in the world

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Mike, our unofficial organizer, had us go to the gazebo hut with all of the principle witnesses/godparents.

These are some of pictures that were given to us by an Australian couple.

Monday, April 23, 2007

the wedding march (me with my Dad)

L to R: one of Bob's older sisters, his father, Bob, me, Dad, and my sister

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Wedding

(I don't want to post a lot of wedding pictures until we get the ones that our two photographers took, but this one was taken just before my Dad marched out with me.)

On April 7, 2007, as we had planned, Bob and I got married. My Dad was there to give me away, as you can see from this picture:-). It really means a lot to me that he came. It was his first flight, and first time being outside of North America, which was a big step for him to take. He said it ended up not bothering him to fly (other than the long trip, about 20 hours), and he liked looking out the window. He hasn't even had much trouble sleeping at night, and stayed on about the same sleeping schedule that he had at home. He's doing well, and enjoying some of the things he's gotten to see.

The wedding actually started about 9:30 because we had to wait for the ministers, who were late. In the meantime, no one had brought the unity candles, and one of Bob's nieces ran to find some. She broke one of her sandals in the process, and had to change her dress as a consequence, but she found candles in time for the ceremony.

The ceremony went pretty smoothly. My sister was the maid of honor. I was also very glad that she could come. She's really been enjoying her time in the Philippines, as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, her son "buggy boy" got sick, and her husband (a Korean man) stayed home with him in Korea. Because we had two extra tickets, one of Bob's friends Mike from Australia (and mine also, though I didn't know him quite as well as Bob before) happened to come. It turned out to be a great blessing for us to have him with us a few days early. He became our voluntary wedding coordinator, and helped us to remember what we needed to do and to finish organizing things. He even took charge of the rehearsal for us.

There were about 200 or more people at the ceremony, and about 600 all together at the reception. It's good we planned for about 600 so that we didn't run out of food. I heard them slaughtering one of the pigs the night before:-( for the feast. I can write some more about our wedding later, and post the pictures.

Monday, April 02, 2007

My wedding will be on Saturday, April 7, 2007 at 9 a.m. (Manila time) in Bambang, Nueva Vizcaya

I think Saturday at 9:00am Manila time is 6pm on Friday Pacific Standard Time, but I should double check that. (I'm excited now cause my Dad and sister and brother-in-law and nephew will arrive today!)

Friday, March 23, 2007

wedding preparations

Sorry I've been neglecting my blog, but ever since Bob and I got engaged on December 22, we've been running around for the wedding preparations and trying to keep up with our homework at school. Today is my last day:-)!!!, as it is for all of the Applied Linguistics students. I think Bob still has classes next week.

As for our wedding preparations, first Bob bought our rings: white gold with small diamonds, as you can see. Then we had to set the date, which took some thinking. As I think everyone knows, we choose April 7. Then I went to a huge market/mall place in Manila called Divasoria a couple of times and picked out a dress. They have dresses made with really nice cloth (they make some really nice material here) and embroidered for way less than you could get them in the US (or if you get one made with cheap cloth, it can cost as little as $50 at Divasoria, but I liked the good cloth:-)).

After that, we had some trouble applying for our marriage license. We travelled all the way to Bambang only to be told that we need written parental consent becasue I was under 25 at the time (I'm turning 25 tomorrow, by the way). When we got back to Manila, we had my Dad send one. Then Bob went back to the province with the form the next weekend only to be told that it needs to be notarized. They said that all they need is a signature from someone at the US Embassy in Manila. So then we went all the way to the Embassy, which is kind of far from were our apartments are, only to be told that they've never had someone bring one in, and that we can't have it notarized unless my parents are there. Finally, Bob decided to apply for the marriage license at the city hall were he is from and where people know him, so we went all the way back to the province again, and finally got the marriage license:-).

Then Bob asked one of his nieces to make our invitations, which saved us from having to go to an invitation printer, and I think they look really good:-). He just brought them back from the province after he went there this weekend.

Of course, that's only part of it. We've had to prepare many other things. Bob had done much of the planning and has gone to the province several times more than I have to make arrangements. I guess that's the problem with going to school 6 or 7 hours from where you'll get married.

Anyway, I suppose it's worse to have a family member getting married all the way across the world. I'm very excited that my Dad and my sister and her husband and their 2 1/2 year old son will be arriving on April 2!!!!:-) It will be great to see them!

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

at the Wilsons' house

This is a couple from America who became our good friends. B introduced me to them. They're going on furlough this year.

some of our "godparents"

We've been visiting some of our "godparents." It's a Filipino tradition to ask people older than you to be your godparents when you get married. I'm still not sure what to think of having godparents, but we have around 60 or 70.