One of my friends from high school and college, Kog, married his now-wife Ina in Singapore earlier in the year and they decided to have a church wedding in the Philippines on December 30 so they could celebrate with their family and friends who are here. A few of us from high school - Anna, Topher, Lilia, Rodrigo, and myself - headed to Lipa where the ceremony would take place. Anna was asked to give the first reading while Topher was one of the secondary sponsors so it was important for us to be on time. The invitations said 3:30pm but it actually started at 4pm, which was good for us because we would've been late if it started on time. In fact, we just barely made it!
The wedding ceremony was held in The Church of St. Therese of the Child Jesus. It is located next to the Malarayat Golf and Country Club which is where the reception was held, and at some point during the ceremony, the priest encouraged us to recommend this church to other people planning to get married, a plug which I thought was a bit weird and out of place for a wedding hehe. Another funny tidbit during the sermon was when the priest asked Kog what the heart is for and he answered "to pump blood" hahaha. I am trying to think now, and I guess I am a scientist like Kog and would have most likely given the same answer (yes, I say scientist and not nerd ;)). There was no photo op at the altar with friends (it was all family and relatives), but an opportunity presented itself for the five of us invitees to head over to Kog and Ina and have our picture taken with them while we were still in church.
The reception included a lot of good food and a lot of really good wine. It was too bad that I was driving all the way back to Manila that same evening since there was a lot of wine and I could have had maybe a few bottles if I didn't have to drive. The program included variations to the traditional bouquet and garter toss. I can't really recall how the bouquet toss was executed, but for the garter toss, all the bachelors were split into pairs. Each person was then pitted against their partner in a game of hula hooping - the person who could hula hoop longer would be excused. I lost the first round to Rodrigo but I managed to win the next round, which meant I didn't get the garter.
The program ended at around 9pm and we ended up hanging out with Kog and Ina and Kog's siblings. I was happy my barong lasted the entire night (I wore my only decent barong a couple of weeks ago during Reg's wedding and it hadn't been washed yet by the time Kog's wedding arrived, and my other barong had a ripped sleeve so I kept it together with scotch tape and it somehow did the trick haha). Discussions invariably went to tennis talk, which is of course always interesting because Kog, Ina, and his entire family are extremely pro-Federer and of course I am pro-Nadal haha. We did manage to keep discussions quite civil haha so no fireworks. :) Anna and I had to leave at around 10pm unfortunately so we had to say goodbye but it was amazing that we got to celebrate with Kog on one of the most important days of his life.
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