creating creative compromises
I remember when friends were planning their own weddings, they all had a clear idea of what they wanted.
Some had secret wedding Pinterest boards which they finally made public when their boyfriends proposed, while others had Power Point presentations filled with pegs taken from the internet. Inasmuch as I appreciate the planning they put into their wedding vision, that kind of “planning ahead” just isn’t me.
Kel proposed ten years after the day we first met. While most would think that ten years of knowing someone is enough to decide to settle down, I didn’t think Kel was ready. His career was starting to take off and it seemed like there were still so many things he wanted to do. When Kel proposed I knew I was in for a lot of work.
We had a lot of discussions (or shall I say arguments) on how we each wanted the night to unfold. We compromised A LOT to accommodate each other’s preferences. Kel is extremely outgoing. I prefer smaller, more intimate groups. Even the length of the church aisle was a consideration in choosing a church! Doing the guest list, we realized that it could not be as intimate as I wanted it to be. We both come from big families and Kel’s businesses meant a lot of partners and investors. To resolve the matter, we agreed to invite only the guests we both have personally met and known. ‘Twas a good concession because it was the most intimate 450-guest wedding I’ve ever attended!
Planning the theme and outfits for the entourage became tricky as Kel prefers bold prints and loud colors, while I prefer to stick to the classics. When my dad suggested for me to wear the same dress my mom wore when they got married 35 years ago, I knew I wanted to do so. Her dress was a piña gown with callado embroidery. But Kel wasn’t too keen on wearing a barong. It took a while for us to finalize his outfit. When we finally got an affirmation from the designer that Kel in a suit would still go well with my mom’s dress, we right away decided on the details of the wedding entourage and the general theme of the reception: reception: cream and beige for the ladies and grey for silver for the men. Kel even came up with a less-thanconventional ensemble with his brocade suit and custom shoes with skull broguing.
I wanted to do something special for the people in our wedding party. Months before the wedding I was scouting for tokens and ended up making DIY origami boxes with personalized notes asking them to be part of my entourage. Kel, on the other hand, prefers to “wing it” and made a mad dash to the mall two days before the wedding to come up with “kikoy kits” for the boys.
Since Kel is in the food industry, he wanted our reception to be a showcase of our families’ specialty dishes. My dad, a native of Roxas City, the Philippines’ seafood capital, made arrangements to share some of Roxas’ best seafood like blue crabs, tonto fish and scallops.
Both very close to our grandparents, Kel and I decided to have our grandmothers be our ‘flower ladies” as they played very significant roles in our growing up and we wanted to honor them on our special day. My maternal grandmother gifted us with gold plates which we made into a wedding band. I wore earrings that used to belong to my dad’s great grandmother.
Being a chef, Kel thought it would be a good idea to have guests bring home something that he made and that can be useful in their own cooking. He then made a spice mix which my mother-inlaw and sister-in-law bottled and decorated on creatively.
Different as we are in our preferences and personalities, we were very much unified in how we wanted our wedding to be.
And we take pride in all that. In the course of all the preparations and planning, we learned how to listen to each other and made compromises on the basis of love. We realized that it was our differences that made the relationship fun and interesting.
After all, what truly matters is that we were one in setting up the stage for our life together as husband and wife.