A wedding as the year closes

They had asked social media-savvy friends to use #thebestdec30wedding when posting photos or comments about their wedding. This may have been a cheeky dig at the celebrity wedding taking place just a few hours after their own late morning nuptials in Villa San Miguel. But by the time the reception wound up some hours after lunch, friends of the bride’s mother, collectively known as The Sisterhood, had formulated a new hashtag moniker for them: #kayabayanniDingdongatMarian?

Disclosure: Jaye de la Cruz, the bride, is the daughter of Jesselynn (known to family as Bing, Jess to college friends) Garcia de la Cruz, a friend from college days who kept The Sisterhood updated on the twists and turns of Jaye’s romance and preparations for #thebestdec30wedding. Facebook posts would keep us updated on Jaye’s love journey with Jan Bekema, but it was Jess’ stories that kept us updated on the state of Jaye’s heart, and on the frazzled nerves of everyone in the wedding party. A lawyer and activist, Jaye had never struck us as the Bridezilla type, but hearing her telling her pastries supplier Steph Puno (the daughter of another friend, Sandra) of Silly Goose Gourmet that the coral icing on the cupcakes needed a touch more orange (during a sampling session) showed us an entirely different dimension to her. And why not? A wedding happens but once in a woman’s life (if she’s lucky), and it needs to be as perfect as her dreams and her love. Why settle for less than one’s fantasies and ideals? Why settle ever?

A funny story. So bent was Jaye on finding the “perfect” reception venue that she spent weeks (months?) visiting with Jan one events place, hotel or restaurant after another. Until Jan, who strikes me as a practical and pragmatic Dutch man, thought enough was enough and went to Oasis Manila all by himself, reserved the date and plunked down the down payment before Jaye could change her mind yet again. Note to grooms: You may love your Bridezilla, but know when to put your foot down!

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Officiating at the marriage rites was Manila Archbishop Antonio Cardinal Tagle.

He had a lot to say about the timing of the wedding, saying that, coming as it did near the end of the old year, it was “a sign of hope” for everyone, seeing a couple embark on their new life together.

The time would come, he told Jan and Jaye, when their feelings would be tested, when their patience is tried and they tire of each other. Or, as he said in spunky Filipino: “sawang sawa na kayo sa isa’t isa!” But not to worry, he assured the couple, “because you will have the Lord with you, accompanying you, and helping you overcome the challenges.”

The couple said their own vows, Jaye speaking spontaneously while Jan, excusing what he said was his sub-par English, read his. But it was when he thanked Jaye for accepting everything about him, “including my farts,” that he won all our hearts, giving rise to the “kaya ba yan” challenge.

At the reception, Jaye’s mother told of how, as a young girl, the nuns at her school brought her and her classmates to the chapel to pray to God and St. Joseph “for the man we were to marry.” They should pray, they were told, that God keep the man meant for them safe, and following the model of St. Joseph who stood by Mary despite his doubts and fears.

Before Jaye’s wedding, Jess revealed, she asked Jaye to come visit the Shrine of St. Joseph with her, there to say thanks for Jaye’s finding the right man, the man who would accompany her through the rest of her journey through life.

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AND indeed it had been a long, complicated journey.

Through videos, both the Dela Cruz and Bekema families traced the arc of Jaye’s and Jan’s lives, through childhood and their fateful meeting in the Netherlands, where Jaye was taking postgraduate studies and Jan was a schoolteacher and youth trainer.

Sharing a common commitment to social change, the two forged a relationship that promises to grow from strength to strength as they cross oceans and set up shop in the Philippines, the Netherlands, and who knows where else?

But they will both be rooted in the places of their heart. Jan’s parents, Jan Sr. and Nel, prepared a picture album filled with photos tracing Jan’s life, from childhood to adulthood, to give Jaye and her family an idea of Jan’s roots and where he was coming from. This may have sparked in the De la Cruzes the idea to prepare a “primer” for the Bekemas, too, to understand Jaye, her family and her people better.

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THE wedding itself was a bridging of two cultures.

The main symbol of the occasion was a pair of footwear: a clog or a wooden shoe and a bakya (with a heel!). The mash-up of two cultures was played up in little touches: serving Gouda cheese with grapes and pili nuts as appetizers as the party waited for Jan and Jaye; the “Hummingbird” wedding cake, apparently a traditional Dutch motif, with Delft blue designs stenciled on the white icing and on shortbread cookies; flower girls and ring and coin bearers dressed in simple Dutch schoolchildren uniforms; blue-and-white ceramic eggs as giveaways; and windmill-shaped seating guides for the guests.

One of my favorite parts of the wedding though, was this quote from the “Ten Things about the Bekema-De la Cruz Wedding” card that encapsulated the “egalitarian” Dutch culture and Jaye’s fierce feminism: “There will be no bouquet throwing for the single ladies. And by the way, the tradition of having single girls stand firing squad style behind the bride as though angling desperately to get a shot at marriage, should end.” That’s telling ’em!