December 19th, 2009 was our wedding day. The day before I was still really sick, I woke up with no voice and a terrible cough. I drank hot tea all day long and was taking Benadryl cough medicine. The next morning F.B. said he woke up at 5am because he couldn’t sleep, I woke up at 6am. Around 7am we got prepared for the wedding. My cold was much better, only slight sniffles.
We arrived at the Cainta Municipal hall before 10am. The mayor had a lot of appointments scheduled so he didn’t arrive until around 10:30am. F.B.’s parents hired a professional photographer, so we posed for some photos until the mayor arrived. F.B.’s sister had my camera to take photos and her camera to take video of the ceremony, etc.
The entire civil ceremony was in Tagalog, but the mayor gave an overview in English for me every now and then. When we were holding each others wedding rings I got nervous and was thinking real hard, “Which is his left hand!?” lol! F.B. got a little teary eyed when we exchanged rings and we each had to say a little something. After the ceremony we had to sign our marriage certificate, it has to be filed at the municipal hall so we will be able to pick it up the week after Christmas. Afterwards we took more photos with the mayor and outside the municipal building.
The Municipal Building:
Photos from the wedding ceremony:
When we arrived back at F.B.’s house we were greeted with his relatives throwing rice and rose petals. It was already around 12pm by then and we needed to leave for the Manila Hotel by 1pm, so we had a quick lunch at his house. His parents had a luncheon prepared for all the relatives. Traffic is pretty bad on weekends and so close to the holidays. Even though we left around 1pm, we didn’t arrive at the Manila Hotel until just after 3pm! We checked in and relaxed for awhile, watching Spongebob and eating Ruffles chips!
Picture of the Lobby at the Manila Hotel:
We got prepared for our wedding reception and headed downstairs to the Champagne Salon around 7pm. F.B.’s sister announced us as we came into the room. She hosted the evening, with speeches from friends and relatives. My friend Gayle came with her sister to the wedding and also gave a nice speech for us. F’s sister also prepared two cute movie presentations for us. ‘On The Way’ down by Ryan Cabrera and ‘Happy Together’ by The Turtles were our songs! She also read some greetings from my family members. They also had a giveaway for whoever could guess when we made our relationship official! (4-1-2004). Photo’s from our Wedding Reception:
My Rose Bouquet (30 Roses) from F.B.’s parents:
The pretty ice sculpture (F & S).
Everything is so fancy at the Manila Hotel! They had a little stage set up with a table for F.B. & I. Even though it was a buffet style dinner, because we were the bride and groom we had a waiter that would bring us each course in the buffet. If we wanted a drink, or more of certain dish we just had to ask.
Unfortunately there was a ton of picture taking, with the professional photographer. We kept having to stop eating to take more photos. I thought it was really funny when F’s sister announced, “I hope you’re all enjoying your dessert.” Because F & I hadn’t even begun to start our main course! I think I enjoyed dessert best, we made the waiter bring us more of the chocolate cake!
It was also really funny when everyone began clinking on their glasses and saying, “Kiss, Kiss”. F.B. thought they were saying “Speech, Speech.” So he shook his head ‘no’ and kept eating. Everyone was like, “Ooooh!” because he wouldn’t kiss me, so I held my fists up at him, haha. (I think the photographer got a photo of that, I hope, lol!) I had to explain to him later, they wanted him to kiss me!
Most of the guests started to leave around 9pm. But F.B. & I didn’t leave until after the cleanup around 10pm to go back to our hotel room. It was a longggg day! I don’t think we got to bed until 3am. They had this neat ipod dock in our hotel room, but the alarm was set on it accidentally so it ended up waking us up at 6am! We did get a nap later on though!
To view more of our wedding & honeymoon photos you can view our photobucket album here!
Also here:
Wedding Photographer Photos
Our Wedding & Honeymoon
NOTE: If you are getting married in the Philippines and you are a US citizen these requirements from the US Embassy in Manila Philippines, will be helpful: Getting Married in The Philippines.
