Their love story started in the most usual setting: a coffee shop. David Guison and Angelique Manto not only share the same passion for caffeine but also share the same place to get their dose. At Habitual in Vertis North, they both liked to sit at the exact spot by the window. They didn’t know each other yet, so it was always a race to see who could claim it first.

“I always get there first, so when he arrives, it’s already taken,” Angelique tells Manila Bulletin. “But when our common friends introduced us to each other, I thought he was so ‘sungit’ (grumpy), not even a hint of warmth, which was the complete opposite of when he finally approached me again when we crossed paths in Habitual.”

Soon enough, their bond grew deeper, something not even the distance of the pandemic could stop. With 40-minute Zoom meetings that somehow stretched into hours, they eventually became a couple. When restrictions were lifted, David made it a mission to meet her family.

“I admire his persistence, how patient he was amid the circumstances and the walls he had to break down, and just how funny and loving he was,” Angelique muses.

After years of traveling together, being spotted at events hand in hand, and building a relationship that grew far beyond style and coffee, David and Angelique were about to take their love to the next chapter. It was Place des Vosges in Le Marais, Paris—one of their favorite parks—where David planned to pop the big question to Angelique.

“I made it seem like I was just vlogging. Yes, in the park during wintertime so she wouldn’t suspect anything,” David laughs.

He asked if she could re-wear her white coat—the one she wore the other day during their Paris trip—which made Angelique ask if he was going to propose. It was rare for David to make such a request, but his plan was already nearly exposed. He hid the ring with his medicine, which she never checks, and when he made his proposal, Angelique’s response couldn’t have been more natural.

“Let’s not forget how I said a bad word when he knelt down,” Angelique recalls. “It’s so hard for us to show it to our family before because I cursed in the beginning.”

Months had passed, and the couple was finally ready to seal their love with not just one wedding, but two. The first one was intimate, with a ceremony held at Sine Pop in Cubao, Quezon City, on May 19. The other was a bigger church wedding on May 26.

“There’s a lot of meaning to every detail in the wedding,” Angelique says. “Since we’re from different religions, as the Church put it, we honored both of our religions and families by having two weddings.”

The ceremonies were different, but both were tied to the couple’s love for the Brutalist style and black-and-white palette.

“We really wanted to bring our guests into our world, albeit it being different from the usual or traditional weddings we are accustomed to,” Angelique explains. “We’re not foregoing the wedding, if that’s what they think being an anti-bride means, but rather being honest about who we are, what we like, and the vision we have while still honoring the sanctity of the union.”

They both worked with Filipino designers for their wedding looks. At the intimate ceremony, Angelique wore a piece by Jaggy Glarino, while David looked dapper in Russell Villafuerte. For their church wedding, Angelique presented her take on modern “anti-bride” with a creation by Cheetah Rivera, while David donned a bespoke suit by Vin Orias.

They had a pastor and a priest from their childhood to lead their ceremonies—people who witnessed their journey early on. Little details like the monogram were drawn by David, and the card game was re-created by Angelique. The carrot cake, their intimate wedding cake, was an ode to the cake they shared on their first date. Instead of wine or alcohol, the couple had coffee for their toast, a nod to the early days of their story.

When asked about her favorite moment during the weddings, Angelique couldn’t help but recall the times David shed a tear. “I always joke that if I see him without tears on his face, I won’t walk down the aisle,” she says.

For David, the weddings could be described as a rollercoaster of experiences, from classy to overstimulating. “I had to do a dance performance, got Angelique’s favorite drag queens (dressed as her), and did I mention there were gorillas and higantes at the after-party?”

But beyond the spectacle, what they remembered most about the experience were the people they shared their love story with.

“Just seeing him and the people we specially handpicked who really bore witness to who we are as a couple on the day most special to us just means everything,” Angelique says. “I know that this whole wedding planning is nothing compared to what we have to face in marriage, but being married to the right person makes you excited to go through life together. And the fact that we’re two completely different people, a direct contrast of each other, just makes it like we balance each other out. Like we’re seeing life through two different lenses but unified in a goal of going through it forever.”