Monday, January 12, 2009

Wrapping up the wedding season

So, wedding season for 2008-2009 is almost over (okay, that comment makes me sound like Owen Wilson or Vince Vaughn from the Wedding Crashers LOL). I’ve been to three more weddings in the last month. I have one more wedding to attend (well, more like a wedding reception since Tricia and CJ have wed civilly already and they are just preparing a reception so they can celebrate as a couple with all their friends) but here's a quick recap of the ones that I attended in the last few weeks.

My friend Stelz got married to her husband Norman in San Agustin Church last December, a couple of days before Christmas. She had asked me and a couple of my ex-colleagues Mark and Rose to play some songs during the wedding ceremony (Mark played the guitar and Rose played the keyboards and did backing vocals as well). We performed “I offer my life” during the offertory, “Lead me, Lord” during communion, and four songs during the pictorial session: Kenny Lattimore’s “For you”, Martin Nievera’s “Never Say Goodbye”, Gary Valenciano’s version of “How did you know” and Edwin McCain’s “I’ll be”. I was also supposed to sing Gary V’s version of “I will be here” and Rose was supposed to sing “You” by the Carpenters but there wasn’t enough time. Here’s a video of me singing “I’ll Be”:



The reception was also held in Intramuros, just a block away from the church, and it was great because I got to see and catch up with a lot of other ex-colleagues, a lot of whom I haven’t seen in a long time.

And since good things come in threes, I headed back to San Agustin church a week and a half later to attend Maileen and Nick’s wedding. The church ceremony was at 2pm and there was a mini-reception in Barbara’s afterwards to keep people entertained before heading to the dinner reception in – get this – the Metropolitan Museum. It was the first time that I attended a wedding set in a museum and I thought it was an absolutely brilliant idea. My friends and I got there at 5pm and spent our time walking through the museum and being in awe of the amazing art there. But of course it wasn’t just the venue that made it memorable. The speeches were great, the wine was really good (and free-flowing!), and I got to catch up once again with old friends, including Maileen whom I haven’t really seen a lot of recently. It was cool that I got to dance with her as well during the reception because we used to be dancing partners in college during our Indakan days.

Finally, I attended the wedding of Kuki and MJ a couple of days ago in Fernbrook. It was my first star-studded wedding (Kuki and MJ have a lot of very good friends in showbiz). I won’t go into detail on who was there since Kuki and MJ might not appreciate the name dropping haha. But suffice it to say that my duet partner Shasha and I were not pleased by the fact that we had to sing almost immediately after a couple of very seasoned performers who both sang really well LOL. We sang “All I ask of you” from the Phantom of the Opera. In any case, we seemed to have pulled it off decently well and not embarrass ourselves in the presence of all those showbiz people haha. But at the end of the day, MJ and Kuki were happy with our song and that is really the most important thing.

This also means that I have now sung in 26 different weddings and wedding anniversaries. For a non-professional wedding singer, I’d say that’s a whole lot. I am now seriously considering talking to some wedding coordinators to see if they are in need of an extra wedding singer LOL. After all, with the current global financial crisis, I could do with the extra pocket money.

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