A Filipino Wedding

Before you ask, “No it’s not my wedding”. It was the wedding of my Filipino sister. Remember the family I told you I lived with for a month when I first got to the Philippines. Yeah, that one. Well, my little sister got married. That means that even though I’m the oldest in my Filipino family (the opposite in actual fact, “Ako ang bunso”). I’m now the only one who’s not married (“Binata pa”). Anyway, it was a great weekend. We had a big celebration the night before. All the family and friends came to visit us, the ate (a little too much), drank (a bit too much) and sang (far too much). It took me a long time to get going on the wedding day cos I wasn’t feeling too well but I eventually got there. I drove to the neighbouring city of Lipa where the bridal party had gathered earlier in the day to beautify themselves. It was really cool to have the whole family together before the wedding. Then we all piled into cars and headed for the church. I found out that I was supposed to walk the Mayor of Tanauan’s wife down the aisle as a sponsor last minute, but I’m sort of getting use to that. Oh, wait a minute, I think I need to back up a bit. I need to explain a little bit about Filipino weddings. In a Filipino wedding there’s the couple, bridesmaids, groomsmen and parents (just like us), but then you also need to add primary and secondary sponsors. The secondary sponsors are usually friends who are close but not close enough to be bridesmaids or groomsman (I could be wrong in that explanation but it’s how it appeared to me). The primary sponsors are usually older married people who might help financially but who mainly offer practical advice and provide marital support to the couple. All these people walk down the aisle! In this case it was the couple, 2 sets of parents, 3 bridesmaids and groomsman, 10 sets secondary sponsors and 10 sets of primary sponsors, oh and I almost forgot that the 10 sets of cute little kids. That makes at least 72 people plus the priest who walked down the aisle. Man, talk about suspense. Okay, where was I? That’s right, I was supposed to walk the Mayor’s wife down the aisle cos she was a primary sponsor without a partner to walk down the aisle. Thankfully she was running late so I didn’t walk down the aisle with her, I just got to walk down the aisle with someone else I didn’t know. The service was all in Tagalog so I didn’t understand a lot of it, especially the Catholic traditions. It was a learning experience. I sat in the corner, took some photos and monitored my video recorder while trying to follow what was going on. Once the service was over the photos took place. Man, there were a lot of photos! Of there were, there were lots of people. Then it was off to the reception. When I got there I settled into my place, talked to a few people, but tried to lay as low as a white man can at a large Filipino wedding. That’s when it happened. One of the bridesmaids dragged me out of my chair to “help her dance”. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Here I am standing in front of about 200 people having to dance a dance I don’t know with a girl I’ve never met. Was I nervous or what! It didn’t end up being that hard, but I still couldn’t believe it happened to me. The things that happen to you when you don’t have a partner and wear a Barong! The strangest thing that happened that night though, was that straight after the meal and speeches, 70% of the people just up and left. I couldn’t believe it. It was all over within a couple of hours. It was totally bizarre for me, given the fact that us Aussies normally party til late in the night and sometimes wee hours of the morning. It did, however, give me the opportunity to drive back to Tanauan and then on to Manila so I could attend my language class the next day though.