Vows in the magic hour

ABS-CBN CHANNEL head Cory Vidanes, who was a ninang, described the magic-hour ceremony as “emotional.”

As the vocal group 92 AD sang “When God Made You,” TV host John Estrada and beauty queen Priscilla Meirelles became husband and wife.

“The bride was walking down the aisle and the groom was already crying,” Vidanes related. “There was not a dry eye at the venue [Thunderbird Poro Point Resort in La Union], especially when John said that his wish was that his late manager Douglas Quijano was there to witness his wedding.”

Actor Richard Gomez, best man, agreed with Vidanes: “It was solemn, but oftentimes funny.”

The vows were heartwarming, recounted Gomez’s wife, Rep. Lucy Torres. “It was a lovely wedding. Touching.”

“It was a joyous celebration, too,” Vidanes added.

Estrada cracked up the guests when he rendered a song which he claimed he had “composed” for Meirelles.

Turned out, he reworked an old song, Luther Vandross’ “I’d Rather.”

Two cultures

Meirelles wanted the ceremony to be a “union of two cultures,” explained photographer Charisse Tinio.

(She’s Brazilian; he’s Filipino. It’s Estrada’s second try at marriage—after the breakup of his relationship with actress Janice de Belen.)

The Estrada-Meirelles nuptials ended, poetically, at dusk.

“By the end of the ceremony, the sky was a stunning shade of orange. It was perfect timing,” recalled Tinio, whose studio also covered the weddings of Regine Velasquez and Ogie Alcasid, Love Añover and Joms Lianko, Jenny Miller and Cupid Feril, also the same-sex wedding of Selena Sevilla and Lalen Calayan.

A day before Estrada and Meirelles tied the knot, a golf tournament was mounted for the male guests, while the ladies had spa treatments.

Tinio also documented the prenuptial events. The couple’s Punta Fuego pictorial was published in a booklet, copies of which were given away to friends. A TV special on ABS-CBN is in the works.

The newlyweds, who wore creations by Randy Ortiz for the ceremony, stayed at the resort over the weekend. But Estrada went back to work on the daily noontime show “Happy, Yipee, Yehey” on Monday.

(Yes, the program that caused the groom’s tiff with original “best man” Willie Revillame, who was a no-show, of course.)

Estrada is also in the cast of the nightly soap, “Minsan Lang Kitang Iibigin.”

In a previous interview, Estrada told the Inquirer that Meirelles is very “supportive and understanding” in spite of the grueling demands of his new TV assignments.

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