GOKINGYOK-CARLOS

A Fine Vintage

- SARA SIGUION-REYNA

Chester Gokingyok and Georgianna Carlos met on Valentine's Day, at a get-together with common friends. As Carlos tells it, how they became acquainted with each other was happenstance. “It was a funny situation. There are these group of boys who I am friends with that I call the ‘Car Boys’ since they just love everything about, well, cars. One of them decided to host a Valentine’s Party for the single ones in the group, provided that each Car Boy brings food for the potluck and a single female friend to introduce to the others,” she says.

As luck would have it, Carlos was one of the single female friends of one of the boys, and as it turns out, none of the rest had brought any of their single female friends. “It ended up being just me and around a dozen other boys. That’s how I met my now-husband Chester, she says.

Together for eight years, Gokingyok proposed on the Day of Valor (April 9) because as he jokingly says, “[I] needed extra courage.” That day, they went to Tagaytay for a day trip and then dinner at Sta. Elena. Carlos woke up with a bad case of rhinitis and initially wanted to cancel, but Gokingyok insisted. Dressed in shorts, no makeup, and wrapped in a blanket-scarf hybrid, she explored Tagaytay with her beau-to-be.