After 12 years together, longtime sweethearts Vicki Belo and Hayden Kho Jr tied the knot in a grand yet meaningful ceremony in the romantic City of Lights
From a wedding proper at the American Church in Paris to a lavish reception at the elegant Palais Garnier, the marriage celebrations of doctors Hayden Kho Jnr and Vicki Belo could have been torn out of the pages of a fairy tale.
“It was a visual spectacle, yes,” says Vicki. “But above all, it was meaningful.” Indeed, there wasn’t a dry eye in the church when she and Hayden, following a tumultuous 12-year romance, pledged themselves to one another at an intimate Christian ceremony at the American Church.
How they met
The unconventional pair met under atypical circumstances in 2005, when judging the Mr and Miss Medicine pageant at the University of Santo Tomas. Hayden instantly caught Vicki’s eye. “I decided to introduce myself,” she recalls. “I found out he was the president of the interns’ association of the Makati Medical Centre, as well as Mr UST and a member of the varsity basketball team. He was a bit of a star, really.”
She invited Hayden, who intended to become a plastic surgeon after graduation, to visit her clinic to learn the ropes. To this day, the couple still can’t say when things turned romantic. “We had our own little world,” says Hayden. “We were happy in the bubble that we’d created for ourselves.”
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A rocky start
Initially, marriage did not seem in the cards. “Because society does not really approve of older women dating younger men, even those close to us had their doubts,” says Vicki. “And it took its toll on Hayden, too. Around his peers, he was a big deal. But in some of my circles, he would be dismissed. When we were alone together, we were alright. When we had to mingle, things would grow difficult.”
Hayden first proposed to Vicki in Houston, Texas in 2011, but it was not to be. “It was a difficult cycle—we kept breaking up and making up,” recalls Vicki. However, after a lengthy counselling process brokered by their spiritual advisor and mentor, the renowned Christian apologist Dr Ravi Zacharias, the couple realised that they were unable to stay apart.
They were finally wed in a civil ceremony in Manila in June last year, followed by a religious ceremony and reception in Paris on September 2. The reception was held at the Palais Garnier, a neo-baroque opera house built by architect Charles Garnier in 1874.
