On Saturday we went to our first proper Italian wedding. The couple with the ringside view was Desiree and Walter, our most unitalian sounding friends. Walter? Surely Germanic. Desiree? Got to be New Orleans. But no, they’re Italian to the blood, Marchigiani in fact. Desiree was one of the many brave souls who took us on as Italian students and we immediately hit it off. She used to trek out to our house from the relatively urban setting of San Elpidio, taxi-ed by Walter who would spend the duration of the lesson sitting in the car enjoying the countryside tranquillity as a chance to catch up on studies for his philosophy doctorate. One day we eventually persuaded her to let him come in and friendship, through an unlikely shared love of obscure West coast indie pop, was sealed.
The wedding was a truly delicious event and, as ever with Italian social occasions, held some lessons for us Brits.
The guests all gathered in the evening around the beautiful church standing tall in the piazza of San Elpidio al Mare. The group was fantastically diverse in dress choice alone – from Miami Vice white suits to the latest designer confections, from edgily modern to charmingly old-fashioned, from spent a week getting ready to just popped out. Walter was amongst the waiting guests, excitedly chattering to all and sundry. Everything was literally and metaphorically out in the open. There was no hiding away the precious couple ready for a big Hollywood reveal: when Desiree arrived (late! She always is!) and stepped out of the car, everyone cheered and chatted at a greater pace. She and the rest of the guests all walked in to the church together. Lovely. Whenever I have spoken to girlfriends who have been through the wedding ‘thing’ (Jason and I, despite a five year long engagement and two children haven’t quite got round to it) about that moment where they have to appear in the church, wrapped up like fragile parcels and gawped at like beautiful mute swans, as somewhere on a line between nerve-racking and horrific. There was none of that here – the occasion was still special and all about the couple, but the more so for their being allowed to be a part of things not apart from things.
And so it continued. The priest had doubled as a maths teacher in younger life so knew both Desiree and Walter from their childhoods; this leant an intimacy to the proceedings which also felt new. It was quite a long service – much less the ‘wedding ceremony’ complete with music full of pomp and circumstance of Britain and much more a sort of ‘wedding flavoured service’. People wandered in and out, sat down, stood up, were relaxed in a way that is impossible for most of the heathens forced awkwardly into churches for their once a year wedding shot. And the bit that always jumps out in the UK version – when friends and family are called upon for an underpowered ‘we do’ to support the couple through thick and thin – was writ large large large here. We really were all in it together. For them.
The reception was in the grounds – the driveway, the pool, every bit of surround – of Walter’s parents’ lovely nearby home. Thank God we know enough about Italian eating now to know that the twenty five tables laid out with every imaginable delicious morsel, not to mention the twenty waiters circulating with trays – were only the antipasti! The sit down meal that followed lasted for the next 3 or 4 hours, throughout which time Walter and Desiree bustled around, together and separately chatting and joking around with guests. How refreshing. It’s another British wedding bugbear that you often only get to say a quick hello to the bride and groom as somehow they are too busy! Doing what?! 
Only once everyone is drunk and they hit the dancefloor are normal human relations allowed to be restored. Here there was the high table – the highest ever in fact, perched up above the swimming pool, setting the guests off against the sky like a crazed Di Chirico painting. But no-one was stuck up there, they came down from haven and amongst their fellow men.
The speech situation presented another interesting difference. Every time Walter appeared, someone would start shouting ‘Speech! Speech!’ but as soon as he’d start saying anything they’d shout ‘Basta! Basta!’ ‘Enough!’ There was no pomp allowed. It was just a great party. We left around 3am and we were among the early ones. Thank you Desiree and Walter and we wish you the happiest life together.
