After that bizarre hostage-taking in Quezon City that turned out to was a wedding proposal stunt, we’re happy to share with you the cutest wedding proposal ever that doesn’t involve guns — only sparklers, pink roses and a marching band!
What started out as “the worst day ever” for Jella Mercado, 27, a medical student, turned into “the best day of my life” as her boyfriend Ross Garcia, 31, concocted an elaborate plan that culminated with pink balloons and flowers in Binondo Plaza.
On Oct 15, the couple were scheduled to join a food tour of Chinatown organized by Old Manila Walks and led by Coconuts Manila contributor Anson Yu.
Jella was going to meet her boyfriend inside Binondo Church at 2:30pm but because she had to sign up for her board review classes in Fairview in the morning, she spent a big chunk of the day either waiting in line to register or stuck in traffic.
She left Quezon City a little past 2pm and was going to rush to Manila, but traffic was at a standstill. “I was stuck in Recto, which would [normally] take around 10 minutes to get to Binondo, for more than an hour,” she recounts on her YouTube account. “Finally, Ross just walked over to where my car was, fetched me, and we walked back together to Binondo together. I was in such a grumpy mood that all I was saying to him was ‘this is the worst day ever!!!’ and ‘I hate this!!’
Little did she know, her boyfriend had something special for her at the end of the day.
Where the magic starts: On the 2:27 mark, though it won’t hurt to watch it from the beginning
They joined the food tour with some of their friends. Ross had earlier told his girlfriend that they got a 50% discount on the walking tour because they were going to be part of a video to promote Manila tourism, so she didn’t find it strange that a camera was tracking their every move.
But by the time the tour finished (their last stop was at Eng Bee Tin), there was a marching band playing child star Ryzza Mae’s cha cha song and two rows of policemen escorts. “Ross insisted we walk in between them, in front of the band. I started to wonder what was going on when we were already nearing the plaza. Ross suddenly disappeared [because] he said he wanted to change his shirt,” the future bride recalls.
The band was on its way to Binondo Plaza, which earlier in the afternoon was decorated with white and pink balloons on the pavement. When Jella got there, “there were so many people and there were balloons and bunches of roses on the ground. Some women there started handing out the roses to us girls, and asked us to form a circle. I was really nervous at this point,” she says.
“Then I heard my cousin Pammy and her family call out to me, then I also saw my parents, and my other friends who weren’t in the food tour, and then I just started crying because I realized what was going on.”
Ross eventually emerged from the crowd, and the band played “The Scientist” by Coldplay, Jella’s favourite song.
“I was already very, very ugly from all the tears, but that didn’t stop him from saying all these nice lovey stuff…that he wanted to be my husband, getting down on his knee, showing me a very pretty ring, and asking me to marry him,” Jella writes.
She said yes. And then there were fireworks.
“It was absolutely perfect. And that was how the love of my life, together with our family and friends, turned a really, really bad day into the best day of my life,” says Jella.
