On the eve of their 1st monthsary as a newlywed couple, we share with our readers the inside story how Zoren Legazpi jumpstarted his surprise wedding plans to Carmina Villaroel. As what the groom said in the TV Special that aired on ABS-CBN, “lahat ito nagsimula kay Charisse.” He was referring to Charisse Tinio of Nice Print Photography.

We asked Cha to write this particular feature so we get a firsthand info how everything came about.  Read on . . .

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One fine evening in October, I received a phone call from Mr. Zoren Legaspi. I have never met him and was only referred by a common friend. He said he wanted to meet with me immediately about plans he had for Carmina. My heartbeat instantly became faster and to my head, I was thinking, could this be the long awaited wedding of Zoren & Carmina?

And so we met a few nights later at Shangri-La mall and with me was all my past celebrity clients’ samples. I began showing him Ogie Regine’s wedding album, John Estrada-Priscilla Meirelles wedding, Kyla-Rich wedding and more. At this point, Zoren asked me what made these past weddings extra special, to which I began giving all the unique ideas those weddings had, one by one. Now we all know by now why all those paled in comparison to the BIG idea he had all this time. But that’s getting way too ahead of my story

Then, Zoren started showing me flash mobbed weddings in the US, and at this point, I was totally at an awe with the grand plan he had for Carmina. WOW! How can a man totally pull off this kind of wedding given their celebrity statuses wherein “gossips & news” move like wild fire in showbiz land.

Then I focused on the logistics for the wedding. I asked what he had at that point or concrete plans, & to my surprise, nothing yet. That was October 1, 2012, exactly 44 days before the target wedding date which was November 15th.

I then started asking several questions, main one was, “Zoren, are you sure you want to do this grand plan, it will be very tedious, & will entail a lot of work given the time frame of 44 days, I just want to give you the reality of it?” He simply replied, “Charisse, I have never done anything so special for Mina in all our 12years, so I really want to do this ONE special surprise for her.” Whew! At this point, I was teary-eyed. Here’s a man, so madly deeply in love with his partner — such a great love story. And I knew that this wedding will be history in the making. Imagine, Zoren & Carmina were to get married, BUT, the bride won’t have an the slightest idea at all. How can anyone beat that?

And so for 44 days, we went into some serious work. With this I mean, much thought about the suppliers I would be recommending to Zoren, as well as many sleepless nights, long hours of meetings with all the suppliers & ABS-CBN people, secret calls between Zoren and me, and last minute things to do for the “wedding of the year.”

November 15th was the date. Such a historical, momentous date. I knew it would be special, but little did I know that it will become THAT phenomenal.
The day went by with no glitches, & Carmina arrived at promptly 2:30 pm for a supposed Selecta Ice Cream commercial shoot. She looked relaxed as ever, holding a Starbucks coffee in one hand– clueless & innocent, and if I may quote Boy Abunda’s statement, “My God, she doesn’t have an idea but the world will change for her in like 2 hours….”

The whole time that we were all in the holding room, we were all watching Carmina being made up through some hidden cameras set up in her dressing room. All the guests, family & friends, and suppliers were all giggling, teary-eyed all at the same time. The level of excitement was truly unimaginable. One woman’s dreams were to be fulfilled right before our very eyes in just a few minutes.

The surprise started with a “scripted” fight between Zoren & the commercial asst director which totally made Carmina upset. Afterwhich, at the height of those emotions, everyone around Carmina started dancing to the tune of “I Saw the Sign.” Carmina was caught by all our cameras to have looked like she was floating, not having a slight hint of idea what was happening, then Boy Abunda appeared infront of her and shortly Zoren, her prince charming, entered to serenade her with the song “Grow Old with You.” At this point, everyone in the holding room was crying, and I mean, not a single person was an exemption. It was certainly one of the most heart warming scenes I have ever witnessed.

My most favorite part, amongst so many, was when our camera caught that one photo wherein Carmina, about to walk down the aisle, was met by her kids, Mavy & Cassey. The photo just sums it all up for me. On November 15th 2012, Zoren made these three people in the photo the happiest people on Earth because that night he fulfilled his promise.

This wedding touched millions of people, not because they are celebrities, nor because they had a grand extravagant wedding, nor because they were much publicized before-hand, but because, this wedding was a spec of hope to many. It just clearly showed that Fairy tale is still alive & that dreams do come true. True love exists and that all of us are dreamers that one day we will all find that ONE true love of our life.

Thank you Zoren & Carmina for sharing your story with us. . . . It is indeed one of the best weddings of all time.

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• to see the rest of the official wedding photos of Zoren & Carmina, click here.
• to see the highlights & sidelights of this flash mob, celebrity wedding, watch the video below.

Thanks to all who dropped by the W@W Booth during last weekend’s bridal fair.  The signatures on our wall are from past & present W@Wies, wedding suppliers and other soon-to-weds who took time to sign. Special mention to Noel of Graphizar Designs for doing an on-the-spot caricature of Benz & I to top everything off!

Indeed, having a Graffiti Wall for your guests to sign-on during your wedding would be a great and fun idea too. (Better than the usual guestbook!)

Our deep gratitude also goes to the following people: Ronald and Psych Correos of 4th Wall for designing our booth, to Feliz Lucas for the talk balloon props, to John + Anna of Aisle 1401 for covering the happenings in our booth the past 3 days, and to all the W@Wies who spent time to man the booth. MARAMING SALAMAT!

We have 100+ pictures of those who stopped by.  The mobile uploads can be viewed in the W@W FB page.

 
after-party antics: Elmer Bautista of RejectKrew ‘tossed’ and carried by fellow Top 5 winners — Jayson Arquiza and Phoeben Teocson (photo by Paul Vincent)

If the applause from the party crowd was any indication, you’d say that RejectKrew (lights & sounds) is a clear favorite of the W@Wies! In Elmer’s acceptance speech, he thank his hardworking team declaring that they are the ‘Krew’ in the company name.  Then came his clincher: “Ako po yung reject!” 

But before the announcement of 2010 Supplier of the Year, W@W formally presented the Top 10 Wedding Suppliers through this video by CinemaWorks. Shot on location at The Mango Farm in Antipolo, it was Marvi’s idea to shoot in the great outdoors, in contrast with the studio interviews done in the past W@Wie Awards.

So here they are again: W@W’s Top 10 Suppliers of 2010…

Yesterday, W@W has been invited as The Wedding Lounge (TWL)  — a full-service wedding boutique — celebrated its moved to a new location right at the heart of Ortigas Center.  The new place is spacious yet homey, classy but welcoming, not intimidating at all.  Before the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Chiw Bailon (one of TWL’s founders) credited Jackie Mitra (of Plum Gifts) for doing a fine job in the cozy interiors of the shop.

TWL is composed of the following wedding suppliers (in alphabetical order): BaiCapture (photobooth), Carina Canlas-Villaluz (gown designer), Chocolate Confections by Maribeth Bailon-Santiago, Judy Uson - The Cake Artist, Metrophoto, Metro Eventscape Planners, Plum Gifts, Printsonalities (social invites & fine stationeries), Shindig Unveiled (event planner), and Wink (Written in Ink - alternative to traditional invites).

The Wedding Lounge is now situated at the G/F Amber Place, Escriva Drive, Ortigas Center, Pasig City.  Google Map marks the spot where it is exactly.

(image courtesy of Jayson & Jo Anne Arquiza)

1. Have an ex-politician for a dad who seriously thinks you could follow his footsteps.

2. Discuss this during a family vacation with your siblings and in-laws throwing in their support.

3. When talks get serious, have your wife and mom ask you not to trade a peaceful family life by running for public office.

4. Discuss the situation with your barkada who’ll eventually egg you to run just as well, but for all the wrong reasons.

5. Hear one of them actually suggest a catchy campaign slogan that you would eventually use for the occasion.

6. Have your wife make you promise you’re not running, before she proceeds with any plans for the party.

7. Tell family of your decision. Say something along these lines:

“Hindi ako tatakbo, pero wala na akong magagawa kapag ginusto na ng taongbayan.”

8. In lieu, tell them you’re planning a election-themed birthday party; also tell them about the campaign slogan which will be the central theme.

9. Introduce yourself to people. Have no qualms changing your ‘generic-sounding’ name in facebook with the nickname you’ve always hated as the slogan made good use of it.

10. Announce in your FB stat that the reason you’re changing your name is to make it masa-sounding which the voting public can easily relate to. Include the mandatory *rolleyes* remark at the end.

11. Send feelers to preferred suppliers whom you like to work on the party to already book the date.

12. Get wife pregnant and have her OB-Gyn tell her she’s on house arrest at the start of pregnancy (translation: CALL-OFF THE PARTY).

13. Announce to siblings and in-laws the change in plans but have them say — its worse and more tiring for preggy wife to host lunch or dinner at home, than to scheme a party with reliable suppliers around to help us put things together — afterwards.

14. Bring out the party blueprint yet again.

15. Tell suppliers that the party will push through with only 2 weeks to plan and execute.

16. Book a historic/political venue for the party to go with the election theme.

17. Decide for an after-dinner affair to lessen cost.

18. Choose local street food for the menu to go with the very Pinoy theme.

19. Schedule a studio pictorial for the campaign materials.

20. Grab this photo opportunity to have your picture taken with your favorite ride.

21. Ask friends in FB what would be a good campaign hand sign and actually get very good suggestions.

22. Shoot a video for the campaign ads by simply riding around the neighborhood.

23. Have your videographer ask you to do your mandatory hand sign.

24. Actually bungle up the simple task above; it makes a funny blooper video afterwards.

25. Dub your voiceover narration and try your darnest to sound serious and convincing.

26. Have the wife make an FB event page to invite your friends.

27. Be vague about the event by posting a video teaser that actually looks like a campaign ad.

28. Design a campaign materials with slogans and catchphrases.

29. Make them nice and personalized so your wife and bestfriend would want to use it as profile pic/campaign badge in their respective FB accounts.

30. Have your friends ask for the same campaign badges for themselves to be posted on their own FB walls or as profile pics.

31. Flood your friends’ FB Highlights with all these people posting the same campaign badges.

32. Have friends of friends ask who’s the guy they seem to be supporting.

33. Always reply with “Ordinaryong Pilipino lang po.” whenever you encounter such comments even if the person asking doesn’t know who the heck are you.

34. Have your wife surprise you with a blog entry for your birthday with yet another video teaser and various links to other people’s blogs posting the same clip.

35. Have real politicians hold an important press conference in your chosen venue. Something that would hog the headlines the following day. The renewed hype on the venue would somehow lend credence to your mock campaign.

36. Have personalized button pins ready for all your guests as campaign t-shirts are just too expensive.

37. For added suspense and unpredictability, ask your dad to deliver a speech in the party.

Those are the ingredients for a fun and meaningful birthday party. Here’s proof:

• some pictures taken during the ‘campaign launch’
  
• full video ad shown during the event is posted here.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Of course, my heartfelt gratitude to all the wonderful suppliers who assisted us in mounting this event:

Events by Clarice for handling the event | 4th Wall for the venue setup and props  | Threelogy for the campaign ads and coverage | MetroPhoto for the studio pictorial on such short notice |  Josiah’s Catering and Toddler’s Inc. for providing some of the foodcarts | Flaming Olives for the mobile bar | Joy San Gabriel for the cake and personalized topper that resembled me on my scooter doing the ‘Angkas na!’ sign | PhotoLoco for the (photo)booth wisely souvenirs | John Mateos Ong and his ImagineNation team for the covering the event and providing the projector | Sensitivity for providing the needed audio reinforcement

Special mention to a couple of N@Wies/FB friends who gave us some vital campaign ideas: Joanne Figueroa-Yap for suggested the hitchhiker’s thumb for my hand sign which tied in very well with the ‘Angkas na!’ campaign battlecry; and Mylene Ramos-Lado for posting that *rolleyes* smiley on my wall which eventually landed on the ‘official’ seal as displayed in the picture above.

Best of all, thanks to my pregnant wife for spearheading this ‘campaign’.   I think she’d make a very fine First Lady. Don’t you guys agree?

Muling nagpapasalamat,
~ Abet Rana
(the blogger formerly known as John)