Arn's Blog: Che Che and Elmer's Wedding

Che Che's married!

Che Che is one of my closest friends back when I was in Chicago for the first time in 2005. We were the one-two punch sent by our project to work as liaisons in the windy city. She knew me before I met Jaye. She knew Jaye before Jaye and I fell in love. She knew Jaye and I when we were still friends and now she knows us as a couple. :)

Che Che and Elmer Buan tied the knot on November 26 with a beautiful wedding ceremony at Christ the King church in Pasig and followed it up with a memorable reception at the Shangri La hotel.

They also sent out the most creative invites I've seen to date. The invitation was a passport and a boarding pass. The story behind this is that they both met for the first time in an airport. Pretty neat!

Nov 26 was a Wednesday work day but Jaye and I filed leaves ahead of time so we could leave the office early. Jaye had her hair done at the office right in her office cube with all her officemates watching.

From the office, we dropped by McDonald's for a quick bite then went to her apartment to change clothes. Jaye wore a simple chic brown dress while I was wearing my congressman barong we bought just 2 nights ago.

I'm still not used to wearing barongs. I'm really more of a suit and tie type of guy. I know barongs are meant to get wrinkled one way or another but well, I move like a robot when I'm in a barong. Besides, I look fat in white.

and red, orange, yellow, green, blue, gray, brown...

Jaye and I arrived at the church and sat at the back since we were a tad late. She was checking out the flowers, the dresses and the motif. I was checking out the equipment used by the photographers. After the wedding, it was picture taking time and when it was time for the bride's friends to come on down, we ran to the altar to greet a surprised Che who probably thought we would miss the church wedding. A few pictures and a few hi's and hello's to CeeJay and Gegs and we were on our way back to our seats.

After the wedding, Jaye and I left the church early so we could make our way to Shangri La for the reception. Upon parking the car, we followed the "lift" signs.

We saw another sign "lift" sign and followed it.

at the end... we find stairs. Nice.

The ballroom was big! The decorations were nice and simple. The food was great too as we had so many options - salads, fish, meat, rice, pasta and dessert.

I whipped out the card that Jaye and I bought and she asked me write on it. I wrote "Best wishes and Gob Bless!"

"Gob"?

I was staring at the card thinking how I could misspelled "God" while Jaye was laughing her butt off. I quickly changed b to d and ended up with...

Gold bless? Close enough.

Overall it was a great event and though it lasted for more than three hours, there wasn't a boring part in it. They even had a photo presentation (just like the surprise videos we created in Chicago) with Jaye and me in it (though there was no way you could have recognized me).

Che's sister approached me and asked if I was Arn. I told her yes and she followed it up with "Ah! IKAW pala yun!". Yikes!