Auguri!
Our good friends Alessandro and Deborah snuck away to the crisp cold of Moscow this morning, but not until after a wonderful wedding celebration that lasted all day yesterday. Congratulations to Deborah and Alessandro--married after sixteen years of dating! Talk about a committed couple!Antonello was the best man, so we had finger foods at Alessandro's house before heading up to Recanati for the wedding. It was beautiful--Deborah was dressed for a winter wonderland--her dress irredescent white and pink, gold dust in her hair--and Alessandro looked handsome in his three piece suit. The church inside was beautifully baroque: yellow frescoed celings and rows of altars. It was filled on this second Wednesday in December: the feast of the Immaculate Conception. In the back of the church, an organ played while a woman sang Ave Maria. I snuck pictures of Antonello as he signed the marriage documents while a toddler nearby called out "What's going on? Are you taking a PIC-ture?" Her father hushed her immediately.
After the service, we realized almost everyone had forgotten to bring rice to throw, and Antonello and I, with the help of our wonderfully childlike friend Massimo, searched door to door until we found someone to donate a sack of rice. Just in time--we ran back to the church to find Alessandro and Deborah just ready to exit, and we handed out fistfuls of rice to everyone. Auguri was shouted, rice was thrown, Alessandro and Deborah were married!
When I thought back about it later that evening as we gathered for dinner at the reception, I remembered that Alessandro and Deborah were two of the three people we had met immediately six years ago--that first evening out, practicing our bad Italian at Le Quattro Porte bar. Antonello was the other person. It is a good feeling to see these people you've known for years finally get married--and know that they are exactly right for each other. Now, watching Deborah dance with her father to the music from the band, me taking pictures of Antonello and Alessandro together after the wedding, it's wonderful to say that these were my friends from the start, here in Italy, and now they have finally gotten married. They were there at our wedding. It was wonderful to be in Recanati for theirs--sixteen years in the making!
Congratulations to Deborah and Alessandro! Tanti tanti auguri!
Erin and Corrie--we missed you!
-Jackie
