The Medical Engagement: "We Thought It Was the Wedding"

- June 29, 2014, Sunday.

- It's been a while since I last posted a really personal post; most of my recent blog entries have been about my journeys and/or my academic endeavors here and abroad. It's not that I don't get to meet up with friends for casual gatherings - I actually do, and frequently - but I don't usually post them here as frequently as before. Today, I thought of posting this since this is one of the bigger events that I've been to lately.

- My friend Dorenett got engaged to her boyfriend John Glenn, both of them doctors. The engagement was held in the Century Park Hotel Seafood Restaurant. The reception was grand for an engagement, almost like a small wedding reception (and with this engagement, who knows how even grander the wedding reception will be!)

Yay!!

- What I found most interesting about the engagement was that many VIPs from my high school alma mater were there, because of both Dorenett's and John Glenn's families' affiliation to my alma mater's alumni association; I thought they would have an alumni association meeting right there and then (kidding, of course.) My friends and I felt that we had to behave more since some of the VIPs were officer personnel and supervisors from our alma mater.

- The engagement ceremony itself was done in a private room, and it was hard to take photos because of all the giant SLRs and videocams of the official people-in-charge of the ceremony documentation.  For the most part, we just decided to sit down and eat some steamed nuts while waiting for lunch. At least we had much time to catch up with each other.

Pretty hard to get decent shots.

Exchanging gifts.

The youngest is the biggest; they're all 2 batches higher than I am.

- The big but cozy event ended around 2pm, with everyone getting big goodie bags with awesome sweet treats inside. As the guests with their fancy semi-formal to formal attires left one by one, and as the engaged couple thanked everyone near the exit, we all still had to remind ourselves that this was only the engagement, and not yet the actual wedding.