The super wealthy Lorenzo family, to which singer Claudia Barretto married into on 8 April, had no influence on turning the father of the bride, inactive actor Dennis Padilla, into a mere “visitor of the bride” during the Claudia-Basti Lorenzo wedding held at  St. James The Great Parish, Ayala Alabang Village, Muntinlupa City. 

Sometime-actor and sometime-politician Marjorie Barretto, the mother of the bride, has revealed to vlogger-former comedian Ogie Diaz in an interview in his YouTube vlog on 11 April that it was her daughter Claudia herself who decided some three or four weeks before the nuptials not to give her estranged father, Padilla, the honor of walking her down the aisle and handing her over to her groom, businessman Basti Lorenzo.

The mother also boldly revealed that Claudia’s original decision was not to invite her estranged father at all but she (Marjorie) convinced Claudia that her father had to be at the wedding just the same — and had to be seated in the front pew, alongside the unannounced wedding sponsors (though it was later revealed that the showbiz-politician couple Richard Gomez and Lucy Torres were among the sponsors). Marjorie stressed that the front row was the VIP area in that wedding event.

Marjorie confided to Diaz that one of the reasons Claudia met with her father on 18 March, along with her older sister Julia and younger brother Leon, was to sweetly and serenely reveal to Padilla two conditions he had to keep to be invited to her wedding: he will not walk her down the aisle and he will not reveal any details about the singular occasion. 

Marjorie disclosed that her ex-husband Padilla brought his mother to that reunion with his children. Padilla has never revealed that he brought along his mother to that meeting so she can also re-bond with their grandmother. What Padilla revealed to Diaz soon after the wedding was he (Padilla) also met his would-be son-in-law, Basti, later in that reunion with his (Padilla’s) children. (And it was Padilla’s first time ever to meet Basti).

Claudia, according to Marjorie, informed Padilla that she will walk alone to the altar to meet her groom. Marjorie assured Diaz that she only met Claudia halfway to the altar, raised the daughter’s veil from covering her face since it is a tradition in weddings that the bride joins the groom with her face not veiled at all.