Philippines - The wedding

Wednesday, 19th December 2018 :

Finally the big day arrived! 
The wedding would take place at 3,30pm, so after having breakfast together at the Resort's restaurant, we each did our own thing.
I decided to relax and read a book by the pool and have a 30 min massage later in the day.
Sitting at the pool we received a "whatsapp" call from my sister who was visiting her daughter in San Francisco to say that N was in labour and had already gone to hospital.
Shortly after a healthy little girl was born.
Because they were 16 hours behind, it means the baby was born on the 18th, just 2 hours more and she would have been born the day of Karina's wedding. 

The massage cabana, the pool by the Bar and the Infinity pool by the restaurant/beach

The ladies had to be in Karina's room by 2,00pm so we could have our hair and make-up done.

When I arrived after my relaxing massage, Karina was already being cared for by Ruffa, the very talented make-up artist and by Jay, the hairdresser.

One of the two young photographers from "Orange Square" was photographing Thomas, while the other concentrated on the bride.
The very OCD (obsessive compulsive) Sunshine, the wedding organizer from "Wedding Wishes in Bohol" would transmit her orders via a walky-talkie to someone standing outside the room. 
She had the wedding planned to a T, with a set time to do everything from speeches, to dinner, to cutting the cake 😃 but Karina and Thomas told her that everything was perfect and she shouldn't take it all so seriously, just to relax, as there were only 7 of us!

The photographer asked Karina if she had another wedding dress for "before wedding" photos, but it was a small wedding so no need for changes. I remembered I had a white dress and asked Jose to go and get it from our room. And the photo session started...

Jay then weaved a chain of pearly beads into her hair, changing her look.

Karina put on her wedding dress , her silver strappy sandals and she was ready for more photos.

Isabelle (Thomas' mom) left to join her family for outdoor photos and we had our own photo session too. 

At 3,30 Thomas walked towards his parents at the sound of the Rocky theme song. 

Jose and I standing just above the steps burst into laughter. 

Thomas comes across as a very serious and introverted young man, and because he shaves his head and has tattoos, he can look intimidating to some people, but once you get to know him he's actually very funny.

The look on the Wedding celebrant's face was precious, I don't think he ever had a Filipino groom waltz in with arms in the air dancing to Rocky, and I'm sure she didn't expect that from Thomas for sure🤣!

Then it was our turn to go down to the white walkway and wait for Karina to join us a few minutes later so we could walk her to the middle of the platform and hand her to Thomas.

Walking Karina down the aisle

The vows by the couple were spoken first in English and then French.

And then came the family photos, and photos by the beach...

Our choice of pre-dinner drinks was served, then we sat down to dinner.

Since we were only 7 people, we had been given a choice of foods a few days before, and we each chose a main and a dessert. 

The 2 starters and soup was the same for all of us, and gluten free for Isabelle who is celiac.

The presentation was 5 ⭐and everything was amazing. We had to complement the Chef, I certainly hadn't expected this quality from a small resort in the Philippines!

Pre-drinks, starters and soup

Beef medallions with Ube mash (purple potato), Salmon with baked potatoes, prawns w/rice, Ube Pannacotta

    

                                                                                                                                                                                After dinner came the speeches - first the groom spoke in English and then in French, then the parents of the groom tried their best with English speeches, then Jose had a long speech, which Karina or Thomas would translate if his parents didn't understand.

The cutting of the wedding cake was followed by more photos and the final dance by the fabulous fire dancers, who were the surprise entertainment.

Bohol Firedancers

The dinner and cake tables decorated in red and green:

Another much bigger wedding was taking place at the meals cabana and this little girl came down to the beach to visit us. She was very cute but didn't say much. A few minutes later her brother came to get her.

When we were having our photos taken at the Bluewater resort beach at sunset it started like this in the first photo, but later on turned to an amazing purplish sunset. What a Wow moment!
What a pity the bridal couple wasn't nearby to have photos taken with that background.

Below the facebook posting of the wedding by Ruffa (make-up artist) mentioning all the services (except the fire dancers).

Hope you enjoyed "participating" in my daughter's small beach wedding. 

It was simple, intimate and it was all that she wanted. Just perfect💗.

My youtube video of one of the dances by Flow Extreme Panglao