The Vow Ceremony
We officially tied the knot on the afternoon of our 9 year anniversary, Thursday, December 19 2019, at City Hall in Virginia Beach, VA. However, we waited to recite our personalized vows until we were in the presence of all of our family and friends. Later we celebrated with roughly 150 of our family members and friends on Saturday, December 28, 2019 at 3pm at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). We dubbed this celebration our Vow Ceremony in order to distinguish it from our official wedding day of Dec 19th.
Fun Fact: Mary Anne and bridesmaid, Maria Camia, last walked across the MOCA auditorium stage during their High School Visual & Performing Arts Academy graduation ceremony in 2009, which was ten years prior to the wedding.
The Procession
The ceremony began with the sound of beach waves since we had long dreamed of having our wedding on Boracay’s Shangrila shoreside Alon Garden. The wedding party walked into Israel Kamakawiwo'Ole’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow, which Mary Anne was hoping to use for the dance with her father. The bridal party decided to sway back and forth together on stage, awaiting the arrival of the bride and groom. The flower girls handed out flower leis which cleverly saved us from having to go back and clean up any petals on the ground. More ocean waves played as their song faded out and ours faded in. We entered to Us the Duo’s Album Intro song, a musical duo and couple whose partnership we greatly admire.
MOCA’s auditorium had two aisles, so we decided to break the tradition of the bride walking down the aisle to her groom and instead we walked down at the same time. This also provided loyalty to our “team theme” of doing this thang together. We each had announcers hold signs which were skillfully hand painted by bridesmaid, Aubriel Rivera. Both of our mother’s stood at the beginning of the aisles and we walked with them arm-in-arm.
Before we decided to go the two aisle route, Mary Anne considered walking down the aisle to the Instrumental for UGK’s Int’l Players Anthem (I Choose You).
The Program
The vow ceremony was commenced by the emcee Mark Matel, Mary Anne’s older brother. Since we had already had our ceremony at city hall, there was not need for him to go through the trouble of getting ordained.
We made a special request for our siblings and bridal party members Marvin Joi (MJ) Robinson, Melvin Laguerta, and John (Rimon) Santorum to share a few words during the program. We dubbed this section of the program “sober speeches.” We felt it was more appropriate to hear these stories and encouraging messages during the ceremony program, especially while we had the audience’s full attention rather than later in the night during the reception celebration.
The Vows
Mark asked Mary Anne start we her vows first. She began with
“I’ve been told that I talk too much, so I’ll keep this short.”
Junior Bridesmaid, Rayn Robinson, passed down a scroll of paper which Mary Anne had written her vows on. “Joe is far better with executing the jokes, so this was my best shot,” she explained.
Joe followed with his vows, written in a autographed notebook he and Mary Anne received at an Us the Duo Meet & Greet. There was not a dry eye in the audience. Later bridesmaids reminisced on how they were scrambling to find tissues to hand to one another after Joe’s opening line,
“We first met on my birthday.”
“Not his birthday…” thought Bridesmaid, Danelle, trying to hold back tears.
Mark successfully wrapped up the vow ceremony with words of wisdom and a bit of comedy, leaving the room filled with joy and affection.
We recessed to Us the Duo’s No Matter Where You Are, our favorite song from the musical duo. We exited the stage first and greeted the smiling faces down the aisle. The bridal party pairs walked down next shortly followed by the immediate family members in the front row.
Michael and Carissa famously note that this song was in turn an expression of their own vows which they debuted at their own wedding. We announced our engagement to the duo at a meet & greet and had hoped to reach back out to them with an invitation to their wedding in the Philippines. Hopefully we will be able to share our story with them in the future.