Kaban ni Lino Labra: DUHA KA KASAL SA ADLAW''NG SABADO

TWO WEDDINGS IN A SATURDAY

In short notice, I was told that I would be a wedding sponsor of a daughter of my first degree cousin today. On the same date and time, I have to attend too a wedding of our new law partner in the office. I cannot say no to either of these two invitations so I have to be in two weddings in one day in two separate venues.

By coincidence, the wedding of my relative was held in the same venue and time where I had my wedding celebrated 20 years ago. Since I was one of the principal sponsors, I was seated in a row next to the groom and the bride. Twenty years ago, I married my queen in a wedding that was very far being royal. Due to my idealism, my wedding which was supposed to be romantic had turned into a historic event in my life.

Without a wedding planner, I planned my wedding by myself. I prepared our invitation cards with the help of a colleague who is a computer wizzard in lay-outing. Entitled "The Greatest Decision In My Life", a wedding invitation containing a reprinted 1936 Cebuano poem at the back cover entitled" NGANONG MAGMINYO SI INDAY" is unique and one of a kind that is hard to be replicated.

A day before our wedding, I was with my students arranging the tables and chairs at the reception hall which is also located at the basement of the church. Early morning on the big day, I was in Pasil Fish market to buy fish as special dish for the presidential table. I was not able to take a bath and no one thought to do my make up for lack of material time and material people in the boarding house to remind me to see myself in the mirror before anything else. I borrowed a pair of shoes and barong tagalog from a relative as my wedding upkeep.

The food was cooked and prepared 84 kms South of Cebu. I spent only P5,000.00 and the rest was all donations from neighbors, relatives and friends. It was the bayanihan spirit of my barriofolks who helped my family bring a rural wedding reception to the city. The tables were shining bright and colorful with fruits, vegetables and floral designs in different table plastic covers courtesy of our neighbors' precious heirloms.

Except for the traditional egg-eating, coin throwing and few rituals that I could hardly remember, there was no other program lining up to be followed. I dont remember having hired an official photoshop to document the whole affair for posterity but we have some few photos after the ceremony from guests who became our accidental photographers.

Everytime I attended a wedding either as guest or sponsor, I would be ashamed to myself for making my wedding a laboratory to my idealism. I wanted it to be different from the rest because I believed in what I read that wedding ceremony is only cosmetics in marriage. What is essential in a relationship is the love that binds you together not the rituals that will unite you into one that only death can do you apart.

Timely, the reception of my law partner's wedding was at Grand Cebu Hotel located across the Capitol Parish Church where I was a wedding sponsor. Compared to my memorable wedding, Atty.Lea's wedding reception was a grand celebration in a grand hotel in city proper. Be it in rural or in urban setting, marriage as celebrated in a wedding should ought to be in a grandeous manner because it happens only once in our lives. If it is not, the second chance would no longer be exciting and meaningful even if the reception would be doubly expensive because wedding should have been celebrated without an experience of marriage.

(Bug-os ang  pasalamat sa KAHAYAG ngadto sa nagsulat niining  artikulo  nga si ATTY. PAULINO  B. LABRADO, Senior Partner sa P.B. LABRADO  and PARTNERS. Magsusulat  ug magpaambitan siya sa iyang mga  hunahuna mahitungod sa  nagkalain-laing hisgotanan nga makita sa  maukiton niyang mata ug mga kasikas nga madungog sa  iyang maabtikong dunggan.)