Boracay Wedding = Win

Three days after returning from Cebu, I once again left Manila, this time to attend a wedding in the Philippines premier beach destination called Boracay. Ken and I were invited to this wedding while out in a bar with some friends of friends the week before. An American military guy was marrying a filipina, and for various reasons had none of his family attending the wedding. They made the mistake of off-hand inviting us, and probably didn’t consider the possibility that we might actually come. It went something like, “hey we have plane tickets for both of Ricky’s brothers that can’t make it, do you guys want to come?YES.” This was an opportunity we were not prepared to pass up. We looked into purchasing fake ID’s with the names of Ricky’s brothers, but decided the possible risk of being caught at the airport with a fake ID was not worth the $200 to buy our own tickets. I can remember sitting in my room thursday night with Ken discussing whether it was worth the money to attend a wedding of people we didn’t know. How silly that seems in hindsight. We bought tickets friday morning, and hopped a flight to the beach that evening.

Boracay is a very small island with no airport, you have to fly to a nearby island and take a boat to get there. It consists almost entirely of beachfront resorts and water sports.

I’m gonna have trouble doing this justice in a blog entry, but suffice to say this weekend was a win. We met up with the wedding party on friday night, all of which were 20 something and awesome. Went from beach bar to flamenco show/restaurant (the flamenco show turned out to be one 60 year old dude, but that was as hilarious as it was disappointing - at one point he was flamenco dancing to top forty hits.) After dinner we went to another bar that I don’t recall the name of, but I do know they had rum buckets (pint of rum mixed with coke) for $5. After that it was dancing at clubs along the beach and then bacon cheeseburgers at jammers around 5am.

Next day was the wedding, which uh, set the bar pretty high. This day was legendary. Roughly 60-70 people, great assortment of Barongs. First there was the church wedding. Then the ceremony on the beach. From this point on there was an open bar throughout. And by open bar I mean the bartender would occasionally just leave, allowing us to pour our own drinks. Following the ceremony was the reception with live band and hors d'oeuvres. And Fire Dancers. Then dinner at nearby resort, buffet style with entire cow roasting on a spit, jello shot cake, and make it yourself Halo Halo. Then speeches and games. Then a showing of the video filmed throughout the day of them saying vows, running along the beach at sunset, etc. Then the fireworks show off of a boat out in the water, blasting Katy Perry. Then a different live band doing American covers and dance party on the beach.

I think our presence was actually very much appreciated, given that every other guest was a friend of the bride. When the photographer asked for a “friends of the groom” picture, we made things significantly less awkward.


Notable events:

Obama Grill along the beach, with Sunset Bonanza all you can drink from 5-8pm for $8.

Wading from club to club at 3am because the tide came in.

Did I mention the fire dancers?