My (Sister's) Bestfriend's Wedding

Meet Jansen. He and my elder sister Mae have been friends since their college sophomore year. Back then, they bugged me about their research assignments. And when the time came that they were already looking for jobs, they bugged me about their resume contents. Jansen is a staple entity in our lives. He's there when Mae's got problems. And he's also there when he's got problems. And me - I don't hear the end of either of their problems.

Anyway, Jansen's girlfriend got pregnant early this year and so they decided to have a civil wedding. Well, the pregnancy itself is ill-timed, but as a whole, Jansen's ready for marriage. He's turning 25 and he has a stable job.

Now, here's the catch. My sister's in Manila right now. I am the one who's here in Cebu. Therefore, ergo, entonsis: I am supposed to go to Jansen's wedding. I thought about begging off and offering an excuse for not being able to attend but the couple actually dropped by my place to personally invite me and through long distance calls and text messages, my sister adamantly insisted that I go. It isn't that big a deal - if you're not me, that is. The thing is, accepting the invitation means that I have to be in the company of people I don't personally know. It isn't that big a deal - if you're not me, that is.

I don't have much experience with weddings. I've only been to a few. I remember turning down an invitation to be a bride's maid when I was in high school. It was kind of not-nice of me, but there was a frilly gown involved in the whole setup. Enough said.

So anyway, saturday morning, I found myself walking towards the Capitol. My building is just across it. I could look out of one of my building's front windows, and I'd see the imposing facade of the Provincial Capitol. I walked towards the front entrance, forgetting that it was closed on saturdays. Stupid me. So, I walked all the way to the other entrance and entered the rear building. There was a security guard at the entrance.

"Sir, asa diri ang RTC branch four?" I asked him.

"RTC? MTC ni sya na building."

"RTC man ang gi-ingon sa ako."

"Unsa di-ay imo tuyo, 'day?"

"Civil wedding sa ako amigo, Sir."

"Aw, MTC gyud di-ay. Tu-a sa fourth floor and branch four. Isuwat sa imo ngan sa logbook."

I mentally made a note to smack Jansen in the head for mistakenly telling me that it was RTC and not MTC. After writing my name in the log book, I headed up the stairs to the second floor. Up the stairs towards the third floor. When I got there, no more stairs. They don't really think that I should fly towards the fourth floor, do they?

An elderly man walked by and I politely asked him how I could go up the fourth floor. He led me towards a dark passage where a narrow stairway was situated. I thanked the old guy and then hesitantly walked up the steps. I half-expected the boogeyman to come jump out from nowhere and push me off. Eeerie place, that was.

I was waiting alone outside the sala of Judge Tormis ten minutes before the appointed time of 9.30 am. I paced around the corridor and browsed through the schedules of case hearings posted outside the doors. Grave defamation of character. Slight defamation of character. Sum of Money. Unlawful detention. Attempted homicide. And I said to myself, what a wonderful world.

The other guests started to arrive twenty minutes later. The couple and their parents arrived around ten o'clock. We were all ushered in the courtroom. I sat in the backmost bench. The groom's mother came and sat on my right. And the bride's mother sat on my left. Jansen came by and introduced the two women to each other because as I just found out, it was their very, very first meeting. Do you know those slapstick comedies where the funny person gets stuck between two people and finds it hard to excuse himself/herself? Well, I was the funny person in this scene. I tried my best to extricate myself from the beso-beso and the handshakes and the pleasantries and the whole shebang. I transferred seats.

Jansen, sensing that I'd rather be in a dentist chair for a tooth extraction than be in this room full of strangers, sat beside me and chatted awhile. We were both sleepless. He, from his graveyard duty from work, and me from another bout of insomnia. But his eyes were more bloodshot than mine. He introduced me to the guy beside me. It was Jay, his housemate. I nodded at him. Introductions are never my favorite things in life.

The judge finally came at around a quarter before eleven. She called the couple and the rest of us stood nearby. The whole thing was over in ten minutes - just a fraction of the whole time I waited. What irony.

When we came out of the Capitol building, the objective was to hail a couple of taxi cabs for the guests to head towards the reception area at the Cebu Grand Convention Center. Jansen wanted me to be in the same car as himself, but his relatives insisted that he went ahead first so the others can just follow him. Before he left, he told me that I could call up another friend of ours to come to the reception so I wouldn't feel out of place. One by one, the taxis were occupied. I remembered the J.D. Salinger story, "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" where Buddy Glass was Seymour's only guest in his wedding and he also had to share a cab with the guests he didn't know. Well, in my case, the couple's relatives crowded themselves in the first cars. Jay and I were the last ones left and we had to wait a few minutes for the next cab to come by.

Finally, we got on one. We rode in silence all the way to grandcon. When the cab pulled over, I took out my wallet and extended my fare. Jay offered to pay it all. No way. I insisted that we should split it. He took my money and said no more of it. Good boy.

Jansen welcomed us and led us to our seats in a round table for twelve. The other people in the table were their aunts and uncles and a few cousins. They just stared at us. As an effect, I took out my cellphone and held it discreetly under the table. I texted my friend Abad to hurry up and get there fast. Jay, who also probably got awkward from the staring we got, stood up and excused himself. The coward never came back. He stayed at a different table. Before the food was served, Abad thankfully came and I got a bit more relaxed. At least I had someone to talk to.

After dessert, we stayed awhile. Abad and I chatted with a five-year-old girl, the daughter of Jansen's landlord. The kid's company was ten times better than all of the other guests' combined. Grown-ups. Ugh.

When the timing was polite enough, we said our goodbyes and congratulations to the newlyweds. Jansen thanked me for coming over. He knew that the whole large-scale socializing is not my thing.

And friends really know you well.