For 18 months, I've been planning everything leading to this day. I've had countless dreams and nightmares, experienced stress as I have never had before. And then finally the day arrived. I am so grateful that the sun was shining. It's been raining for the last couple of days and one can only pray for a miracle.
My wake-up time is scheduled at 7am. I'm already awake at 5. Maybe it's because of the feeling of namamahay or just my brother doing his ninja moves while I'm sleeping next to him. I blogged how I was feeling that time here and then I woke up Chai, asking her to take a bath first since she takes forever to get ready. Then I called Topher and asked him to meet me at the breakfast lounge. I know that we need to eat properly and now is the only time we can do it. I'm pretty happy that we get to have together before all the craziness began. We took our time with our breakfast and we enjoyed almost everything on the buffet.
After breakfast, we went back to our separate rooms to get ready. I was about to take a bath when my OTD team came. They were sooo early! They're supposed to be there 9am and they showed up before 8:30! They advised me to take a bath and make sure I do all my business while at the restroom. They started preparing my dress and all the wedding paraphernalia on the bed. Just as I was leaving the bathroom, my photo team came! It was my first time meeting Puy and Chie.
A few minutes before 9am, my HMUA team came. It was also my first time ever meeting Ms.Chichi and her team. They went around the room, looking for the perfect spot with natural light to setup their equipment. Ms. Chichi and I talked about the look that I wanted and how I wanted my hair to be, I showed her and Steph some photos and then we started getting ready.
Ms.Chichi started with me and my eyebrows. It's funny because it took her a while to style my eyebrows properly, I can confess that my eyebrows are not that greatly shaped. All the while, my Nanay is getting primped and one of my SS's hair is being done. After my eyebrows were groomed, I'm called to Steph's chair for my hair. It only took a few minutes for Steph to do my hair, and around this time, Ate Yhoan came with our flowers. I was sooo happy on how my bouquet look and my entourage's flowers! They're beautiful, the flowers were vibrant and fresh! My make-up took the longest time to finish, my butt kinda froze but it's all worth-it. I love my make-up and how it registered in the photos.
Before 10am, the video team came and then started taking videos of the wedding accessories. Once I'm finished with my make-up, I changed into my wedding dress and then it's time for the photos. Me getting ready, wearing my wedding dress. Putting on earrings and accessories. Topher's sister helping me put on my shoes. I feel comfortable with Puy and how he directs the poses! "Very Nice, Perfect and Wow!" are what I usually hear from him! I feel really happy at the time and it does show in the photos.
We took some pictures at the hotel veranda and with my parents and immediately family. Next was with the entourage team, then my OTD informed me that we need to leave ahead of time. There is a long traffic queue going to Caleruega. Note that this is about an hour and a half earlier than the supposed time we're leaving for the church. Our regret is that we're not able to get photos with the Taal volcano at the background.
When we got on the road, the end of traffic was just before Bag of Beans. OMG. Super layo pa. And the traffic is NOT moving at all! Both sides are not moving. This is around 1:30pm. By 2pm, we just reached Residence Inn. We learned that DPWH had closed one of the lanes which basically means that traffic is stop-and-go. What we did is we counter-flowed with the incoming traffic, which I think is a very smart decision on my Tatay's part. See, he's the one that drove us to the church. 2:30pm we are still at Splendido/Royale Tagaytay. A few more miles to go. Ate Pia informed me that my groom is already at the church but our officiating priest is not there yet. We arrived at the church at 2:55pm. Just at the nick of time. We were not able to start with the bridal march immediately since my in-laws got lost somehow going to the church. We started the march at 3:15. I was suppose to do the long route for the bridal march but because of time constraint, I had to settle for the short-cut next to the church.
While I was waiting for the entourage march to finish, I was at the pathway leading to the church when my little cousin came and started talking to me. I got anxious around this time, since I know I'm about to do my march any minute now. Then I heard the entourage song, U2's All I Want is You ending and finally my bridal march, Beatle's Here, There and Everywhere is blaring at the speakers. I started to walk.
