It’s our second wedding anniversary!

Let me greet my wife a Happy Wedding Anniversary! It’s our second year since we walked down the aisle of St Yosef Catholic Parish in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia and pledged eternal commitment.

Two years and one Cacing later, here I am reminiscing the fateful day and what better way than publishing previously unseen pre-wedding pictures. As budgets go, I am no spendthrift. Throwing a wedding in Bali was costly enough – honestly, we estimated we would have spent more had we gotten married in Cebu but that’s another story – so we weren’t about to shell out precious rupiahs to a professional photographer in Bali, Indonesia’s most expensive city only to do all those corny and scripted poses.

Our thinking was, if we were to shame ourselves, we’ll do it at our convenience and our irreverent choreographed way.

So here goes nothing!


This was my best attempt to look pensive. I had the camera set on remote and took some pics at our room in Ayodya Resort in Bali.


Same room but we made use of the bed’s gigantic headboard for drama. I think we sat on a pile of pillows to get a clean shot.


This was just a snapshot after dinner. I remember getting some curious look from other diners of the Frangipani restaurant in Nusa Dua’s Bali Collection strip mall when I set up the tripod.


I guess I am too tall for the low-hanging bananas on display at the Moena Es Teler in Denpasar (photo by Ketut).


This is another photo taken by my friend Ketut. Dia and I were buying wristwatches as gifts to my friend who opened his house for the lunch reception in Bali.


A feeble attempt of local color. We were buying nasi bungkus lunch packs when we had Ketut take the photo.


How could we omit the fabulous Kuta beach? We merely stopped for a few minutes and had Ketut take the picture and then off we went.


As luck would have it, in a short stopover in the temple of Seminyak, there was a Saraswati ceremony attended by some high school kids. (photo by Ketut)


I wanted to have a photo of us in front of a temple and this was the nearest one in the vicinity after our short visit at Kuta beach.



The quaint Warung Kartini in Kuta was deserted so we played bussing lovebirds


The giant sculpted figure of Garuda was too colorful and large for us to let it go. There was a couple of chairs too so who were we to deny the photo op?


Also begging was the empty flight of stairs at the Mandarin Oriental where we stayed when we made the requisite personal appearance at the Philippine Embassy in Jakarta


The lobby of the Mandarin Oriental became fair game for us too.


This is a more corny and stiffer version of the sunrise silhouette


Shopping time is posing time. Here in a sarung store in Kuta, we struck a pose.


My knowing expression here still makes me laugh.

A short foray in wedding photography

I don’t think I’d ever be a wedding photographer.

Like anything new to me, I probably would enjoy it at first. Novelty always moves me. I can imagine myself contorting in unusual positions and challenging normal conventions so as to cook up the most unusual of compositions and the most intimate of responses.

However, I would not have the patience to capture all steps of the ceremony and the party thereafter, nor could I prevent myself from getting bored in doing the same stuff all over again. Any couple who are about to enter a most important chapter in their lives deserves a photographer with more commitment than my fleeting cursory interest. Hats off to the all event photographers for enjoying the rote and always finding something fresh.

Anyway, last May 24, I found myself invited to the wedding of Keith, a colleague. As he’s a fellow chemist who used to work with me in the lab, I could not say no but decided to come only for the church ceremony.

I’ve already heard mass inside the Guadalupe Church several times in the past but that was before flickr. Having been built after the war, the church is fairly new by Cebu standards. It does have an interesting central dome which helped me from getting restless as I whiled away my time by photographing it at several angles.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/60s, f/4.0, 18mm, ISO 100, +2/3EV (as-is, uncorrected)
the dome of Guadalupe Church, Cebu City, the Philippines


However, the wedding ceremony started 30 minutes late. I then decided that I might as well photograph the couple, not really during the mass as I don’t have an official photographer accreditation which is now required by the Archdiocese of Cebu, but at least in the minutes leading to the part when the wedding party would walk down the aisle. I did not really photograph the rest of the wedding party. I did not have a good vantage point as I was sitting at the back pews and there was a rope cordoning off the aisle. Besides, their official wedding photographers already covered them. I took some shots of Keith and waited for Angel, the bride to arrive.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/40s, f/5.6, 220mm, ISO 800, +1/3EV (as-is, uncorrected)
Keith, just before his wedding at the Guadalupe Church, Cebu City, the Philippines

As customary in the Philippines, the bride was the last to come out. When she only got off the car, she was a vision in white. Against the strong afternoon light glaring out of the wide church doors, she seemed to be floating in air. My initial shot was of the bride being attended to by her bridesmaid. I love how the color pink was cast over her gown, as reflected from the dress of the bridesmaid.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/125s, f/5.6, 55mm, ISO 800, +5/3EV
at the Guadalupe Church, Cebu City, the Philippines


My best shot however came when she already was alone. The curtain of rope hanging at the door which is to keep birds from entering and nesting inside the church became a dramatic background. And when she slowly began to walk down the aisle, she beamed a wide smile which distilled the joy of the occasion.


Canon EOS 350D Digital, 1/200s, f/5.6, 55mm, ISO 800, +5/3EV
Angel, the bride, just before walking down the aisle at the Guadalupe Church, Cebu City, the Philippines
phototip: The strong backlight here was pushing the exposure compensation to +5/3EV. Except for the conversion to b&w, this photo has no other post-processing.


I took a few more shots of her as she marched towards her waiting groom. Everything else was denouement for me and I did not lift my camera again. Wedding photography still escapes me.