“O month when they who love must love and wed.”
–Helen Hunt Jackson
What’s with the month of June that people wanted to get married at this time of the year?
June this year saw the wedding of award-winning actors Carlo Aquino and Charlie Dizon who figured prominently in the recent edition of the Urian Awards.
The bride won the Urian Best Actress trophy in the film, Third World Romance.
Aquino didn’t hide the fact that his bride is already expecting a child and that he was father of another child from another earlier relationship.
Why June among other months?
The sixth month of the year is indeed associated with the Roman Goddess of marriage, Juno.
Does marriage translate into lasting happiness if you get married in June?
Weddings, grand or simple, are different from making marriage work.
With a good budget and a professional planner, you can mount a wedding of the year.
Experience tell us a wedding planner cannot predict how long the marriage will last.
Let’s take a look at the so-called weddings of the year and how the marriage endured the tests of time.
In 1954, two weddings of the year took place and chroniclers refer to them as the love story for the ages.
Let’s start with the 50s.
On May 1,1954, Ferdinand Edralin Marcos and Imelda Trinidad Romualdez tied the knot at the San Miguel Church in Manila. President Ramon Magsaysay was the principal wedding sponsor and the breakfast reception was held at Malacanang Palace. Society writers called it the Wedding of the Year.
On October 11, 1954, Maria Corazon Cojuangco and Benigno Simeon Aquino Jr. exchanged marriage vows. They were blessed with five children namely Ballsy, Pinky, Viel, Noynoy and Kris
Weddings of the 60s involving prominent families were more dramatic.
In 1964, one of the touted weddings of the year unfolded when Joselito Pereyra Jacinto exchanged vows with Maria Victoria “Minnie” de la Rama Osmeña. Reception was at the Osmeña Residence at Fisher Avenue (now Cuneta Avenue) in Pasay City with Sulu Restaurant as caterer.
Here is the background story as recounted by Erlinda Enriquez Panlilio in her book, Makati’s Sulô, Where Taste Was Style: “An awesome challenge was the grand wedding reception of Minnie Osmeña to Joselito Jacinto in what was called ‘the wedding of the century’ in 1964. Joselito was the eldest son of steel magnate Fernando Jacinto, and Minnie was the daughter of Sergio Osmeña, Jr., one-time governor of Cebu, congressman, then Senator of the Philippines. Her grandfather, Sergio, Sr. was Vice President to President Manuel L. Quezon, assuming the presidency when President Quezon passed away.”
With Sulu Restaurant as caterer, the wedding reception was held in the spacious grounds of the Osmeña residence which reportedly could accommodate 3,000 guests.
Minnie Osmena’s wedding gown was the first one done by Yves Saint-Laurent after he left the House of Dior. It was of Chantilly lace and had a five-meter-long train.
Enriquez recalled the pre-wedding drama of the 60s worthy of a teleserye: “We started setting up on the afternoon before the following day’s evening wedding. To our consternation, the bride told us that she was calling off the wedding. She had apparently quarreled with her groom Joselito and had yanked off her five-carat, heart-shaped, diamond engagement ring, throwing this at him while our waiters were fixing the tables and chairs. We had already laid out the buffet tables for three kinds of cuisine (American, European, and Filipino) in the Osmeña gardens. The distressed groom’s mother, Mrs. Dina Pereyra Jacinto, was forced to intervene. She pleaded with Minnie to reconcile with her son so the wedding could take place. She argued that the invitations had been sent out and they had received some 1,000 confirmations. A last-minute cancellation would surely cause a big scandal and embarrassment to the two families.”
As it turned out, their marriage lasted only three years. The couple had two children. They remarried.
A rather low-key wedding in the 60s happened when the Romeo Vasquez-Amalia Fuentes love team had real life union which eventually led to a wedding on January 6, 1967 at the Holy Rosary Church, Chatnam Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Talk of art imitating life.
The true to life Hong Kong wedding and honeymoon found its way in the film Honey, Honeymoon produced by the bride’s film outfit. Their first and only child, Liezl Sumilang, was born March 27, 1967.
After the 1967 Fuentes and Vasquez nuptials, the Susan Roces-FPJ wedding followed on December 25, 1968.
Movie writer Baby K. Jimenez still gets misty-eyed recalling the yearend wedding of 1968. “It was dawn of the season’s first simbang gabi. As the church bells rang merrily to start the Misa de Gallo, Jesusa Levy Sonora officially became Mrs. Ronald Allan Poe in civil rites officiated by Mayor Gerry Angeles in Valenzuela, Bulacan.
It turned out that after their civil wedding in Bulacan, the newly weds motored to FPJ’s Beverly Hills home in Antipolo.
Yes, the erstwhile King and Queen of Philippine Movies had eloped first week of December and figured in a rush civil wedding. A church wedding took place in San Juan City on Christmas day of 1968.
In the mid70s, I lived for a while in Albay and once again fell in love with the perfect cone. At age 27, my Mayon fantasy went as far as getting married on the grounds of the ancient church in Cagsawa, which the erupting volcano buried in lahar and other debris in 1814.
An Albay historian noted that wedding thus: “1974 (December 14). For the first time in 160 years, a Catholic wedding was solemnized in the Cagsawa Ruins at 4 p.m. Pablo A. Tariman of Baras, Catanduanes, and a bride (from Daraga, Albay) were joined in marriage by the Daraga assistant curate, Fr. Eliakim Suela, OFM.”
(A year later, the author met then 14-year old pianist Cecile Licad also at the Cagsawa Church ruins when she traveled to Bicol for the first time to perform at Legazpi City’s St. Agnes Academy.)
In 1975, it was the turn of actors Nora Aunor and Christopher de Leon to get married in a simple ceremony on a La Union beach owned by Kitchie Benedicto.
In the early 80s, nothing beats the wedding splendor of presidential daughter Irene Marcos and Greggy Araneta.
In June 1983, a grand wedding took place in Sarrat town in Ilocos Norte (birthplace of Josefa Edralin, the bride’s paternal grandmother).
For this wedding of the decade, the town of Sarrat was converted into a Spanish colonial town.
The wedding was a virtual music festival with the presence of the Philippine Philharmonic and the Philippine Madrigal Singers, among other music ensembles.
In the 90s, another June bride, ballerina Lisa Macuja, exchanged vows with Fred Elizalde on June 7, 1997 after eight months of whirlwind courtship.
A media person described the 1997 wedding as fairy tale-like and the stuff of headlines.
President Fidel V. Ramos was principal sponsor and at the reception in the Manila Hotel ballroom, Dom Perignon flowed in several toasts to the newlyweds.
A 10-member string ensemble rendered Broadway music. Blooms flown in from Holland decorated the hotel’s grand ballroom.
In addition, a Hans Brumann charm was embedded in the apple and walnut cake. The bride and groom, in Auggie Cordero finery, did an improvised pas de deux on the dance floor. This year, the couple observed their 24th wedding anniversary.
Indeed, they lived happily ever after.
Epilogue.
Till death do as part happened years after the Cojuangco-Aquino wedding of 1954. The bride became the first female president of the Philippines and their son, Benigno Aquino III, became the second Philippine president in the family.
The Marcos-Romualdez union also produced a second Philippine president in the family in the person of Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.
The marriage of Christopher de Leon and Nora Aunor was annulled in 1996. He re-married this time with Sandy Andolong with whom he has five children. They will be celebrating their 44th wedding anniversary this year.