My Best Friend's Wedding: Setting the Scene

As I mentioned in a previous post, my lovely best friend Madhuri recently got married! Mads and Mukesh's wedding was held at the Imperial Palace Waterpark, Resort and Spa. The two wanted a destination wedding, but it had to be a place that was big enough to accommodate the hundreds of guests that were flying in from all over the world. They found this new place in Cebu, and it was pretty awesome!

(Top) A view of the grounds from our building. (Above) The cool slides that Hamil and I were raring to try out!

After finding the perfect place, the couple went about setting the scene. Since their first names both began with M (I say "began" because Mads has since changed her name...more on that in a later post), their main theme was M&M! So cute. They made use of the logo, which they tweaked so that it would have an Indian-inspired print. This logo appeared on practically everything, including bag tags that were given to us at the airport.

We arrived a little early, so we had to wait for our room to be prepared. While we were waiting, we got to see the couple of the hour. I was so excited to see Mads!

Mads in a gorgeous dress that she designed. Me in a sunny yellow romper that I bought for P300 (around $7)! Haha. I had a shawl for the chilly plane ride to Cebu.

After a quick photo op with my BFF, Hamil and I then proceeded to check into our oh-so-pretty room! It reminded me so much of local home store Heima (some of the furniture pieces had similar shapes to stuff in their first collection) and I was so pleased with our girly watermelon color palette! Other rooms were a deep blue, which made them look so masculine; ours seemed nice and sunny and airy!

I had been having trouble sleeping before this trip, but each night in this room, I slept sooo well. Maybe it was mostly because I just felt so relaxed, being away from reality and spending great quality time with my husband!

The couple thoughtfully and generously placed a welcome basket in each room. It had snacks, some drinks, a fan (it was the height of summer, after all), and some other cool stuff.

And of course it had a packet of M&Ms!

The welcome basket also included a tote bag and a brochure which listed resort info and events lined up. The purple album is the wedding invitation.

The thing you have to know about Hindu weddings is that there isn't just one ceremony and one reception like typical Catholic weddings. There are all these prayers, ceremonies, and parties, so the whole thing goes on for days! So after we got settled, I went to the ballroom to practice for the night's event called the sangeet, where family and friends have a big program for the couple.

With fellow Pinays K (aka Karylle) and stylist extraordinaire Pam Q (kind of like the Philippines' Rachel Zoe, although I don't know how she'd feel about that description. Haha), and Mads's other best friend Tash.

There were 10 (count 'em, 10!) dances in all, and Mads asked me to choreograph the finale. My friends K and Pam wanted to join this dance, but they were unable to attend practice. A couple of weeks before the event:

K: I want to dance but I can't go to practice.
M: We shot a video of it!
K: Maybe I could just learn from the video!
M: Yeah, Tisha choreographed.
K: Oh...it might be so complicated then.
M: Trust me, I think she really dumbed it down for us.

Hahaha. I had no doubt that K could catch up, considering she's used to doing last-minute practices for the noon-time shows that she's on! Pam, meanwhile, decided to join the dance that afternoon. Being a fellow CADs (Company of Ateneo Dancers) alumna, she had no problem picking up the steps--or just winging it. In fact, fresh from a plane and plunging into practice, she just listened to me bark orders over the music, like, "OK, then we'll do the same thing but backwards!" and she would get it!

After practice, Pam and I headed to her room where we just hung out and talked for over an hour. We hadn't seen each other in months and it was just so nice catching up. "That's our six-month summary!" she quipped. And then I headed back to my room to get ready for the night's events, and left Pam to figure out how to wear her sari!

More on the wedding in a succeeding post!