A Tuscan Wedding-The Second Day: The “Catholic” Wedding and a Bad 55 Seconds of Dancing!

 The morning of the second day of Wedding Weekend started with breakfast that included salami, prosciutto and regional cheeses—not our usual morning nutritional start, but one I could get used to very easily.  We were all staying in the “Medieval Village” section of Il Borro, which included little artisan shops tucked away between the little streets and the gorgeous vistas.  

But really, we had to get ready for the “Catholic wedding.” It was not a Catholic service as the officiant, our niece, had attended law school not the seminary… plus, Rome still is adverse to females running the religious show.  I think because Day 3 included the Hindu Wedding ceremony it was helpful not to confuse the two ceremonies.  It just made sense to call Saturday’s ceremony, the Catholic one.  As there were no priests attending the wedding weekend, I doubt that any of us Catholics would get in trouble—although I think Bob’s Jesuit cousin must have turned over in his grave at our near  blaspheme! 

Getting prepared meant sharing an iron.  For Bob and I, who had already been traveling for more than a week, and when we arrived in Tuscany we quickly noticed that our multiple days of wedding clothes needed some pressing.  Fortunately, our villa was well-equipped with both an iron and board.  The kids’ rooms  however, did not include this amenity and apparently our pressing equipment became a hot commodity throughout the Village because everyone seemed to have arrived with very wrinkled dress clothes. I had inadvertently given the attendant the iron thinking it was going to my daughter-in-law but its first-stop was not her! I made the attendant swear that she would return my (I  recognize my possessiveness) iron so that all our families’ clothes could be in tip-top shape for the many events. 

The “Catholic” ceremony was to begin outdoors at 4:30 pm and we all rushed, umbrellas in-hand, as the weather was threatening, to make sure that we were on time.  We needn’t have worried because we were one of the first guests to arrive and the flowers were still being set-up.  We learned that it wasn’t unusual for things to begin later here, but I found that tough to accept, largely due I think, to my continued, never-ending Catholic guilt.  We continued to be “on time” for everything but drew the line at every event and didn’t offer to help the florists set-up. 

The rain did hold off and the bride, the ceremony and even the flowers were beautiful. Clearly, the florists didn’t need my help. 

The reception was equally beautiful but there was a snag in it for us.  Before the night was over, my sister-in-law, her friend, my daughter, daughter-in-law and I, as relatives of the groom, had to perform an Indian dance for all 200 guests. I had watched “Slum dog Millionaire” and “The Great Marigold Hotel,” Parts 1 and 2, several times and I knew those post-wedding dances were serious business. Unfortunately, we talked about it a lot but in retrospect, we were not as serious as we should have been.  In fact, we never even practiced together and my sister-in-law’s friend and I practiced once in the street because we just ran into each other by happenstance. We thought that the dance was only 55 seconds long—how bad could we be?  The result: pretty bad.  Suffice it to say that the dancers in the three movies have nothing to worry about from this groom’s family.  

Tomorrow is the culmination of the weekend with the Hindu ceremony—and all of us in our Indian attire. I assumed that getting my outfit’s zipper up may be a challenge.