Pictures Galore!
Now that the wedding is done, photos of the amazing event have been flooding cyberspace. Check out the photos from Oneal’s camera, taken by the Managing Editor of Playboy Philippines, Misha Lecaros:
Eight Days to Go
As I write this, Oneal is at Big Sky Mind for his bachelor party with the geek guys, and I’m at home with the cats and the laundry. Eight days to go till the big day, and my bridal shower is on Monday. (If you want details, please ask Jovan or Shey. I know nothing.)
I’m so excited that my nerves are in a frenzy. This past week we’ve been pretty relaxed, but now I’m listening to my bridal march song, and I’m so psyched that just listening to the song brings tears to my eyes. (Check out my epiphany about it from months ago.) Ted of Manila String Machine says they’ve been rehearsing the music they requested, and I can’t wait to hear their renditions of the Star Wars themes we love so much. Continue Reading…
Our Entourage
Our best men with Oneal at the Eraserheads reunion concert
These are the wonderful people who have agreed to play an important part on our big day:
Our Best Men
Paul Julius Martin Catiang – Our housemate, and my orgmate and friend from college, Paul is a little too enthusiastic about Monty Python. He’s also our C-3PO!
Dante Gagelonia – Our housemate, and my best friend from college, Dante loves many of the geek things we do, and it’s hard to pin down what he likes most.
Our Maid of Honor
Kat Magallona, MD
Kathleen Magallona, MD – My close friend and classmate since fourth grade, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Kat is also active in their church choir.
Our Matron of Honor
Joanna Marie Orena Cemine – My best friend from high school, and classmate since fifth grade, Anna is now married and has one son.
Our Secondary Sponsors
Our Candle Sponsors
Jovan, our Candle Sponsor
Jovan De Ocampo – My college orgmate and our awesome geek friend, Jovan is into Transformers and Harry Potter.
Julius Rivera – Oneal’s barkada since grade school, Physical Therapist and very physical. lives in romantic Sonoma valley and very romantic.
Our Veil Sponsors
Amaris Grace Cabason – My cousin on the mother’s side, Amaris is going to be a brilliant lawyer one day.
Orland Gregorio Axalan - Oneal’s buds since high school, athletic, one of the other big Star Wars fans in the barkada, has taught his son well about the Galaxy far far away.
Amaris, our Candle Sponsor
Our Cord Sponsors
Celeste Pampolina – Oneal’s cousin is based in the US, and can’t make it to the wedding. Representing her at the wedding will be Oneal’s neice, Danielle Luna.
Mario Madrid - Oneal’s barkada since grade school, the group’s accountant, recently married and soon to be a father.
Oneal's barkada, L-R: Odge, Martin, Mario, Caloy, Oneal, Julius, Nick and Iñaki
Our Groomsmen
Ronaldo Rosero, DDM – Oneal’s brother, and our dentist!
Nick Joseph Santiago - Oneal’s barkada since high school, Chef, restauranteur, matchmaker and asthma inducer.
Martin Luna, MD - Oneal’s barkada since grade school, married into the family, now emergency room doctor on speed dial.
Our Bridesmaids
Nina
Nina Lou Reyes – Awesome geek friend, Nina loves Star Trek and the Lord of the Rings most of all. also the Philippines’ resident Princess Leia.
Mary Ann Marchadesch – My friend from college, Mary Ann is a devoted Doctor Who fan.
Mary Ann Ortiz – Meann is the founder of Star Wars Philippines. She loves Harry Potter as well.
Our Flower Girls
Maxine Enriquez – Dexter’s daughter
Martina Llamas – Iñaki’s daughter
Mary Ann
Our Ring Bearer
Miguel Paca – Caloy’s son
Our Coin Bearer
Joey Torres – Oneal’s inaanak
Matron of honor Anna with our Bible bearer, Gabby
Our Bible Bearer
Gabriel Cemine – Anna’s son, and my inaanak
Thank you, everyone, for being part of our entourage! Soon we’ll post our Principal Sponsors.
– rej and oneal
Updated pages!
Donation to the GMA Kapuso Foundation, September 2008, SM Marikina
As you may have noticed, we update the wedsite sporadically, but when we do, we post a lot of stuff! I usually write the long entries, and Oneal fiddles around with the code.
This time, we’ve added links to the websites of our suppliers, removed some clutter, and changed a few settings. Please feel free to leave a comment or two (or more)!
Also, please check out our other pages, as we’ve posted some updates:
– rej
All in one day: we have our musicians too!
We met Ted Amper a few weeks ago.
The best gauge we have for booking any of our suppliers is how well we get along with them. Naturally, we canvass different suppliers first based on price, availability, and the quality of their work. But sometimes their personality is more important than that.
Take for example one account executive from one of the florists we met with. She was polite, yes, but she also didn’t seem very receptive to our ideas, and was even correcting us on several points. It’s our wedding, not hers, and if she thinks she can improve on what we want, she should be able to phrase them such that we’d be inclined to agree with her.
Suffice it to say, we didn’t hire that florist, and instead we went with the one with very helpful and effusive account executives. So what’s this got to do with music?
From the start we knew we wanted strings for the ceremony, and possibly for the reception too. We asked around for contacts, but never really got to get in touch with the musicians until recently.
Our friend Zuri told us about Manila String Machine, which was the group that played at Issa Litton and Tiger Garido’s Star Wars wedding last December. I sent an SMS to the cellist, Ted Amper, and he gave us their website URL. The repertoire was all we needed to see.
It was full of movie themes by John Williams, and lovely, lovely music from Ennio Morricone, as well as a few other gems. There were links to YouTube videos of their performances, and one of the videos showed them playing Ennio Morricone! *swoon* I fell in love.
The price was also good, and their terms very reasonable. So we decided to meet with Ted.
Ted was really, really nice. He was very amusing, very warm and friendly, and quick to answer our questions and dispel any doubts. After he left, Oneal said, “You like them na, no?”
Indeed, the repertoire, the price, and the terms were great, and it sounded like Manila String Machine was a group that really loved to play music, and they already knew the music we wanted. What’s not to like?
So today, we booked Manila String Machine. I hope they can learn a few more new pieces for the wedding, like my bridal march. 
We’ll meet them in about two weeks for the downpayment and the contract-signing.
– rej
We met our priest!
I owe so, so, so much to Tita Peachy, my mom’s friend from college, for finding us our priest, Fr. Clod Bagabaldo. We met him last Tuesday, and the meeting went so well!
We met at Bizu in Greenhills at 8PM, since he said Mass at 7pm. He seemed a little lost as to why we needed a meeting in the first place. He said that for most couples he’s marrying, he doesn’t meet them till the wedding day itself.
So we explained that we wanted to get to know him, and for him to get to know us, so that we were all on the same page about the wedding. We wanted to know if there were any rites we were forgetting about. I also wanted to consult him on the matter of my confirmation certificate, and the bridal march.
Most important of all, we wanted to tell him we were having a Star Wars wedding, because we wanted him to understand how important Star Wars is to us. We wanted to show him pictures of the costumes the entourage were wearing, because we’d heard stories of other priests refusing to proceed because the bridesmaids wore strappy dresses, of the hemlines weren’t low enough, or some other objection. If Fr. Clod had any objections, we wanted to hear them early on, so we could address them.
Well, it turns out we needn’t have worried at all. 
Fr. Clod is very open-minded, and he says whatever we want is fine. All other things associated with weddings are just fluff, traditions that aren’t crucial to the marriage rite. If all we wanted to do was get married, the rites would only take 15 minutes! He even said that since everyone was there already, and we had prepared so long for the big day, then it was just as well that we have a full Mass and have the parents and the principal sponsors play a part in the ceremony.
We asked him about the entourage attire, and the bridal march, and he just waved our worries away, and said those aren’t really important. The bridal march isn’t part of the marriage rite, so why should he mess with that? When we showed him the pictures of the attire, he admired them and said they really were different, and that was that!
In short, I should have known that Tita Peachy knew me and Oneal well enough to recommend for us a priest who was not conservative. Tita Peachy, thank you so much!
And Fr. Clod, thank you for agreeing to officiate our wedding. God bless you indeed!
– rej
The Date
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