‘What you need you already have’
Kevin and Michelle Tan hold a beautiful wedding in Singapore–after a ‘match made at Opus’
ON THE EVE of their wedding, the groom called up the bride, a bit worried. He was hoarse, he said, from all that practice, and wondered if he could get back his voice in time for the wedding reception.
The amused bride told her groom not to lose sleep over it, and that for sure, he would get his voice back the next day.
Welcome song
Turned out, Kevin Tan was rehearsing for the performance of his life—not just his and Michelle’s wedding, but perhaps as important, his welcome song for his new bride at the reception. Kevin not only kept his voice, he even showed it off, to the oohs and aahs of guests at the reception. His singing was the big surprise of the night.
After some time that the guests had seated themselves at the elegantly decked Great Room of W Sentosa Cove, a voice announced that the new couple would be walking in. As the ballroom doors swung open and the spotlight beamed on them, who should walk in but only the bride. Then the groom’s voice began to fill the vast ballroom—singing David Guetta’s “Without You.” (“Not even Mariah Carey’s ‘Without You,’ but Guetta’s?” our Lifestyle reporter would ask us later, incredulous. Yes, we confirmed.)
Groom and bride danced to the groom’s singing, as the guests—transformed into an instant captive audience—applauded incessantly. It was an impressive performance, and yet another novel way of kicking off a wedding reception. We’ve gotten used to couples dancing their way onto the ballroom reception, but this was the first time we watched a groom sing and dance—to a band.
People’s guy
Did the groom have jitters? I don’t think so. Megaworld scion Kevin Tan, 33, is never afraid of the spotlight, not even with media watching. He is a people’s guy. Unlike other sons and daughters of tycoons, he is not only accessible, he also truly enjoys being with people. What can you expect? His parents, Andrew and Katherine, made sure he would get used to the company of people other than his family or clan.
They sent him—the eldest in a brood of four—to study and live in Hong Kong at eight years old, an age when Filipino boys, in general, aren’t even weaned from their yaya.
Plane full of friends
The wedding of Kevin and Michelle Tan in Singapore last July 12 couldn’t but reflect the groom’s sociable nature—his friends who flew to Singapore filled an entire Cebu Pacific flight. There were more than 60 of them—coming from the club scene to the lifestyle scene; after all, Kevin is in charge of Megaworld’s lifestyle malls.
His father, Andrew Tan, Megaworld chairperson, conceded as early as the civil ceremony reception held last month at Resorts World in Pasay: “These are all Kevin’s friends and those of Michelle (more than mine). Kevin has many friends.”
Personal ties
Even the principal sponsors have personal ties to the young couple, starting with Energy Secretary Rene Almendras who, relatively young as he is, had a nugget of (husband’s) wisdom to share with the newlyweds as he and wife Marides were leaving the reception that night: “Don’t forget laughter. Don’t lose that ability (to laugh) through the years.”
Then there was Rustan’s and SSI’s indefatigable boss Nedy Tantoco who, Kevin proclaimed in his thank-you toast after dinner that night, helped see him through his early formative years in mall retail.
The other principal sponsors were Juanito Que, Antonio Sy, Bansan Choa, Lucy Que, Beauty Sy, Leonora See.
Best man was Winrich Carl See, and maid of honor, Andrea Kara Tan.
Easily among pleased, if not night was tycoon who told us, “for this for six years.”
He meant that wanting his eldest apparent to settle was one of the
bachelors linked to gorgeous sometime ago, one of them. But, then that it was
Love at first sight
And so, as