Ang Paglilipat - Some Post-Wedding Traditions

by: Bryan

In Batangas, the reception was always done at the Bride's residence. And the wedding always starts in the morning, normally, 8-9AM so that the reception will not pass noontime, because there is a tradition that the bride needs to go to Groom's residence by noontime to get more prosperity. The transfer of the couple from wedding reception to groom's residence is called lipatan. In this tradition, all the things used in the weddings, which is normally from groom's relatives, are packed and the reception is being cleaned thoroughly.

Though this can be done in our wedding, we decided to stay at Dusit after the wedding because of some complementary stuff provided by Dusit Hotel as included in our package. So we had our instant honeymoon at the Hotel and just went to Batangas the next day.

Initially, we planned to just commute to Batangas, because Karen wanted to go to Tagaytay for some sight seeings and to have our lunch. Dennis, one of our entourage, volunteered to drive us home on his car since he's to stay at Manila after the wedding. So he agreed to pick us up at the Hotel around 10AM of December 28. Jodel, also one of our entourage, was with Dennis. And since we got a car, we decided to take all of our the wedding dresses(Karen's gown, my Barong and all wedding stuff like arrhae, cords, veils) and let them be washed at Batangas. We left Dusit around 11:30AM

On our way home, we caught traffic at Tagaytay, and since originally we want to have lunch at Tagaytay, we just stopped over at Max's Restaurant at the restaurant junction. We had our lunch around 2:30PM due to a very long queue of traffic. After having lunch, Karen and I had some picture taking at the rooftop of Leslie's Resto. Here are some pictures:

We arrived at our house around 5:30PM.

Also, one tradition of wedding is to open the gifts. And since we asked monetary gifts from our guests, we received only two gifts, one from Ate Del and one from Jules.

We already opened and counted monetary gifts at Dusit Hotel. hehehe... In Batangas, I think, the couple needed to wait at least two days before opening the gifts. But since it is monetary... we already opened and counted them.

A second celebration was held in my hometown, in Real, Calatagan last December 31, 2008.

This is for my Mom's relatives who was not able to attend in the reception. My Grandma gave us one whole pig to be our "handa". They also prepared a mini-presidential table for us and one buffet table with all the food: Menudo, Caldereta, Puchero, Sago, Leche Flan. When we arrived, my Grandma told us to pick coins from a bilao(flat basket made of bamboo) with rice grains and flowers. This is another tradition which the coins we gathered will be our first money as a couple. Both of us must pick as many coins as we can. We' were not able to count them but we placed it inside my hanky, and placed it together with our wedding dresses and stuff.




This was supposedly a reunion with Mendez family but my uncle from Pangasinan(father of one of my flower girls who was not able to attend the wedding) still didn't make it due to his wife medical emergency.

In general, our wedding was a very successful and memorable one. And we wil treasure all the happenings until we get older and we will show all of these to our kids.