Closing the Distance
I always said to people: “If you’re a couple not strong enough to handle the quirks of planning a wedding, you have to think twice about what you’re getting into.” For us, despite all the many things that happened or could have happened, the day of our wedding was one of the best days of our lives.
Our journey started after my proposal to Jen after our seven-year relationship. That was actually one of the very first surprises that I ever gave Jen, since I got so used to planning everything because we were in a long-distance relationship.
Jen really had this long-time dream to get married in the Manila Cathedral. So, for me, it was one box to tick off from our checklist. With the church settled, we now needed a reception venue.
Since we had this idea that there should be something really Filipino about the wedding, we immediately looked into the Manila Hotel. We also wanted something different from the usual reception area and this made us look at the Maynila ballroom. Unique in its orientation, it had mini balconies surrounding the whole area that will make the guests see everything that was going to happen. We stepped inside for an ocular and Jen’s eyes lit up. She did not want anything else, and honestly neither did I. With another box checked, we moved forward.
I had to leave again for five months and this time, the distance would really affect us as we couldn’t coordinate things side by side. Th months passed and there was still a lot to be done. Now, since I was a dual citizen already when I came back, I wanted to incorporate Filipino tradition with a twist of American culture.
I decided to wear a coat barong with this in mind. Jen, on the other hand, wore something traditional: a white gown. The thing that really made these two special was the fact that the details in my coat barong were actually taken from the details of Jen’s gown.
Slowly one after another, the boxes in our list were starting to disappear as we approached the wedding month.
On our wedding day, I woke up smiling, energetic, and actually feeling something I never really experienced before. I stood up, looked outside the window staring at this gloomy skyline and said to myself: “Today i am marrying the woman of my life and that’s all that matters.” I wanted to give everything to Jen because she didn’t really have any special celebrations for herself. She didn’t even have a debut as her dad passed away, and at an early age she had to become the main provider for her family. Giving her this kind of wedding was honestly the least that I could do.
As I arrived at the cathedral, I tried to walk calmly towards the door. Soon enough, I was at the altar, finding myself standing looking towards the door. I always said everything was better planned, but I had not planned for Jen to be in my life. I I can plan everything that can happen in my life but there are things that are just given, and things that will just happen, no matter what. And there she was, walking towards me in the aisle, finally ending the long distance we had to endure. My mind cleared, my nerves calmed, and then I told myself that nothing else mattered. Not the amount of planning and deciding, not the amount of unworked logistics that made me go crazy, not the amount of guests that did not come, not even the things that I was not yet thinking about.
Just like that, we were married. I felt like the happiest man alive.
Year in and year out, distance was always part of our relationship. Distance created our strengths and distance created our weaknesses. And now that we have closed it, we’re starting our new life together as one. I was meant to marry Jen. We did not rush things, we can’t even say that we planned everything about it. But we walked through that distance, and we will no longer have to spend any day alone.