At the airport, at the bank, in the random corners of the city, it happens the same way: “Uy, ikaw si NP, di ba?”
They may not always remember her name right away, but they remember the brand, and, at this point, it is practically a behemoth.
For 20 years, Charisse Tinio has been the face of Nice Print Photo, the wedding and events powerhouse that has documented some of the most talked-about milestones in local showbiz.
She did not know exactly how it came to be, but somewhere along the way, being the woman behind the lens stopped being her only role.
In the here and now, celebrity circles call her “Ninang ng Bayan.”
Read: Woman of Worth: Charisse Tinio, the woman behind Nice Print Photo
CHARISSE AS The Modern-Day Ninang
Traditionally, when Filipinos imagine a ninang, they picture a well-heeled tita in her 50s or 60s, possibly a septuagenarian who has already survived the school of hard knocks and is now dispensing advice like it’s candy at a reception.
Charisse laughs at that stereotype. She was only 28 when she was first asked to be a wedding godmother.
“Loko ka ba?” she remembers telling the groom, a cousin just a few years younger than her. “Pang-bridesmaid pa ako!”
But the groom insisted.
Why should godparents only be older family friends who show up once a year at reunions? Why not choose someone you actually talk to? Someone who knows your real life?
That small shift in thinking turned out to be prophetic.
As Nice Print grew, so did Charisse’s proximity to people’s most intimate moments. She makes it a point not to show up on the wedding day alone, but the whole nine yards.
She was their Day One. That’s literally what many celebrity clients call her: “Ate Char, our Day One.”
To understand why celebrities keep asking her to stand as godmother, you have to understand how she works.
She builds the team while in the process of documenting every step of the wedding.
Charisse hooks couples up with the right caterer, the right florist, and the right coordinator. She attends food tastings she technically doesn’t have to attend and shows up at ocular visits she could easily skip.
“I’m always present, kumbaga parang laging nandiyan. Puwede namang wala ako, but you know, I make time. Not just find time for them but really make time to be there."
She adds: “Para akong kapatid, Ate, that I will always guide them.
“So, I think they appreciate that and perhaps, they know that because they see my presence in their lives, they don't want it to end when the planning ends.
“Perhaps they want to extend it na beyond the wedding, I will always still be there for them so yeah, that's why I guess they get me as ninang.”
This approach is not exclusive to celebrities.
As she tells PEP.ph (Philippine Entertainment Portal) in an exclusive interview via Zoom: “Doesn’t happen only for celebrities, even for non-celebrities. Pag meron akong, let’s say, anak ng friend na magde-debut or magwe-wedding, naku, ako pa yung super duper excited.
“I will meet with them. Ako yung punong-abala. I will give them suggestions. I guess it’s very natural for me to do that because I really am in love with what I do and it really doesn’t feel like work every day.”
How about when she organizes her own family’s events?
“It’s the same amount of love and dedication, and detailing. I think I’m really in the right world and business because I really enjoy hosting.
“I like bringing people together and, sometimes, you know, it’s a cliché pero para bang when you bring people together, I don’t do parties just because, wala, gustong mag-party, e? Ora-ora. Hindi, e.
“The deeper meaning to it is, I just really always wanna bring people together. I want people to enjoy.
“I like, I like cooking, I like great conversations over food. So that’s always the heart of the things that I do. In everything that I do, I always put my heart into it.”
Is it planned? Strategic? A bundled package with the photo-video contract?
“Fifty-fifty,” she laughs.
Half the time, couples ask her outright from the get-go. These are the ones she’s known for years—former debutantes she has watched grow into brides, birthday celebrants she has documented since they were teenagers, families she has journeyed with across milestones.
Twenty years in, some relationships are already decades deep.
But the other half are the surprising ones: “There are also some na first time ko ma-meet and then magkakapalagayan ng loob, mapapamahal.
“And then throughout the process they will ask me, ‘Ate Char, we have something to tell you.’ And then I say, ‘Oh, what?’
“Sabi nila, ‘Would you be my ninang? Would you be our ninang cause you’re just like our fairy godmother. You’ve helped us so much and we don’t know where we could have started without you.’ Yung mga ganun.
“So, nakakataba ng puso siyempre when you hear that.”
The Excel Sheet of Inaanak
If weddings are one half of the story, baptisms are the other. Charisse keeps an Excel spreadsheet of her godchildren.
Her inaanak roster reads like a who’s who of showbiz families, from the children of Pauline Luna and Camille Prats to Jennylyn Mercado’s son and many more.
At kiddie parties, she jokes that it feels like a reunion, with the godchildren rushing to greet their ninang.
“At parties, tatayo lahat ng bata—‘Ninang!’ Nakakatuwa kasi kahit lumalaki sila, they still remember you. And I still see them every year anyway because Nice Print documents their birthdays. So sabay kaming lumalaki—sila as kids, kami as a company.”
With the number of weddings and baptisms she’s been part of, one would think there would be at least one polite decline.
There isn’t.
She has never said no to being a ninang. Not once.
Despite the risk of it being impractical or unhealthy to stretch herself so thin, she chooses to heed her mom’s advice.
She was raised to believe that being asked to stand as ninang is a blessing. In true Filipino fashion, there’s even a hint of pamahiin attached to it. Some elders would say it’s malas to refuse.
But for her, it’s less superstition and more perspective.
“There’s nothing bad about becoming a ninang,” she says. “It’s a blessing. So you accept it — so you can also be a blessing to them.”
She recalls being literally one call away—oftentimes even quicker to respond than Google.
When celebrity parents text her at odd hours asking for math tutors, Halloween tutu suppliers, or last-minute recommendations, she laughs about it, but, she always responds.
Looking ahead, she hopes her godchildren—now many, many years’ worth of them—remember her not for the glamor of the weddings or the scale of the events, but for the feeling she tried to leave behind.
“Genuine love,” she says simply.
“I hope they remember the heart I put into everything, na hindi lang siya trabaho. That I was real with them. That I cared. That I was there—on their day one, and hopefully, many days after.”
In the end, that may be the secret to it all.
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