The whole wedding party ranged across the wide stone steps of San Agustin in late-afternoon sun, the couple together at the centre.

Entourage

The Wedding Party

Everyone on this list, on one flight of steps — taken before anybody has stood where they were told to stand.

The ones who
stood with us

Everyone on this list, on one flight of steps at ten to four. Thank you, every one of you.

San Agustin, the west steps

The list

In the order the parish reads them out

In the order they walked in

Thirty-one lines of programme, twenty-seven people, and four of them holding two jobs. If your name is spelled wrong, tell Paolo, not the priest.

Thirty-one lines of programme, twenty-seven people, and not one missed cue. The priest read every name right.

Close detail of embroidered piña fabric on a barong.

Formal Filipiniana

Barong, terno, and one shawl for the courtyard

Piña, hand-embroidered

Together with our families

Two married couples in formal Filipiniana standing as pairs in the church portico before the ceremony, the fathers in ivory barong, one of the mothers wearing a deep red shawl. — Both sets of parents, before the doors

Parents of the brideRogelio & Elena Reyes

Parents of the groomAndres & Lucila Villaraza

Principal Sponsors

Older wedding guests in formal Filipiniana greeting each other in clusters in a stone courtyard, in late-afternoon light. — The sponsors, arriving in the courtyard

NinongFerdinand Villaraza

NinongAntonio Reyes

NinongGregorio Salvador

NinongEduardo Lim

NinangBarbara Villaraza

NinangPerlita Reyes

NinangNenita Salvador

NinangCorazon Lim

Secondary Sponsors

Two hands resting one over the other on loosely woven ivory cloth, one wearing a plain gold band. — What the cord is for

CandleJaime Villaraza & Trina Villaraza

VeilRamon Sy & Cheska Ocampo

CordDan Aquino & Katrina Lim

Standing With Them

Eight friends in formal Filipiniana crowded into a stone doorway, all of them laughing at something out of frame. — Waiting in the doorway

Maid of honourBeatriz Abad

BridesmaidMarisol Dela Cruz

BridesmaidMika Reyes

BridesmaidKatrina Lim

Best manEnrique Dela Cruz

GroomsmanJaime Villaraza

GroomsmanRamon Sy

GroomsmanDan Aquino

Bearers & Flower Girls

Four small children in ivory Filipiniana sitting in a row on a low stone bench, holding a ring pillow, a dish of coins and a basket of petals. — Four of them, and what they carry

RingInes Reyes

BibleLucia Dela Cruz

CoinsMiguel Ocampo

FlowersSofia & Pia Villaraza

One by one

Twenty-seven people, and what each is for

Twenty-seven people, and what each of them did

Four of them hold two jobs, which is how thirty-one lines of programme come to twenty-seven faces. Hold one open to keep it.

A thank-you on every card. Hold one open to keep it.

And the hundred and twelve

Where everyone came from

Between you, — to get to one church in Intramuros: — times round the Earth. The farthest came from —.

San Agustin at the centre. Each town at its true bearing; the distance out is logarithmic, so the next town and the next continent fit one circle. No map is drawn.

Two unlit ivory candles, a looped white silk cord and a folded lace veil laid out on pale weathered adobe stone.

After the vows

The candles, the veil,
then the cord

In that order, and it is the secondary sponsors who do all three.

In that order, by the secondary sponsors, and the cord held.

Laid out on adobe, the afternoon before