Rihanna and Chris Brown in Manila

I suppose my version of the story is a little different from Oneal’s, because I spent an hour and a half driving from Antipolo to Makati while Oneal was stressing out in Greenbelt. I was stinky and sweaty and smelly na by the time we got there. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

As Oneal said, for months we had been wondering how to spring the news on our parents. It wouldn’t have been fair to tell one family first, and then the other; we really wanted to tell both families at the same time. But if we scheduled a dinner for everyone to attend, we knew that the parents would immediately figure out what was happening. So we had to be sneaky!

First, we had to find a weekend where we weren’t doing anything, the families were free, and there was no other occasion to celebrate. Then we had to find a venue that was between Parañaque and Antipolo. Then we decided we had to tell the brothers about the wedding, so that they could help convince the parents to go to dinner. Then we had to think up an excuse to get the parents to go to dinner in Makati on a Sunday night. Whew.

Oneal’s parents were going to a wedding on Saturday night, so it had to be Sunday. It was perfect, because Czar’s son, Kyle, was having his birthday party on Sunday afternoon! We could go to Kyle’s, then go to the restaurant, Solihiya, for dinner!

Boo-boo #1: Kyle’s party was moved to Saturday. I knew Mom would be too lazy to go to Makati on a Sunday. So I fibbed and told her that it was Solihiya’s anniversary, and that I had a surprise for her.

Boo-boo #2: Because I had completely forgotten about the Rihanna concert in the Fort, we took C-5. There was no traffic at all on Marcos Highway, crossing the bridge, then on to C-5… until we got to Pasig. Then it was crawling. It was so bad that my leg was beginning to cramp, and my foot slipped and the engine died. Finally we decided to to try to get to EDSA instead.

Boo-boo #3: Oneal and his family got to Greenbelt really early. Naturally Oneal was stressing that we’d bump into each other before getting to Solihiya, so he was touring his parents all around GB5, and making sure they checked out every single store.

Boo-boo #4: Ron arrived in a separate car, and went straight up to Solihiya! Oneal had told his family that Chef Nick had invited them to try the new menu, and Ron was afraid that they wouldn’t be able to get a table. Oneal had to call him and tell him to window-shop with them.

Boo-boo #5: I had told my brother to man my phone so he could communicate with Oneal. Apparently he had neglected to mention that we were in awful traffic. Then he fell asleep. So I took over the phone and had to text while driving. I promise you I don’t do that, but given the situation I had to communicate with my co-conspirator! So when I told Oneal we were headed to EDSA, he was bewildered and he said, “why are you going to edsa? just stay on c5 and take buendia.” I had to explain the horror of the traffic and communicate my misery over text–while navigating Shaw Blvd. and EDSA. Oh I was not a happy driver, and the nearby jeepneys did NOT help.

Once we were on EDSA it was a breeze. Dinner was scheduled for 7:00; we arrived at 8:00! But once we got there and we broke the news, everyone was happy. Mom and I shed a few tears, and Oneal’s dad said he’d been wondering when we’d finally get around to getting married, and my brother was so relieved that he was no longer the only one in the family who knew about the wedding, and I could see a few tears glistening in Tita Baby’s eyes, and Ron was saying we could have a baby first, wedding later, and Czar said he knew what was gonna happen the minute he saw the Rosero family sitting in the restaurant.

Whew. So that’s what happened.

– rej

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A lot of you are probably wondering how we decided on the date. Does it mean anything? Is it significant? Somebody’s birthday? Anniversary.

Actually, it’s none of the above, and that’s precisely why we picked it.

We wanted our wedding to be during a cool month. But we didn’t want a wedding in October, because Dante and Ron’s birthdays are in October. Not November, because my birthday is in November. The birthday months would also rule out July (my brother, and Paul), May (Oneal), April (Oneal’s mom), August (Oneal’s dad), March (Czar). We definitely didn’t want a December wedding: Decembers are crazy enough without a wedding to worry about! And January is too soon after December. You have to give people time to rest! Oh, and we didn’t want a June wedding either. That’s when the rainy season starts, eek.

So February seemed good. But no way were we getting married on Valentine’s Day. Yuck. And we didn’t want to get married on our anniversary either. Initially Oneal suggested February 10, so that the date would be 02-10-2010, but that was a weekday. So we had to settle for February 20. Why? Oneal said, “It’s a nice, round date.”

And that’s really all it is.

Oh, and did I mention we decided this at a wake? *smack forehead*

– rej

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