I want to start this post by saying my gazillion THANKS to Jason, Fiel, Dino, Hester and Tonee, our photographer friends, the whole Bob Nicolas Videography Team and Facebook - without them, this wedding video coverage would’ve probably been a disaster.

September 27 was Hester and Tonee’s wedding date - the day after Ondoy laid its wrath on the Metro. The night before, I contemplated on checking-in a hotel somewhere in Manila in order to ensure that we won’t be late (nor absent) for our wedding coverage duties. This idea was scrapped because all roads from our residence going to Manila was impassable - a word that we would have a heavy dose of in the coming hours.

Listening to road advisories all night, we decided to leave really early - 5 am for a 12 nn call time - and took 1 of 3 possible routes going to Manila (the other 2 routes were impassable according to reports).

5 am.
6 am.
7 am.
8 am.
9 am.
10 am.

5 hours of going through every possible route and we were still stuck in traffic somewhere east of Manila. Impassable.

Oo, kinabahan na talaga ako.

Lette, knowing the situation, started calling videographer friends as early as 9 am asking for help. She even posted this message on Facebook:

Marilette Nicolas is DESPERATELY looking for videographers who can be at manila pen by 10 am TODAY September 27 at 9:27am

Which elicited quite a response from our photographer friends who showed their genuine concern. To further widen our call for help, John Rana even re-posted Lette’s message on his facebook wall. Of the numeroues responses we received, it was Fiel who responded first. Realizing the extent of our predicament, Fiel volunteered to go ahead and shoot first for us while we’re still trying to find a way to get to Manila Pen. (note: Fiel had his own wedding to shoot at 2 pm that day.) So, THANK YOU, our photographer friends, John Rana, Fiel and Facebook.

Now, we had 1 videographer who could at least shoot the wedding preps… but we had an additional problem, the bride and groom were on different locations hence, we needed more than 1 videographer. Enter savior number 2: Jason

Upon knowing our situation, Jason volunteered to lend us Mada, one of his videographers, until we arrive. (note that Jason was also shooting a wedding that day.) THANK YOU, Jason.

So, Lette managed to give us extra time - 2 hours to be exact. We still needed to get to, at least, the ceremony. But we were still stuck in traffic… until I thought of changing our mode of transportation - from 4 wheels to 2 wheels.

Lette got someone to bring us a motorcycle then Ian and I, along with our cameras, crisscrossed through traffic… drove through eskinita’s… and asked locals for possible secret routes until we finally punched through! (YES!)

We arrived at 1:30 pm… to the relief of Dino and Hester and Tonee - all of whom were concerned for us. Upon arrival, Dino immediately offered us his clubhouse sandwich baon. SALAMAT, Dino.

This is our post-Ondoy story. A story of humility and cooperation… of blindly asking for help and immediately getting it… of experiencing worries and struggles then being awarded by a lovely (and witty) love story thereafter - that is the wedding of Hester and Tonee.

Hester and Tonee from Bob Nicolas on Vimeo.