“It was the classic cheerleader meets the debate team captain story,” RJ Ledesma says about how he and wife Vanessa Pastor-Ledesma first knew of each other. “But I never knew what she saw in a cheerleader like me.”

The funnyman is at it again. It was he, of course, who was the debate team captain and she, the “hot chick cheerleader commercial Penshoppe model.” In RJ’s own words, he was “at the lower rung of the ladder.” That he was Royal Tru-Orange’s main (and to this day, most popular) endorser didn’t mean much to Vanessa, who grew up in the U.S. “My robust popularity had no effect on her,” RJ, 35, rues.

For those who don’t know RJ (and I assume if you don’t, that you’ve probably been living under a rock for the past two decades), he’s editor-in-chief of UNO magazine, newspaper columnist, book author, yoga instructor, host, and now actor (he’s got roles in “And I Love You So” and “Habang May Buhay”). Vanessa, 34, a legal associate, is his wife of just over a year. Their love story is a much-publicized one, having been chronicled in RJ’s weekly column in The Philippine Star, and posted all over networking sites and status messages (mostly RJ’s). Their engagement-when RJ proposed to Vanessa in front of a crowd of 50 of their closest friends-was so picture perfect that their friends uploaded it on YouTube.

In true performance-level fashion, RJ drew up the elaborate plan of popping the question by telling Vanessa they were going to a friend’s “wedding reception” in Tagaytay. It was a total surprise to his future wife. “All the characters from our love story were there,” recalls Vanessa, “people from church, a couple of friends from Davao and Bantayan Island (where she had agreed to be RJ’s girlfriend two years before). It was sunset. Sunset over Taal Volcano. Who could say no? People ask me if I would’ve wanted it to be a more private thing, but now. I liked how he did it. Marc Nelson was there. I said yes in front of Marc Nelson!” she quips.

“Now, that’s a statement,” RJ agrees.

The nipple hugging shirt didn’t work

But let’s back up a little bit. Five years before, to be exact, when the two crossed paths again in Single Young Adults, a Catholic group at the San Antonio church. RJ was then co-host of Men’s Room along with Tim Tayag, “a raunchy late night show,” according to Vanessa, who was then studying law in Davao. As you can see from these photos, Vanessa has a face (and figure) any guy would go for, RJ – particularly RJ – included.

“Well, she was pretty, and had a nice derriere,” he says. His wife blushes. “What?” he continues with a laugh. “It’s true. Lalake e!”

Vanessa initially didn’t want to accept any of his invitations to dinner because of his reputation as Men’s Room host, but changed her mind when she heard RJ lectoring during mass. “I didn’t know he was that dedicated to the church. His voice was well-modulated, he sounded very well educated, so I said, ‘hey, maybe I should get to know this guy. I finally accepted his dinner invitation.’”

Their first “date” was in Kashmir. “I wanted it to be casual; I wanted him to be more of my friend. I didn’t want the night to lead to him liking me, or me liking him. I wanted him to be the guy I could talk to about other guys,” Vanessa says.

“Yeah, I had on my nipple-hugging t-shirt on to see if it would have any effect on her,” RJ counters.

Well, it didn’t have any effect-yet. A trip to Singapore for a SYA fundraiser, and another potentially romance-busting dinner happened before Vanessa would find herself being more attracted to RJ than she planned.

It was a dinner at Sugi, which coincided with an after-dinner event at nearby Temple Bar for her racecar driver brother. “In short, whoever I was meeting had to meet my parents. They could not think of me connected to a Men’s Room geek!” Vanessa recalls. She called her friend to walk her from Sugi to Temple, just so she could have a decoy. “She didn’t have a car, so I even offered to pay 10 times her cab fare! RJ was trying to walk beside me, and we were trying to walk away. It was very mean of us. But that was the time RJ was quite different, his outlook in life was very different.”

But during the event, RJ gained a million pogi points with Vanessa’s parents-her dad, for being so knowledgeable about sponsorships and TV production; her mom, for having already attended the Landmark Forum, a breakthrough life-enhancing seminar that all of Vanessa’s family members had also attended. “He even got along with my aunt and cousins. From that night on, I started to like him very fast.”

And he even wasn’t wearing a nipple-hugging t-shirt.

‘Damn those sea urchins!’

The tables were soon turned. Vanessa, the pursued, became the one more interested in her pursuer. “In retrospect, we were playing ‘the game and the rules,’” RJ says, who reads relationship books as research for his column.

“I was playing the game on her. Because of my being nonchalant, she was the one who found (me attractive). She was playing ‘the rules.’”

It would come to a head one Easter weekend, when RJ flew out to Bantayan Island to be with Vanessa’s family and a group of mutual friends. Vanessa was still unclear about RJ’s commitment. “I was new to the whole single life concept, ‘hanging out.’ I didn’t know what ‘hanging’ meant- I was studying in Davao, absent from Manila for four, five years. I thought that since RJ and I were getting close, we were almost exclusive. Yun pala he was still watching movies with other women, taking them out for dinner. So later on, I started detaching. I gave myself an ultimatum. If this guy doesn’t commit, if I ask him and he still answers in a nonchalant answer, I’ll walk away. And I did. So that night, I entertained other suitors right then and there in Cebu. That’s when I saw a complete change in him.”

Three hours later, not even sunrise, RJ was down on his knees asking Vanessa to be his girlfriend. The negotiations would continue until much later, though, as they walked on the beach.

“It was the sunset,” Vanessa says, laughing.

“It was so nice, dammit! It was low tide.

There were sea urchins everywhere, so I had to ride on his back. We were close, it was sunset, perfect weather… he said something during that walk that made me realize how much he valued his family and parents, and that’s how he wanted us to be.”

“I said, ‘I want to do yoga with you for the rest of my life,’” RJ recalls.

And the two sealed the deal by making “smoochie-smoochie” behind a big rock.

Yeah, baby

To give RJ credit, however, once he commits to something, he does it with a tenacity more powerful than industrial-strength Velcro. He stuck it out with Vanessa even when she left to work in the U.S. for six months. Both attended another Landmark seminar on relationships, and RJ even brought up going to a pre-Cana (pre-marriage) course (but which Vanessa had to remind him about months later).

Yes, folks, as glib and as tongue-in-cheek RJ seems to be as a personality, he takes his relationships quite seriously, understanding such things as “love languages”-things that would make other men shudder.

And yes, he enjoys pulling off grand displays of love, like the aforementioned marriage proposal, and the insanely huge wedding the two had last year (over a thousand guests attended the reception).

Baby Fortune, five months, is a honeymoon baby. (And because this is a breastfeeding/health issue, I must mention that she’s also completely breastfed.) A miniature RJ (with a dose of Vanessa’s mom, Remy), she’s named after RJ’s mother, diplomat, socialite, and philanthropist Fortune Ledesma. RJ and Van may have had a bit of an adventure clinching their relationship, but one look at the families both sides were born into leaves no doubt about the future: Baby

Fortune will grow up into a solid home where God and parents are honored, and love, humor, and affection are always present.

During this shoot, Vanessa’s parents drop by on their way to a movie “just to say hi.” When Remy stalls by the door, Vanessa demands, “Mom, come here, I haven’t kissed you yet.”
I visit them twice, and both times, Mommy Fortune-even while she’s obviously rushing in between appointments-dotes over Baby Fortune and her daughter-in-law.

Many times, too, I have listened to RJ make decisions with Vanessa and his future as a husband and as a dad (Baby Fortune was yet to be born) as the first considerations. “Does it respect my wife, my family?” he asks himself now. “In interviews, my mom says that ‘the jewels in my life are my husband and my three children.’ And I can see that’s the way she lived it.

“Life is gladly re-arranged for the family. I see no merit in spending boy’s night out when I can spend time with Vanessa and my baby girl.”

“Before marrying RJ, I thought that he just likes doing a lot of things,” Vanessa says. “After marriage, I realize he really loves every single thing he does. He has seven jobs. He gives 100% to every single one of them. And he has time to do all that and play with his kid and make love to me!”

Now that’s a formula for a relationship that works.

“I do or I die, RJ Ledesma’s imaginary guide to getting married and other man made disasters as told to him by his Yaya,” (Anvil) RJ’s second book, will hit stands later this year.

(Re-posted from http://sesameseedcreatives.com/hipp/2009/07/27/the-beauty-and-the-geek/)

Thanks again Gina Abuyuan, editor-in-chief of Happy, Intelligent, Progressive Parenting (HIPP) Magazine!

http://jasonmagbanua.com/blog/2008/03/09/rj-ledesma-and-vanessa-pastor/

I thought you guys might get a kick out of watching the very first Royal Tru Orange commercial that came out waaaaaaayyyyy back in 1988 (yup, twenty friggin’ years ago). This is the link to that website.  You guys might be interested to note that the first set of Royal commercials were directed by the late great Lino Brocka.

Ah, nostalgia always brings back the fizz in me.  

This commercial was posted by Jason Magbanua, an excellent wedding videographer who captured my wedding last March 7, 2008.  Incidentally, the link to Jason’s site also includes the photo montage and onsite video from our wedding day.  If you want to read more about the wedding, check out the blog entitled Heavensent.

Since we are on the subject of weddings, let me share with you pictures from our wedding by (insert your favorite superlative) Pat Dy.  Aside from wedding photography, Pat Dy is an excellent wedding photographer. He has has shot several covers for me in Manual Magazine, and he also shot the cover of my book, ‘Lies My Yaya Should Have Told Me’. 

http://blog.patdyphotography.com/?p=519

By the by, my wife Vanessa also did her share of commercials in the day. She was one of the Penshoppe models back in 1994 along with then-unknowns Paolo Bediones and Ryan Agoncillo.  Her ‘love team’ in the commercial was Paolo Bediones.  Check this out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TULwbpk9f6c

Care to share your memories of the eighties, if its not too traumatic?