Konrad + Hayley, and Tropical Storm Ondoy

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To all our Manila readers, we hope this post finds you and your families well. Getting married during a calamity makes one realize that all you really need for a wedding is a bride, a groom, an officiant, a witness and hopefully a photographer (LOL)! The following is our Ondoy story, although it may now seem more of an inconvenience compared to the tragedy a lot of people went through, but nevertheless something for couples to think about when they stress out on the tiniest of details.

September 26, 2009 started off like a typical Manila stormy day. Because it had been raining on and off the whole night, we decided to leave a bit early anticipating bad weather traffic. We were supposed to pickup our assistant TJ at Philcoa before taking C5 to the bride’s place at Corinthian Gardens. TJ texted that it wasn’t flooded in Philcoa (yet), but when we reached a gridlocked QC Circle, we decided to just take EDSA instead and have TJ take a cab to Corinthians. Turned out, no taxi would take TJ because Katipunan was already flooded. And poor TJ had to watch as Philcoa flood water rose from ankle to waist-deep in a few hours. (The same waist-deep water he had to wade through to go home. Sorry, Teej.)

EDSA southbound was crawling and the rain just wouldn’t stop. Jason Magbanua texted that they were stuck in C5 Kalayaan, while our third photographer Markku, was not moving on Megamall EDSA going northbound to Corinthians. We realized the gravity of the situation when we reached EDSA Santolan and saw the flood on the northbound lane was already waist deep and no vehicles were passing. Jason was told to head back to Makati Shangri-La (reception venue) and be ready for the ceremony to be transferred to the hotel. Mimi and I decided to follow Jason since we couldn’t make a U-turn to Corinthians (as Ortigas to Santolan was at a standstill) but told Markku to try his best to get to the bride.

We arrived at the hotel after five hours on the road, and passing through a few minor flooding. One of the ballrooms had already been set-up as the ceremony venue but we were told that the bride and groom will try to push through with the wedding at Christ the King. By a stroke of luck, Markku was able to park his car at Robinson’s Galleria and just walked to Corinthian Gardens. And so come hell or high water, Konrad and Hayley were able to exchange I do’s in front of twenty (or less even) witnesses and one photographer! We got to hand it to Markku, he really did step up for this one. Good job, bro!

With the situation and all, Markku was expecting a frazzled bride but Hayley was taking everything in stride. That’s the spirit!



You can really tell from Konrad’s expression how happy he was to finally see his bride walking down the aisle.

Some portraits at the hotel:

Pretty reception deets:

Despite the flood and traffic, more than half of their guests were still able to celebrate with them at the reception and everyone had their own Ondoy stories to tell.

The couple watching Jason’s onsite… I even caught Konrad wiping a tear. Gotta hand it to Mr. Magbanua, he was still able to produce a very moving video without one footage of ceremony! Special thanks to Markku’s photos on that one.

At the end of the day, I don’t think Konrad and Hayley, or even any of us, will ever forget that infamous day.