you don’t exactly call it “gatecrashing” when you kind of ask permission to be there. and by “kind of,” i mean you simply tell them you’ll show up and they wouldn’t really have a choice because they wouldn’t wanna seem rude.

or was i formally invited?

i can’t remember now. all i know is that i was there. so was jelven and roma. our role, basically, was to be the cheerleaders. minus the “rah-rah-rah!” and the backflips. because we’re too old cool for that.

it was, after all, gayle and aj’s pre-wedding photo shoot. you don’t mess around during photo shoots as important as that, right?

wrong.

because mucking around was pretty much all we ever did. so much so that roma and i had our very own impromptu photo shoot on the side. you should have seen us lying on the grass like idiots, wearing that stoic facial expression of supermodels in a high fashion shoot. i looked, well, for lack of a better word — dead. but that didn’t stop us from going full on at it, anyway.

that’s not to say that we didn’t do a good job working behind the scenes. because we did great. while i shadowed the official photographer, jelven shadowed me. so in effect, we created a behind the scenes behind the scenes setup. you know what i mean?

and that’s my trusty old nikon digital camera right there. or should i say was? i had it for about 3 years. it taught me a lot of things as far as photography is concerned. modesty aside, i became a pro in taking quality pictures (at least, according to my standards. i don’t have very high standards.). my secret? i used the auto setting. all. the. time. (a lot of times it worked. other times, i just had to suck it up and deal.)

anyway, i gave that camera away. because jeff gave me a better one with the hopes that i would finally come around and start learning how to shoot in manual already. (trust me, it’s a million times better than auto, baby.) so i kinda promised him i will.

don’t tell him this but i still shoot in auto. all. the. time.

all in all, it was a fun sunday afternoon. one of the concept coordinators (or whatever you call it) from cuckoo cloud concepts was actually a fashion blogger here in cebu so that was exciting for me. you know, to meet a blogger in the flesh. i grabbed the opportunity to have a group photo taken with her. i don’t know if you can still see me with her hair partially obstructing my face but it’s cool. =)

at the end of the day, when gayle’s mascara started to smear and the oil in my face shone like the sun, there was the three of us just hanging around. lounging on one of plantation bay‘s chairs overlooking their vast pool.

laughing like freaking hyenas like we always do.