Friday, December 23, 2011

The Accidental Wedding Planner part 2

When I arrived at Our Lady of Lourdes Church at around 9am, I was expecting that Ana's wedding would be the first wedding of the day. The reason I chose to arrive early was to set-up the flowers in advance so that everything would be ready by the time the guests arrive.

But I was wrong. It turned out that there's a 9:30am wedding.

What intrigued me was the fact that there was no set up yet. There were no flowers on the aisle. No coordinator mulling about. Not even guests nor entourage looking folk. So, I began to wonder, is there really a 9:30 am wedding?

By 9:10, people started coming in. And by the looks of it, the first wedding for the day was a haphazard, disorganized affair. The following observations cemented my hunch:

1. The bride had to commute to church. I actually saw her alight from a jeepney in her wedding gown. And she was seated in front of the jeep.
2. The couple both wore rented clothes. The bride's gown and the groom's suit were both 2 sizes bigger.
3. The entourage didn't have matching clothes. The colors, cuts and styles were different from each other.
4. No one knew what they were doing.

How did I deduce number 4? Simple. The representative from the church arrived and asked basic questions that no one could answer. Questions like: Sino ang ninong at ninang? Nasaan ang mga abay? Meron ba kayong coordinator?

At around 9:20, people were still scurrying about like headless chicken. At that point, the wedding coordinator in me kicked in. I approached the church representative and introduced myself as the coordinator of the next wedding and asked if they needed help. When she said "yes," I asked the groom-to-be if it was ok to help them out. He also said "yes."

In a matter of minutes, I was corralling everyone in the church. "Yung mga ninong at ninang, dito po sa kanan. Entourage, dito po sa kaliwa. Best man, dito ka sa harap." It took me about 5 minutes to get everyone in line. And in the process of lining them up, I learned that they had no invitation, there were no secondary sponsors, and basically, they all just showed up, not knowing what to do. And yes, I had to do it for them.

By some miracle, I was able to get them marching at 9:30am, just in time for their wedding. And there was some semblance of organization by the time I got them moving. The church representative thanked me after they all reached the altar, and she said with a laugh: "Sana hindi sila ganyan kagulo pag mag-asawa na sila."

Yes, I hope so, too.

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