Glorified Version of A Stranger

LOL.

No joke.

Last Friday, August 10, I packed my bags and went to Gubat, Sorsogon to ask for Nina’s hand in marriage. It’s a Filipino custom called pamamanhikan. Don’t get me wrong, but I didn’t believe in this custom. To me, there is no need to ask for permission from parents if you were in the legal marrying age, but Nina wanted it, so I gave in. Anyway, I wanted to have a great relationship with my in-laws, and marrying their daughter without their consent’s kind of the fastest way to ruin a relationship. LOL

We had a bit of car trouble on the way: Timing Belt and frequent over-heating. After picking up 10 kilos of Lucban Longganisa (pasalubong!) for the future in-laws, we made haste for Gubat, Sorsogon (for the retards who don’t know where Sorsogon is, click here). Anyway, around 45 minutes into the trip, we noticed that a warning was flashing in the vehicle dash: Timing Belt, it said. I didn’t have any idea how serious this was, but according to Tito Bernie, we should head back to Lucban and wait until morning to have the van checked. This of course was a very untimely delay. We waited it out, slept in the van, of course, and resumed our trip sat around 3:00 pm, right after we visited the Grotto in Lucban. We over-heated around 5 times before we reached our destination. We got there at around 2:00 am.

The hotel stay was uneventful for me.
1. No shampoo. I had to use soap to wash my hair (Life-freakin-bouy-sucks-dudez).
2. I didn’t wake up in time for a dip in the beautiful beach (no pictures since I was asleep)
3. Airconditioning sucked.

Anyway, as usual, we made do with what we had and slept our weariness off. We finally got to sleep on something still, straight, and comfy!

So we headed off for Nina’s parent’s house at 8:00 am. Problem us, our appointment with her family was at 9:00 am, so we got to drive around town and bought a basket of fruits for them future in-laws. We were practically pulling over in front of their gate by 9:00 am. We were ushered in the house (which was an A-house, and was really nice IMHO) and got to meet the rest of the family. After a few introductions, we were invited over for breakfast (which was really, really de-lish). We ate our meal in semi-silence then transferred back to the receiving area for the pamamanhikan proper.

I was asked the standard questions by Nina’s dad (who is currently a Board Member of the Province).

Some questions:
1. What’s your name? (no kidding)
2. Where do you work?
3. Are you absolutely positively sure you want to get married?
4. How prepared are you?
5. Where are you planning to live after marriage?

There were a lot more, including sermons, advices, etc.

I wasn’t that nervous during the whole thing… Okaaaaay! I was nervous, because I didn’t know what to say, or knew what to say, but didn’t know if I was saying it right. LOL. Overall, the pamamanhikan was a success. We set a date for our marriage: September 8, 2007. Yup! It’s the feast of the Immaculate Conception. While I’m no fan of religion, I wasn’t exactly particluar about the date. Nina wanted this date so I said yes (that’s how much I love her). *smiles*

We had a picture taking session with everyone else before leaving for Manila. There was a formal welcoming speech (as in “Welcome to the family kumare, anak.”), and it was helluva awkward calling the inlaws Mom and Dad. I think it was the awkwardest of all the awkwardest moments that I had. LOL. Enough to spaghettifize one’s knees.

By 3:00 pm, we were on our way back to Manila. Of course, we were all at the mercy of Tito Bernie, who assumed the wheel the whole trip. There were side trips to the Basilica of Peñafrancia, the Cagsawa Ruins, Legazpi City, and a few more stopovers at gas stations. We even smoked in gas stations LOL.

We arrived in Manila at about lunch time. We immediately went to Makati and QC to get our birth certificates in order to process the application for our marriage license. We finished everything within the day, and promptly went home to retire and take a well-deserved rest.

Checkout the photos we took here.

Tags:

Popularity: 24%

Add and Bookmark this article!

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.