20 Years Later

Last summer, I wrote about a very lavish wedding that I attended.  A couple of days ago, I was able to attend another wedding.  However, this one was significantly different than the first.

In the Philippines, as with many marriage traditions around the world, there are legal marriages and there are religious (church) marriages.  Of course, it is important to be legally married, but in the Philippines, a large Catholic country, religious marriages are the most important.  A lot of people would not recognize them as officially married until they are married in a Catholic ceremony.  Although the most important, church marriages are often too expensive for some many Filipino couples.  There are the payments for the church rental, dress, jewelry, suit/barong, priest payment, flowers, chord, veil, rings, candles and offering.  For most of the Filipinos who I work with in the relocation village, a church wedding is too expensive to pay for on their own.  For that reason, mass weddings or collective weddings, are very popular.  

On Tuesday, May 27 at 3PM, Norberto and Lorna de Rama (over 20 years of marriage and 3 children), Richard and Nenita Mallorca (over 20 years of marriage and 4 children) and Eric and Eva Morco (over 5 years of marriage and 1 child) were married in the Catholic Church.  The preparations included inviting a priest to the community building at the relocation village, decorating the building with crepe paper, renting dresses from the early 90's for 1000 pesos (~$22), selecting ring bearers, flower girls, secondary sponsors and the most important, sponsors.  Sponsors are typically powerful and rich married people in the community who agree to financially, emotionally and spiritually "sponsor" the marriage.

The part that was most striking to me about the whole event was not the attire, techno/modern entrance music or the fact that money was preventing these couples from getting married in a universal Church, but the affection between the couples.  The couples, though they have been together for quite a while, were very serious, would not look at each other or show any physical affection.  If I didn't know that they were all married already, I would have thought it was a strange comedy of thirty-somethings playing acting like kids playing dress-up wedding.  Although there was the call to kiss the bride at the end, none of the couples wanted to!  They were cajoled by their family and friends, to which they appeased the crowd with merely a peck on the lips or the cheek for one couple.

Flower girl

Waiting to enter

The alter

Let's shake on it

Exchanging rings (note the hand)

Joined together by rope 

Afterwards there was a formal meal for the couples, sponsors and family with a small cake and some wine, but the real party started after dark.  The huge sound system, videoke machine, drinking circles and lights were set up in the little park space in the village.