Dance to Forever

Featuring Paolo Gabriel Banas Zulueta and Maria Gabriella Frida Remulla Fortun

Paolo, my husband, is a video director. He innately visualizes scenes and events in a specific tone or palette. He prefers to own things in black and white, while I, on the other hand, see life in full and color and wanted that to reflect in our wedding. One thing was for sure, I knew I wanted hints of local Filipino flavor in the details of the wedding.

Some Filipino elements that I injected into the wedding were seen in the flowers (I wanted fuchsia bougainvilleas and tropical flowers), the wedding favors (when seated at the table, each guest would find a napkin ring holder featuring a Filipino element—a bahay kubo, jeepney, barong, etc. that they could take home with them), and the guests’ attire which required the men to be in Barong Tagalog and the women to be in full colors and prints. I didn’t want to scrimp on the color, and our collaborators made sure to give us the tropical Filipiniana wedding of our dreams.

Four months into the engagement and many visits to various local designers later, I still could not find the person who I felt I had a strong connection with. In February, my mom suggested meeting with Rajo Laurel. They had been Zumba classmates for years, and Rajo had been my rider when I used to teach indoor cycling at Ride Revolution, so I didn’t know why it had taken me so long to reach out to him. I sent Rajo a message and he immediately called me. After explaining my vision to him how I wanted the dress to be sentimental but still fashionable, he came up with a plan.

“Ella,” he said. “Do you still have your mom’s old wedding gown? Does your dad have any old barongs laying around? What about your Lola Ditas? I’m sure she has a lot of ternos in her baul.” I went to work gathering my family’s old clothing made of pina and brought it to Rajo. He drafted a sketch and I never looked back. Rajo had been creating “love letters” for his own collections, which featured pieces of old barongs patched together to create a new piece—a sustainable effort that I have been trying to incorporate into my own lifestyle and clothing habits. This gown was the first time that the House of Laurel created a full wedding gown made of these “love letters.”

It was so special to me to be wearing”an ode to my family—the bodice of the gown was a part of my mom’s original wedding gown created by Chito Vijandre in the ’80s. The waist of the gown was from my Lola Ditas’ old ternos, while the entire skirt and train were patches of my dad’s old barongs and more of my Lola’s ternos and mom’s wedding gown. Walking down the aisle in this masterpiece was a dream come true. I was so happy to be wearing a gown made of Filipino materials and from a renowned Filipino designer. Everything fell into place for this piece.

For my after-party dress, it was designed by fun local designer Banggo Niu. My childhood best friend, Mandi Hoffmann, created by hand a beautiful headpiece that I wore at the reception. For Pao, he had his ceremony barong made by Randolf Clothing. The drawings on the barong jacket paid homage to his love for music and his overall creativity.

My husband and I met in college and were on the same dance team, which brought us to compete at Hip Hop International for a few years. We knew that we wanted our wedding to be 90 percent dancing and entertainment, so we got Sunglass Music to kickstart the cocktails. It was the best time seeing everyone dancing at 4 p.m.

For our reception, we had Mel Villena and the AMP Band perform. When my friends from Steps Dance Studio (where I danced 15 years of my life in) heard “Sing, Sing, Sing,” a famous jazz piece that we had danced together in the past, they started the dancing even before dinner. Everywhere we looked, people were dancing. My niece, Dia Remulla Mate, sang two songs. Katz Salao was our amazing host, while our DJ, Jazz Zamora, got everybody dancing until 2:30 a.m.

The first dances were also very special. Paolo and I tapped our dance friends, Ken Laput and Rej Tee, of Made to Dance, Sam Javier, and Yucel Estrada to create a sentimental first dance that would start out slow and end in hip-hop. We started with “Still The One” by Jesse Barrera, and surprised the crowd with “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” by Jacob Collier. Our guests were up on their feet because they told us that they felt that they were watching a dance concert. My dad and I took the floor, after which Pao and his mom took the floor. We also had a surprise joint dance with both our parents. We danced to “One More Look At The Night” by Andy Gibb, choreographed by Giovanni Tumambing. Our parents had a great time, and we loved finally dancing with them after all these years.

Our entourage was also very special to us. They were from all different groups, some who aren’t dancers, too! We knew we needed everyone to dance together, so our entrance as a couple was done together with the entourage where we all danced to *NSYNC’s “Bringin’ da Noise” choreographed by groomsman Ken Laput.

Music is what binds Pao and I together. When we are alone, we love listening to all kinds of music. We are always moving, very agile, always inspired. Together, we are not just black and white. It’s a lot of things mixed together—our passions for music, fashion, art, videography, and dance.