On the occasion of our 8th wedding anniversary, and in the hopes of inspiring future brides and grooms that it’s okay to have a budget wedding, let me share with you the story on why I was holding a 10peso wedding bouquet of rosal.

I told people my favorite flowers were tulips

In my teens, I conditioned myself to tell people that my favorite flowers are tulips — because tulips are expensive here in the Philippines and there was a Holland Tulips flower stall in Ayala Center Cebu back when I was in highschool (early 2000s) and the tulips they sold were expesive (like about P150 per stem). Also, tulips were flowers you don’t usually find in the flower stalls of the then Freedom Park near the Carbon Market.

By telling people tulips were my favorite flowers, I was trying to make them see me as somebody who has expensive tastes, so European, cultured, classy.

But I actually love the rosal (gardenias)

But I actually love the flower local people commonly call “rosal.” Rosal looks like a rose but is not actually a rose but a gardenia. According to the National Parks of Singapore, rosal is gardenia jasminoides, and is a tropical flower that originated in China, Japan, and Taiwan. Gardenias are not out-of-this-world beautiful but they are super fragrant.

As I grew out of my pretentious teenage years, I came to embrace my self — my beauty, my flaws, my imperfections. On the day of my wedding, I was at the peak of my “love thyself” stage and so I opted to hold a bouquet of the flowers that I actually love and that actually is more like me than the tulips.

Like the gardenia, I am a tropical person. I love the tropics. Just like the gardenia, who blooms solitary, I am a solitary person who cherises my own company and who prefers to be solitary or be in the company of solitary people (just like my husband). Gardenias may be inexpensive, only P10 pesos for one whole bunch during my wedding day, they also wilt easily — and that’s exactly like me, I tend to show my true beauty only to a few people, then I wilt. I also disappear quickly, preferring to be unseen, but you know I’ve been there because, just like a gardenia whose fragrance lasts longer than the flowers, the actions I show to people, the words I say to people leave a imprint into their senses.

No one knew about the 10 peso bouquet

I never told anyone, except my husband, about my 10 peso bouquet. If my family knew, they’d rush to buy me the most expensive bouquet they can get for me because they’d think I deserve an expensive bouquet especially on my wedding day. But the man I loved who is the man I married let me hold a 10 peso bouquet of gardenias because he does not care how expensive or cheap the bouquet was, all he cared was I am me on my wedding day, a rosal.