Some people’s weddings are worth travelling five hundred miles for.
Christine is one of my oldest friends. Like I said in my wedding speech, there aren’t a lot of people I’d hop on a plane for but she’s one of them. I don’t have enough words for how extraordinary a friend and person she is, but the mere fact that there were people who travelled from almost all seven continents of the world to come to this wedding is a testament to her character.
One must not eat Jolibee Chickenjoy mere hours before one must fit into a bridesmaid dress that barely fits when your stomach WASN’T FULL.
Apparently, one MUST sacrifice things like comfort and the ability to breathe for the sake of looking good in one’s dress. Apparently, letting the dress out so that one doesn’t feel one’s lungs being slowly crushed is secondary to the threat of ruining the aesthetic of the design, so one must simply NOT EAT to fit into one’s dress. Ah, the Philippines’ obsession with image and being skinny continues to amuse me. Lol
There is power in female friendships, not to mention friendships that were borne out of the excruciatingly hard journey of studying Nursing in Velez College.
This wedding was also a chance to catch up with people I haven’t seen since I graduated from college. The nostalgia and the rehashing of memories made what was already a poignant wedding even more special.
Ah, that darn bouquet toss.
Throughout the years people have come up with several ingenious alternatives to throwing the bouquet and garter, and single girls everywhere have come up with just as many ways to avoid the embarrassment of being the chosen one who gets to go up in front of strangers and make nice with some random guy.
Of course, none of that matters when your friend and the host almost seem to contrive to have you be the last female standing. So…
One must always expect to be kissed because kisses can happen when you least expect it.
I am pretty sure there are still photographic evidences floating around of that EPIC bouquet toss but I am thankfully ignorant of their existence and I’d like to keep it that way. Lol
Family is everything.
I am of the opinion that weddings aren’t really for the couple but for the couple’s family, and that is as it should be. At the wedding reception, Ray and Christine had a tea ceremony as a symbolic gesture of respect to their respective parents.
The traditional father-daughter dance was extremely significant to everyone there who knew the story and the journey towards those tentative steps. I still tear up thinking about it.
I’ve always said that there’s no rush towards marriage, because its a once in a lifetime decision that should not be taken lightly. But I’ve also thought about how my Papa is getting on in age and how I’d really like for him to walk me down the aisle because, out of necessity, he’s missed a lot of milestones in my life.
I’d like my mum to be there blubbering through the ceremony like she always does, and I’d like my aunts and uncles who have helped raise me to be part of that special day. I can’t picture who I’ll end up marrying, but I can picture my family coming together to send me off to my new adventure as a married woman.
Ah, well. To everything there is a season, I suppose.
Love is everything.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this idea about how my own love story will go. I scoffed at people who did online dating because is that really the kind of story you want to tell your grandkids someday about how you and your partner met? SHUDDER.
But that wedding got me thinking about how shallow and superficial my idea of love is, despite my claims of being a hopeless romantic. All that talk has been mostly lip service because I’ve never understood that its not the hows and why’s that are important, its not how you met or where you went on your first date, what’s important is that the love exists.
I was surrounded by couples all throughout the day, and while I’m not rushing into anything because of wedding fever, I think that this wedding was the last puzzle piece that needed to fall into place to make me realise that I’m ready for something real. I’m done with the endless dating and the mind games of will he won’t he, or the people who are only after a good time.
I want a partnership, and I want a marriage. I know its a lifelong commitment, and as someone who’s never really been able to finish the things she starts, it is kind of daunting. But looking at the love that surrounded the entire ceremony during the wedding, well, its not big a leap to say that love…well, it simply makes everything worth it.
Blabbaholics and Bookworms 