The former Kristine "Kaye" Liwag, 25 and an IBM trainor, wasn’t particularly looking for that person when she met her future husband, Ricky Velasco, 28 and the proprietor of a pharmacy cum convenience store in Fort Bonifacio. And she certainly didn’t expect to "find" him through the kind of circumstance that she herself was never a big fan of

—the blind date.

I found myself agreeing to it, though," Kaye recalls. "I figured that since we were being introduced by our common friends who are also a couple, it would be easy for me to get out of it in case in didn’t turn out well."

Fortunately for Ricky, it was what Kaye herself considered "love at first sight." They hit it off right away during their very first meeting on January 4, 2005, at the Manila Peninsula. "The next day, he was already standing outside our house," Kaye enthused. "So what else can I do?"

Well, she could have turned him away, but she didn’t. And because she didn’t, Ricky and Kaye have been constantly together and virtually inseparable since then. They were pretty much dating each other every single day. Kaye says it was easy for them to find something in common because they had so much in common. "For starters, we were both madaldal. Ricky and I can talk for hours.

All that time spent together eventually made them realize how much they never wanted to be apart. So after dating for several months, andjust two weeks after Kaye’s birthday, Ricky popped the question.

"Oh, his proposal is quite a story in itself," Kaye fondly narrated. "We were having dinner with our parents at Sugi and I was surprised and slightly upset when I saw him give flowers to my mom…and those were really nice flowers. I thought, how come I don’t have flowers?"

Ricky then went out for a while and came back with flowers that looked like they had been picked right outside the restaurant. "The flowers were nowhere near as nice as those that he gave my mom; they were actually wilting already. It was then that he proposed marriage to me, but I didn’t see the ring right away because it was hidden among the flowers. My mom had to point it out to me. Turns out they and the waiters at the restaurant were in on the whole thing."

Planning naturally came afterwards. Kaye credits her future mother-in-law, who she describes as "the best wedding coordinator," for the wonderful job of putting their wedding together. "She helped me choose my wedding gown, which was designed by Paul Cabral, as well as our other wedding suppliers, including our photographer, Dino Lara; hair and make-up, by Fanny Serrano; designer and florist Robert Blancaflor; and coordinator Bridal Cortege, whom we hired on the wedding day itself."

So on October 24, about nine months after they were introduced on a blind date, Robert and Kaye Velasco became man and wife in a beautiful ceremony held at the Sanctuario De San Jose in Greenhills, followed by an equally memorable reception at the Manila Polo Club.

Looking back, Kaye believes that it was fate that brought them together. "I had just come from a five-year relationship that didn’t work out when I met Ricky, and at that time, we both weren’t particularly looking for someone we could settle down with. I never imagined marrying someone I met on a blind date."

See, that’s the thing; while there are some of us who do spend an entire lifetime looking for that one person who will make everything all right from that moment on, there are also people like Ricky and Kaye, who are truly fortunate for having found each other at the right place at the right time. And as it turned out, that blind date was actually the right circumstance for them, too.