I’ve been dying to write about the wedding preps (it occupies 70% of my life now) but I have OC tendencies, so I wanted to do it chronologically. I’ve decided to write about everything wedding – related from start to finish, from the engagement, to the nitty-gritty’s to eventually, the actual wedding (I really hope I have enough weeks left. More often than not I get distracted by other topics).
Last March 24 2012, my boyfriend proposed. And I have to say, my proposal was the best proposal everrr (rolling my r’s like a true Assumptionista). I’m pretty sure everyone who has gotten engaged says this, but seriously, ours was pretty awesome. Details of the event can be found on our wedding website so will not get all gushy and relive it blow by blow.Sharing some things I loved about the proposal however, as well as some behind-the-scenes anecdotes and bloopers. 🙂
1. The proposal still came surprisingly as well, a surprise.
Before we actually got engaged,we’ve been talking about getting married. And shamefully, I actually gave him a deadline. Ok, before you judge me hear me out: We’ve been together for a decade, and I think even the most patient, tactful woman would bring up taking things a step further if she was in my place.
Plus, he brought up all this marriage talk first. Even showed me goals he set out for us. In his goal book, he wanted to get married by 2012, at the latest 2013. In one of the talks, I made it clear that for that plan to get married by 2012 to be feasible, we needed to be engaged by March. So March became our “official” goal.
Honestly, having a deadline isn’t exactly my dream scenario. I may have low EQ but I’m still a girly-girl. And I would still want to be swept of my feet (as corny as it sounds) and be surprised that a gentleman caller is asking for my hand in marriage.
I was very determined to still get a bit of a surprise from the experience. After the talk, I tried my hardest not to expect that a proposal was coming soon. It kinda worked. There were a couple of moments that I deemed proposal- worthy, but I kept my cool and pretty much got it into my head that those were just ordinary dates. 🙂 And sure enough, they turned out to be just ordinary dates. 😛
In all fairness to my fiance too, his proposal scenario was something that was totally unexpected.. I don’t think I could have ever imagined having it in the Ateneo highschool theater, nor did I expect him to write a play or hire a choir audience to be part of the act. So I was, for all intents and purposes, swept off my feet.
Sharing a picture of us pre-play. Taken by Joel Dayrit, a friend who fiance had asked to take our pictures
2. Fiance put in soo much effort into planning the proposal
I was really bowled over that Mister I-can’t be-bothered-by-other-things-I’m-handling-multimillion-dollar-accounts-please-just-let-me-work , shaved off weeks of his time just to plan a production (literally). Not only did he take the time to write a play he went back and forth from Subic to Manila for days to rehearse with the Sibol boys and to coordinate with my loved ones. In as much as I appreciated the actual performance, what was very heartwarming for me was the amount of effort he actually put just to ask me to marry him.
I’ve overheard him talk to alot of his guy friends about proposing and he thinks that the wedding is usually a girl’s affair, and the guys are just well, glorified props. The girl gets to make most of the decisions about the theme, the suppliers and is usually the center of attention. So for him, the proposal is the guy’s opportunity to squeeze out all his creative juices and express himself. So he really made sure that he put in a lot of effort to make ours memorable.
The boys delivering their lines like pros
3. It didn’t go as smoothly as planned
Although fiance meticulously covered all bases, there were alot of hiccups experienced.
a. Blooper 1: The actual proposal was plan B. Fiance’s plan A? He emailed Brian McKnight and asked if he could propose onstage during his Philippine concert. Brian McKnight never emailed back. 😛 (which actually became a blessing in disguise, Plan B was much more personal than Plan A).
b. Blooper 2: They had to replace an actor the day of the proposal. One of the kids’ had a family emergency. So last minute, they had to drag another theater group member and rehearse with him. These guys were utterly professional though and you wouldn’t have been able to tell that something was wrong. Fiance did say that the replacement adlibed the hell out of the script. 🙂
c. Blooper 3: I almost found out about it via my friend’s dad. The day of the proposal, I was “assigned” to spend time with a couple of friends. After hanging out with friend A, she drops me off at friend B’s house. We were having lunch when her dad walks in asks about her schedule for that night because he wanted to have dinner. My friend promptly replies that she wasn’t doing anything. Her dad looks at her curiously and asks “I thought you and your brother (who also happened to be a friend of mine) were going to Ateneo.” She vehemently insists that those plans were cancelled. And her dad just as vehemently insists that he just talked to her brother that morning and he said that they were going to push thru. Awkward silence. My friend drags her dad to her room to show him “the leak” in the bathroom. And he comes out mumbling something about making a mistake about the plans and it was probably their tita who needed to go to Ateneo.
While this was going on, I was happily munching on my bacon (side note: they have the BEST breakfast food, and they serve it the whole day). I found it a bit curious that my friends were going to Ateneo because they were hard core La Sallians. BUT they own an events company, and they have done stuff for Ateneo before, so I figured they were probably doing something for the college graduation. Besides, I was in a befuddled state because Friend A made me go with her to meet my designer cousin at 8 in the freakin’ morning, so I didn’t take this to heart. Only pieced things together when I saw them at the proposal.
d. Blooper 4: Security guard almost gave things away yet again. Like I mentioned in our wedding website, the Ateneo college graduation was also being held on the highschool covered courts, so cars weren’t allowed to go inside the area. He took care of this by talking to the head guard the day before and asking for special permission to park inside. They were supposed to take note of his plate number, and we should have been let in, no questions asked. My friends and family meanwhile, were advised to take the buses provided by the school for the graduation (how convenient) so there was absolutely no chance of us seeing each other on the way to the highschool theater.
It was a pretty nifty plan. BUT there were thousands of people in the area so the guards did not recognize the car. My fiance was so afraid we’d bump into one of my friends if we walked so he decided to call the head guard anyway to ask if we can come in. Without him saying a word, head guards picks up the phone and exclaims (loud enough for me to hear), “Sir Okay na po! Pasok na kayo!” Not only that, but he escorts us in with his vehicle all the way up to the parking lot.
During this time, I was badgering him and asking why he knew the head guard ( I wasn’t thinking proposal thoughts though, I was just getting pissed that he was lying to me). He said something pretty vague about meeting the him while he was running in Ateneo which I really didn’t believe. (In hindsight, he should have used his gazillion parking tickets as an excuse. My boyfriend would park anywhere in college, and his parking fee violations probably put a couple of scholars to school. It was so bad he was sent to the disciplinary committee.) Normally, this would have caused a long discussion, but it was cut short because the girls in my nail spa had some scheduling problems. So I had to put the guard quandary aside to fix things.
e. Blooper 5: The Sibol boys misplaced the keys to the theater. So we were in the parking lot for the looongest time. I was bugging my fiance and asking him why we couldn’t go in and get seats. He said he wanted the rain to stop before we left the car. Finally, after a lot of nagging, we got out and lined up with the rest of the crowd waiting by the door (they were our choir pala). One of the theater boys comes out and asks us to follow him to the backdoor.
Turns out, we weren’t getting out of the car because my boyfriend was waiting for the boys to open the theater door (that was their cue that everything was ready to go). They never did because they had lost the keys! Worked out well though because we were ushered in through the backdoor, to the front of the theater, and did not notice my friends and family at the back.
I loved all these little bloopers because it gave the event personality. We had a lot of good laughs reliving these moments, and they became an integral part of our proposal story.
The “audience”/ choir
3. Family and friends were part of the proposal
A few weeks back, one of my best friend’s fiance asked us to go all the way to Clark because he was proposing to my friend during the hot air balloon festival. I remember grumbling because we literally had to walk an hour (no parking) to get to the site. And when we got there we had to wait for another hour before the proposal happened. But it turned out to be sooo worth it because we got to see the look on my friend’s face when she finally figured out what was happening. Truth be told I would have walked 2 hours to see how happy she was during that moment. And I was super grateful to be part of the experience.
When it was my turn, my friends and my family told me the same thing. They were all really, really happy to be part of our day. They gladly took time off their schedules to distract me before the proposal and were crying buckets when my fiance got on stage and took the ring out.
He had called everyone. My childhood friends, my college best friends, my work friends, friends from my masters classes etc. He even limited the number of friends he had in the theater so he could make room for all of them.
They were enthusiastically telling me about the behind the scenes preparations and were texting me happy messages even a couple of days after. It meant alot to me because these same loved ones were there during our rough times. And it was fantastic to finally share with them our joy and happiness.
Thaaaank you sooo much Sibol! Loved you when I was 13, love you guys more two decades later. 🙂
I loved our proposal story because it highlighted who we were as couple: It highlighted my fiance’s hardworking attitude and his resourcefulness, it gave importance to the love and closeness that I have with the people in my life and it showed our sense of humor as a couple.
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