DJs Patty Tiu and Mark Thompson tattooed their rings on their fingers, and get married wearing pants.
Both DJs in the music industry, 25-year-old music producer Mark Thompson and entrepreneur Patty Tiu have known each other since 2015. Always bumping into each other as they played the coolest music for the night crowd, who would have thought that, on one fateful night, they would spend the whole evening talking? Weeks after, they started dating.
After an engagement that extended three years, Mark proposed in 2017. “He was acting weird all week, and I knew he was hiding something from me. I just didn’t know what it was,” says Patty who shared that Mark waited until she was done with work. “He played a song and gave me a letter. As I was reading it, he knelt down and showed me the ring. The last part of the letter said ‘I should’ve done this a year ago.’” Patty revealed that Mark had to save up for the ring, which was why it took him a year to propose.
But she never really wanted a wedding ceremony. “It was more for our parents. Mark also said I deserved to have a ceremony, and so we did a bit of planning for a very small intimate and minimalist wedding,” explains Patty. Their wedding celebration was originally set this year at Palawan Blue Resort with 100 guests composed of their family and closest friends. “When the pandemic hit, we just finished fixing our marriage license. After the country went on lockdown, we canceled everything,” says Mark.
The couple decided to push through with Patty’s secret wish after all—a very simple and quiet wedding. On July 23 at 2 a.m., the pair, along with Patty’s best friend JP Calderon who was supposed to walk down the aisle with Patty, traveled all the way to La Union to get married. “Mayor Menchie de Guzman of La Union is a family friend of ours, and the tita of John. She was so kind to lend us a bit of her time to officiate our wedding,” intimates Patty.
The only hiccup they encountered were the checkpoints. “We passed screening for the first one, but on the second checkpoint, they were asking for IDs that had the Bauang/Bacuit address since the only people allowed to travel back were its residents. Good thing JP’s tita, the mayor of La Union, advised the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) post that we were just heading there for our civil wedding,” says Mark. Personnel would call them every now and then to check on them, making sure that once the ceremony was done they would be on their way back to Manila.
Patty knew they would be on the road for a few hours, so the twinning outfits that the couple chose were indeed a good choice. Both dressed in white tops, gray pants, and white sneakers, she wanted to wear something that was comfortable and easy to wear. She adds, “We just went out to shop quickly (a few days prior to the wedding) so that we could at least look decent in the ceremony. But if you ask me, Mark and I could even get married in just a white shirt, and a pair of jeans.”
This was the only thing they prepared for. Once they got to the venue, everything was set. Peach-colored organza drapes and potted ferns decorated the room, with the officiating table ready for the couple. Though the ceremony was a short one, the couple were ecstatic. “We both cried while we exchanged our vows in the mayor’s presence. I only cried because I could see Mark’s eyes watering,” laughs Patty. Another highlight was when the mayor was caught off guard with their wedding bands. “We didn’t have actual wedding rings. We had wedding band tattoos by Charles Arteta of @artetattooph done a week ago. The mayor even said that it was so Millennial,” says Mark of their wedding bands, which meant “tadhana” (destiny) in Alibata, an ancient Filipino writing system.
After the ceremony, they went straight back to Manila and got some food along the way, reaching Patty’s ancestral home at three in the afternoon to celebrate with her mom.
“A civil wedding in white polos and white sneakers happened. It was just how I imagined it to be. I’ve always told Mark that the wedding isn’t important to me. It’s us. Our union and not the ceremony.”
Patty shares this advice to all those who want to get married during this unprecedented time, “Keep it simple and small. If you can have a wedding with just the bride and groom, that should be enough. After all, the wedding is about the two of you.”