Filipino Bride Walks Down the Aisle Wearing Bouquet of Priceless Onions

The strange saga of the Filipino onion – a humble vegetable transformed into a priceless treasure by a combination of high demand, supply problems, and imbecilic government policies – took another turn on Saturday when blushing bride April Lyka Biorrey walked down the aisle with a bouquet of onions instead of flowers. By all accounts, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

Onions have become so scarce in the Philippines that travelers are returning from overseas with suitcases full of them and black-market smugglers are fighting gang wars for onion turf. To make a long story short, almost every dish in the Philippines uses onions, typhoons damaged domestic onion crops, and the new president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., appointed himself Secretary of Agriculture with disastrous results.

Biorrey, 28, told the Philippine Times on Tuesday she decided onions would make a “practical and unique” alternative to the traditional floral arrangements. Even at today’s elevated prices, the onions cost a bit less than expensive professionally-arranged flowers and the guests could eat them after the ceremony.

“I accidentally saw a bouquet made of onions with a touch of flowers. I immediately contacted our coordinator who said that we can use the concept for our wedding,” Biorrey said.

“After the wedding, the onions were given to our godparents and bridesmaid so they have with them onions for souvenirs. I also gave my bouquet to our relatives for their everyday use,” she said.

Onions also have great symbolic value at a wedding, since marriage, like onions and ogres, has many layers.

Biorrey said her fiancee, 35-year-old Erwin Nobis, “readily agreed” to her proposal. She wisely skipped the traditional tossing of the bouquet after vows were exchanged, as her bouquet weighed “four or five kilos” and could have done a great deal of damage to an eager bridesmaid.

The wedding coordinator had to order a sack of onions from another city because there were none to be had in the couple’s hometown of Iloilo. The onions arrived four days before the wedding.

The wedding became a viral sensation on social media in the Philippines, attracting a mixture of jocularity and envy. One wag thought they should have gone ahead with the bouquet toss because the lucky lady who caught it would have become instantly wealthy. Others admired Biorrey’s practicality.