It's My Wedding And I'll Cry If I Want To

(delayed post from 10.16.05)

First off, OK. It's not MY wedding. And it really goes "It's my party..."...but then again, ain't a wedding a party, too? You just wait 'til you read about this wedding.

October 15. It was the usual Saturday in my life: waking up at 10am, begrudgingly going down the stairs to do my customary hundred and so sit-ups and crunches (which, God knows haven't done anything to my abs), having my milk and cereals, going down on all fours in the toilet to scrub the tiles white with Tilex before actually showering, and then leisurely dressing up to hit the mall to work out at Gold's Gym and then window shop.

Whoa. Wrong Saturday. Reality check. Let's do that again.

October 15. Woke up at 6:15am. No sit-ups/crunches, no milk and cereals, no Tilex. Just one quickie shower with no leisurely dressing up, and most certainly no gym or window shopping. With the Customer Delight workshop (aka immersion) at 8:30am, I quickly stuffed my white Banana Rep long sleeved shirt, my two dollar blue and green striped silk tie, and my cheap ass off-the-rack suit into my garment bag. I dashed out the condo. I had a seminar to teach and a
wedding to host. Busy, busy, busy.

At 4:15pm, I regretfully left the workshop, what with the more important part of it just getting brought into focus. But my call time at The Orchidarium, where the reception was to be held, was at 5pm. With my garment bag in tow, I hailed the cab and was off to Roxas Boulevard. I had plenty of time to rehearse and get jiggy at the venue.

Or so I thought. Upon reaching Quirino Boulevard, I was flabbergasted to find out that the entire stretch of Roxas Boulevard was closed--without any advisory--because of a fucking anniversary concert-party by Channel 23. With all the detours that we had to do, the wrong turns, and the God-I'm-going-to-bitchslap-the-cab-driver-pretending-to-be-Mister-Know-it-all, I reached the venue at 5:30pm. Thankfully, the wedding entourage was still having their photo session at the San Agustin Church, so that bought me more time to get used to the place, the coordinators, the DJs, and the early guests.

When cocktails was served, I opened by welcoming the guests to the venue, introduced myself, and told them, "This is so-and-so's wedding reception. Please make sure you're in the right wedding." When that got the hoped for snickers, I started easing out; this crowd wasn't stiff after all. Cheerio to them. Good for me.

When the couple arrived, I signaled the guests to hold on to their envelopes of live butterflies so they could release them when the bride and the groom enters the patio (of course, some of them were totally clueless about this, and so have wretchedly crushed the poor things). Immediately after my spiel about the symbolism of this butterfly ceremony, the couple entered the garden, and on my signal, the entrance way got showered by a lot of beautifully-colored butterflies and the sound of roaring applause. Ah. Off to a good start.

During dinner (and even before the program started), I was constantly told that I looked just like the older brother of the bride. And I constantly replied with a polite, "that's prolly because I'm a Gomez, too, Madam/Sir." But when I finally saw Ryan, the brother, I freaked out. He certainly looked just like me: his height, his facial structure, his smile, his eyes,his hairstyle, and even his freaking accent/voice. Freaky. This posted photo of us isn't exactly a testimony to that...but don't take my word for it; take theirs. I am now officially thinking whether I was the adopted one or Ryan...and that we could really be twins. At least now I have a place to stay at Los Angeles next time I went to visit.

Now, going back to the "party" argument earlier.

As the principal sponsors, parents, and wedding entourage were called, every pair had a different soundtrack that they literally danced to from the entrance way down to the dance floor, while they wait for the bride and groom to complete the wedding party. From Benny Hill to A-Team to Superman to The Empire Strikes Back to Who Let the Dogs Out, the entourage built up to the bride and groom's entrance music: Theme from Rocky, i.e. Eye of the Tiger. Beat that.

High fives flew in the air as the couple joined the entourage. Now THAT was a way to usher in a bridal party.

Yes. It was their party, and they did cry when they wanted to.

That was fun. And I was a couple o' bucks richer. They're happy. I'm happy. My manager's happy. Now, wasn't that a PARTY, indeed? ;)