The water reached her knees, and the dress floated as if it had a life of its own.
This is how Jamaica Aguilar walked toward the altar of Barasoain Church in Malolos, Philippines, in July 2025. Typhoon Wipha had intensified the season’s monsoon rains and turned the ceremony aisle into a mirror of brown water.
On the other side, Jade Rick Verdillo waited, dressed in an embroidered Barong Tagalog, the traditional Filipino garment reserved for special occasions.
They knew it could happen. They had anticipated it days earlier, but neither wanted to postpone what they had been waiting for so long. “All marriages have their challenges”, Verdillo would say afterward, as if the flooding were merely the first of many they would face together.
The photos by photographer Aaron Favila, of the AP news agency, went around the world within hours—and with them, the question of how many people would be willing to do the same for love.
