Reelin’ in the years

It took college friends Kim Jose and Ian Surage more than a decade to walk down the aisle. They tell Ryan Porter why it was worth the wait

He wanted me to feel like my dad was there, walking with me down the aisle.

KIM JOSE

The first time Kim Jose crossed his path in university, Ian Surage was focused intently on his ping-pong game. When Jose grabbed a paddle to take on their mutual friend, Surage bristled.

“I was a little bit annoyed,” he recalls. “I didn’t really know who she was, stepping into our game. She was very loud.” It would take 12 years before the couple, both now 30, would say “I do,” though Surage knew he was going to marry her before they’d even started dating.

The University of Toronto Scarborough students struck up a friendship, and Surage eventually asked Jose to go see the classic Pixar movie “Up” with him. “I had no idea it was more than just a friendly hangout,” Jose says. “It was very innocent.”

Despite that early flirtation, it would be years before Jose, a brand and marketing manager, and Surage, an advertising account manager, formally began dating. For Jose, it was important that her parents approved, so once when Surage asked her and her parents to dinner, during a moment alone with them, he asked for their blessing.

“We were both quite nervous,” Jose recalls.

Surage agrees: “It was almost like we were back in time, courting.”

Family continued to be a driving force for the couple. When they travelled to the Philippines in November 2019 to visit Jose’s family, Surage planned to propose at a waterfall Jose loved as a child, but then had a spontaneous change of heart.

A reluctant karaoke singer, he surprised her during a joint birthday party with her mom by requesting that Jose duet with him on Lionel Richie’s “Stuck on You.” “That’s the song I sing in the shower,” he says, “so I’m familiar with it and I knew I wouldn’t screw up the words.”

After they’d sung the final notes, Surage pulled out an engagement ring. “He was asking me to marry him in a really low voice,” Jose recalls. “I couldn’t even make out what he was saying. He took out this ring and I just assumed he was proposing. I said yes, and then I gave him a slap in the face. I was just so shocked, like, ‘What are you doing?’ But it was so cute.”

When it came to planning their wedding, they knew they wanted to have it on the anniversary of their first date, July 24. In 2021, it fell on a Saturday, making it the perfect choice.

When COVID-19 hit, they didn’t worry at first. After all, their wedding date was still more than a year away. But as it got closer, the pandemic continued to rage.

The couple created multiple guest lists, from a 250-person best-case scenario to a 10-person group of immediate family. Thankfully, restrictions in Ontario lifted to allow for indoor gatherings of 50 just a week before their date.

Ultimately 46 guests RSVP’d for the Toronto wedding. Jose found her wedding dress at the Toronto boutique Ferré Sposa and, for the reception, wore a modern take on the traditional Filipiniana dress by local designer Jillian Joy.

She had originally thought to pay tribute to her late father by having a dress made from his clothes, only to be talked out of it by her mother. Instead, she opted to wear a favourite dress shirt of his as she got ready.

Little did she know that Surage had a surprise up his sleeve. The day of the wedding, he gave her a tie for her bouquet with her father’s photo on it. “He wanted me to feel like my dad was there, walking with me down the aisle,” Jose says.

That wasn’t the only surprise of the day. When Jose arrived at her hair appointment, she asked for her long locks to be gathered into a braid. But while sitting in the chair and anxiously scrolling through Instagram, she spied a wavy bob with bangs.

“The next time I am here, I want us to cut my hair this short with bangs,” she told stylist Diana Lee. “Well, why don’t we cut it today?” Lee replied.

Surage couldn’t take his eyes off his bride — and her brand-new bangs — as she walked down the aisle. “I was trying to figure out if that was Kim!” he says.

Since their Catholic service didn’t allow for custom vows, they stole a quiet moment at the brunch reception at the Drake Commissary. “It was the first time during the day when it was just Kim and me,” Surage says. “I was holding in tears, but I got through it.”

“I wanted to look Ian in the eyes and tell him how grateful I was that we were finally husband and wife,” the bride says. “It was a moment to take in the day so far, but also the last 12 years, and to look ahead to what we are going to start to build together.”

Jose, a self-described crier, says she maintained her composure (and saved her makeup) until their first dance to Coldplay’s “Yellow,” sung live by her sister and a family friend. “I was the most antsy out of everybody to just marry this guy,” she says. “During that first dance, hearing my sister sing the words that we would always sing to each other, I couldn’t believe it had finally happened.”