Sponsors!
Part of the traditional Filipino Catholic wedding is to have a million sponsors! Ok, so its not a million. But pretty freaking close. There are two types of sponsors: primary and secondary. Primary sponsors are usually older folks (around the same age as your parents) and they are also known as your godparents for the wedding. They are adults that you look up to and that you can go to for advice or help. We picked nine pairs (not necessarily husband/wife pairs) of people to stand with us. The secondary sponsors are a bit more fun. They have specific roles in the ceremony. You can pick anyone for these roles, but they should be a boy/girl pair. We consider them extensions of our wedding party, and we would have put them in the wedding party, but it would mean a 20 person wedding party :P
Candles
Lorna & Junior are two of Gary's cousins on his mom's side. They are really helping us with the wedding planning and we wanted to have them share our special day :) The candle sponsors will light the two smaller candles that Gary and I will use to light the unity candle. This symbol of unity is known as "lighting the couple's path".
Veil
Our veil sponsors are our friends Chanel and Raymond. They were both part of my sweet 16 cotillion court and have been close friends of ours for years. The veil sponsors will cover us with a veil during the Liturgy of the Eucharist. This symbol of unity has the meaning of "clothing the couple as one".
Cord
The cord sponsors are two of our good friends, Juan Emanuel and Joni. They are two of my friends from college that we are both very close to now. JE is one of our group of 4 "drinking buddies" and Joni is a regular at any of our get togethers. We love both of them and we're excited that they will be "tying (us) together".
Holy Items
I just named them "Holy Items"... normally they are listed separately as the bible sponsor and the rosary sponsor, but I wanted to put them together. They will bring our family bible and family rosary to the front of the church and they will also do the first and second readings during the ceremony. Our friends Jason (another one of the drinking buddies) and Clarissa (another close friend from college and my carpool buddy whenever there was an event in Davis) will be these sponsors.
