outdone were the newly-weds, who entered the ballroom to Flo Rida’s Low and invited all the guests to their feet. Even the ninongs and ninangs in front stood to welcome and dance with them. Watching this unique spectacle, I realized my sister had a natural groove to her; but kudos goes to the groom for pulling all efforts to make it seem like he had, too.
Dinner was had to the live accompaniment of a string quartet. Pancho’s uncle and Sabin Hotel’s main chef, Butch, had prepared Paella, Lengua, Caldereta and Canonigo, to keep to the wedding’s Spanish theme. The bride’s cousin, Tina Santiago of Tina’s Sweets, laid out a smorgasbord of treats to the sweet teeth such as cream puffs, cheesecake, tarts and brownies.
Four hundred guests make a crowd, but the couple injected personal touches to the affair that allowed a measure of intimacy in. As hosts for the evening, they picked Perok Rodriguez, a very close tito to the bride, and Vannie Ocampo, a very good friend.
Every table at the ballroom had a name of a person, a place, or a thing that played a part in the couple’s love story. The hosts lured the guests to share a story with a pack of Tina’s goodies. By the end of the night, everyone would know that the two were set up at the wedding of Lito & Diane del Rio in 2007 by enthusiastic aunts and cousins; that at 25, my sister was not allowed by our mother to go on her first date with Pancho without a chaperone (thank you, Monica Rizarri-Veloso); that it was thru the help of a singing Pepe Le Peu stuffed toy that Pancho was able to give voice to his feelings for her; and that after their honeymoon in Hawaii, the couple will be based in Pancho’s home in California.
Other personal touches to the evening were the postcards left on the table for guests to write down their best wishes and goodbye messages; the longest-kissing couple game, the winners of which did not beat the night’s record of 28 seconds set by the newlyweds; and a special tribute, during which the groom and bride gave a bouquet each to their mothers.
But the one part that brought the house down was the brother of the bride, Tingtong. After the toast of the Best Men and the teary Maids of Honor, he walked up front by house demand. He struggled with his English words, ignoring the crowd’s encouragement for him to say what he wanted to say in Bisaya. “My sisters speak in English, so I will speak English, too!”
The protective brother role seized him as soon as the crowd settled down, first coming clean about his initial disapproval of Pancho for his sister. It was through the fact that more than a dozen of Pancho’s friends flew in from California to see him get married and the things he’s heard about Pancho from them, that he learned to fully accept him. But so characteristic of Ting, he ended his speech with a threat. We all know how that goes.
If there was any semblance of Tingtong’s toast to the father of the bride’s welcome message earlier in the evening, it was the glimpse they gave the guests into how they were feeling about giving away their Maica. But unlike the brother’s apprehension, Mayong felt instant relief that his eldest daughter found somebody from a family he grew up with on Bonifacio Street.
He also used the opportunity to squeeze in a few words of reality check for the newlyweds. “As your relationship had been long-distance from the start, you haven’t seen the best and the worst of each other. You have to learn to accept the strengths and weaknesses that both of you will carry into this marriage.”
Later that night, while a live band played the newlyweds’ favorite song, Always and Forever by Luther Vandross, there was a short lull in the merriment when Mayong danced with the bride. It was a bittersweet moment, magnified not only by the daughter’s tears on her father’s shoulder, but by the great distance that was to come between them.
But the night was young and with the help of two shots of Tequila and several swigs of GPS, everybody felt so, too. Indeed, the best way to enjoy is to live and party in the moment, and save the blues when the time gets us there.
In the case of the newlywed’s departure, time did not take its time. In fact, it hurried. It may have played along with the excitement of their honeymoon or sympathized with the bride’s mother and shortened the farewell. The last time I saw my sister was on the day after her wedding, and she was smiling radiantly through wet eyes with her husband’s hand in hers.
When we went home, the drama was waiting. There was a hole with it, and it was shaped a Maica.
~~~
I wrote this piece as requested by Ms. Lalaine Jimenea, editor in chief of EV Mail. It's one of the most difficult articles I ever finished -- must be that it's about somebody I'm too close to. In fact, I worked on it in bed for a whole weekend!
Ultimately though, I'm glad I took on Lalaine's challenge. Since I started this blog, my sister Maica has been bugging me to write about her. Well sis, this may not be so much about you as it is about your wedding to Pancho. But on second thought, you would agree that the wedding you had greatly reflected the kind of person you are.
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