JAYME-GARCIA

A Promise Fulfilled

-  SARA SIGUION-REYNA

Miguel Jayme and Mela Garcia were teenagers when they met at Antioch. “We are 3 years apart and when I was in high school, that age gap was considered huge! And so I had always seen him as one of the older leaders, and to him, I had always been one of the younger ones,” says Mela. After their university years, they would bump into each other on nights out and enjoy flirting (“One of our favorite ways to flirt was to go to the bar for some shots together”) but only as friends. Their first real spark happened during one of those Laboracay parties, which incidentally happened to be the first and last Laboracay they had ever gone to.

They were together for five years when they were going to travel to Europe for Mela’s best friend’s wedding in France. “All of my friends and family expected him to propose during this trip, not only because it would be our first time together in Europe, and we had planned to go to Spain and Portugal after the wedding, but it would also be the perfect backdrop and setting for an engagement,” she says. Miguel surprised her by proposing earlier than she expected on a trip to Tagaytay. “His excuse was that he had won a staycation at a raffle at his office party. We stayed at a hotel called Escala. It was beautiful! It also has one of the best views of Taal Lake,” she says.