Happiness is... marrying your confidante

I like attending weddings because they distill so many feel-good feelings into one compact receptacle... one’s heart. Weddings seem to put the essence of these feel-good feelings into a bottle, and that bottle is uncorked during the wedding and the feeling permeates the church and the reception venue and settles into your heart. It isn’t just the songs, the overwhelming love of the couple for each other, or the love of the parents for their children (usually it is the fathers of the bride and the mothers of the groom holding back tears) that come to the fore — it is also the love of God that is so palpable, how it is to Him, too, that the couple vow their fidelity.

The recent wedding of CJ and Mia Sarino was one such glorious occasion. The officiating priest Bishop Chito Tagle reminded the newlyweds that though they are giddy with their love, there will come a time when they will annoy each other, when they will be impatient with each other, when they will not see eye to eye. It was thus important that they had a love that was ready to take on all these human frailties. He even joked that they still had time to back out.

Of course they didn’t.

Maybe because I was so giddy myself during my own wedding 24 years ago, I didn’t really listen to the priest’s sermon. And so every wedding I attend, even civil weddings, I always listen closely to the advice and sermon of the priest, pastor or judge. And I always learn something new, something helpful about married life. It’s amazing how weddings themselves can be life coaches.

In my case, this is what I have learned: You will really see the true beauty of a wedding after the honeymoon period is over. After the lace gown is packed, the gifts are unwrapped. The wedding then truly becomes a marriage and you have no more wedding planner to blame if things do not proceed according to cue. But marriages last, so please do believe in happily-ever-afters.

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I know CJ’s parents Cesar and Teena because we all worked with the late former President Cory Aquino. The Sarinos are strong threads of the Cory fabric in the Philippines. Teena and I are both March birthday celebrants and for the last six years now, the late President Cory has been hosting joint birthday celebrations for Teena, Deedee Siytangco (another March celebrant) and myself.

CJ is Teena and Cesar’s firstborn. The St. James Church in Alabang was resplendent but simply decorated, while the ballroom of the Alabang Country Club was filled with guests from all colors of the political rainbow. Former President Fidel Ramos was there, but no one could read his lips when asked whom he was endorsing for President.

Giveaways where rosaries and a little prayer book nestled together in a small silver box.

I asked CJ, a financial investment analyst at Mah and Associates in San Francisco, to tell their love story from his point of view, so that years from now, he could have a template when he tells his kids “How I met your mother.”

“Mia went to school in Woodrose while I went to De La Salle Zobel.

“It was not love at first sight. Our relationship started with friendship. We both were attracted to other people. We were each other’s confidante. It was not until a year and a half later when we realized that we were attracted to each other, began dating.

“We have been together since that time. We were apart for 2.5 years when Mia moved to San Francisco to further her education. She finished her master’s in Nursing at USF. I soon followed to take my MBA at the same school.

“It was on our ninth year that I proposed to her. It was over dinner at Bodega Bay that I asked her to marry me.”

So on their ninth year together on the close of the year ’09, CJ and Mia vowed to continue all what they had been to each other —friends, confidantes, two people in love.

The reception ended with dancing to a live band.

May you always be friends and confidantes to each other, CJ and Mia!

(You may e-mail me at [email protected])