5.10pm

The church ceremony was at 5.30pm. It was 5.10pm and I was upstairs, alone with just the photographers and bel bambino. The clock was actually 15 minutes fast but I wasn't to know that. I had to get dressed, I had to get married in 20 minutes and there was no one there to help me. Bel marito was in the room next door so I was like a trapped animal, pacing up and down unable to leave the room. The photographers thought I was a lunatic, I was behaving like one, screaming and yelling like a banshee. I was going crazy and opened the door yelling out for someone to come up and help me. My twin was downstairs with her 20 month and 8 month old boys, my sister was down stairs with her 6 year old and 3 month old, my mum and aunt were helping them until my wild screams bought my aunt up to rescue me.


Shortly my twin and my sister followed with our new wrist corsages. The florist had re-done them, they were still a little ugly but better than before. Mine had an entire box of glitter sprayed onto it, so bel bambino and anyone else I touched was too covered in silver glitter. With what I thought was 10 minutes to spare I got dressed. 2 minutes to spare, or so I thought and I stress fully yanked my shoe onto my foot and what would happen, yep, you guessed it, the strap broke. Old pins were found, my shoe was sort of mended as we realised that the clock was fast and we had about 10 minutes to spare.

Here, in small village Italy it is custom for the bride and grooms family to visit them at home before following them to the church. People in small villages, if distance permits, walk to the church. Family come for a little drink before hand, you leave the house and they throw rice on you, and then walk behind you to the church. We, having an nontraditional wedding got ready and left from the same house, so bel marito left first, his family following him and a few minutes later I walked out, had some rice thrown at me by onlookers and my family followed me to the church. Luckily it was a 3 minute walk and I got there almost in one piece. My broken shoe was about to rip my dress as the pins kept getting caught in the fabric. Luckily someone in my family had a band-aid (plaster) and my clever aunt wrapped it around the pins to save my dress.

I was standing outside, not sure what to do wondering who would tell me when to enter the church when I heard the music start. My aunt was still fixing my shoe at this stage and I was a little angry that no one had bothered to check I was ready before starting the music, but what ever...it was time.

Thankfully the stress mostly stops here. Getting married with a baby was never going to be a stress free affair. The wedding ceremony went perfectly, for 1.5 hours! The bilingual priest was lovely, he spoke of love and happiness and even did the baptism in English and Italian, his only fault was that he loved to talk, which he admitted, so much so that the parish priest had to come out and hurry him along.

So that is the end of my wedding saga. You'll only think I am crazy if I tell you anymore!

P.S my corsage only lasted until the end of the baptism. It was so poorly made that when I picked up a sleeping bel bambino the orchids fell to the floor. I had 2 roses left which I shoved into the ribbon so at least I would have something on my wrist since I had no bracelet on me!

P.P.S Bel bambino was so good, he was woke up when the water was poured onto his head and he didn't even cry. He just looked around curiosuly and smiled!
My page boys, my sisters 6 year old and my twins 20 month old.

My twin carried bel bambino.

My brother, sister me and twin.

3 p.m

I just couldn't relax at the hair dressers, I couldn't stop thinking about those disgusting flowers. I was fuming...I couldn't sit still which was not helping the hair dresser and as I was telling her the story my aunt walked in. She just wanted to escort my gran to have her hair done, but I stopped her from returning saying that she had to tell bel marito to call the florist and tell them that I wanted my corsage made again, I wanted the massacred flowers to go back to her shop and be made into something slightly acceptable. Why should my family waste their time trying to fix the mess when the florist should be doing it.

Once my hair was done (lovely I must say, the hair dressers in Malito are fabulous) I went home and for about 2 minutes bel marito and I tried not to see each other but it is impossible to have a discussion with someone without looking at them, so it was decided that it didn't matter if he saw my hair before the wedding and we soon were face to face. He had called the florist who said she would try and re-do the corsages if someone went to her and explained what I wanted. No one would let me go, it was 3p.m by this stage so bel marito had said he would go! He is just too kind sometimes, always the peace keeper, always wanting to make me happy, and I told him it was ridiculous for him to waste time at the florist, he was the groom after all! In the end my sister-in-law and her mother (the florists friend) went after I had explained to her over the phone what I had always wanted.

1.20pm

Knock knock.

Who's there?
The florist, that's who!

No, it is no joke. It is the start of a horror story.

Bel marito and I had simple flowers for the wedding. I had never wanted a bouquet so had visited a local, wonderfully talented florist and ordered 3 wrist corsages for my twin - maid of honour, sister - bridesmaid and I, some buttonholes for the men and 3 flowers for my grandmother, mother and mother in law to pin onto their dresses. When bel marito was simply my bel ragazzo he had surprised me one birthday with a stunning bunch of red roses. The florist, as is her style, had sprayed them delicately with glitter, placed sparkly pins in the centre of the roses and made them look amazing - it sounds tacky but they were the most beautiful arrangement I had ever seen.

We had gone in person to order the corsages as I had a photo of what I wanted. I took my twins shawl so we could find flowers to match and I gave a detailed description. The price was reasonable, I had faith in her and was looking forward to getting the flowers.

It was previously agreed that we would collect the flowers at 1.00pm but the florist was a friend of a friend and said they would be delivered. A delivery man walked into the hectic kitchen which looked like the bomb site of a kindergarten...toys, food scraps, nappies and people everywhere. By this stage there were 5 children under 6 years of age in the house, 4 of them being 20 months and under. The man placed the flowers on the table and like a greedy child I ripped off the lid and looked at my flowers. I am not a woman who is able to hide her emotions, nor can I always control my tongue 'sono disgustoso!' they are disgusting!!!! I cried.

I stared in horror at the site before me, picking up this jungle of a corsage that was apparently mine. There was greenery a mile long sticking out in every directions and some boring white orchids stuck in the middle. Under the flowers was enough wire mesh to house hundreds of chickens, actually it looked like some over the top races fascinator, not my simple, elegent wedding corsage. This thing was beyond disgusting. My sister and twin had deep red dresses and their wrist corsages were full of orange roses, outlined naturally in a shade of pink. You couldn't find flowers to clash worse with the dress if you tried.
I had ordered 3 flowers for the 3 women to wear, the same obviously, but there was 1 orchaid womans buttonhole and about 10 rose buttonholes, 2 so massive and heavy with this damned greenery and jipp which I assumed was for the other 2 women unless bel marito wanted to look like a clown. I don't know who the excess botton holes were for, but didn't care. I was beyond crying at this stage. I was angry. The delivery man left discreetly whilst my grandmother and future sister in law tried to calm me down, saying they would take apart the flowers and try to remake them. Everyone agreed they were horrifically ugly especially with this massive wire ball which stood about 3cm tall and was meant to touch our wrist before this carnidge of flowers began. I wish I had taken a photo...but there was no time as I was being pushed out of the door by my sister and twin and taken down the road to the hair dressers, leaving my corsage fate in the hands of my gran and future sister in law.

Wedding Day - 9am

My wedding day started well enough. I managed to get a sleep in, a mothers sleep in that is which meant I was up at 8am. Bel bambino, the early riser that he often is, woke earlier but the benefit of having 20 odd Australians in Malito with 12 of them being in your actual house was that we left him with my family as we ran back to bed.

Since our wedding, our relationship, had never been traditional, we slept in the same bed the night before the wedding and spent all the time up until getting dressed together; I wasn’t going to be the only tired person at my wedding! The morning started well but by about 9.00am everything went haywire. A lot of it was my fault, but not all of it. We were not only getting married that day, it was also bel bambino’s baptism. The wedding ceremony was going to be done in English and Italian thanks to us finding a bilingual priest. The rites of marriage had to be in Italian but I said my vowels and ring exchange all in English whilst bel marito said his in Italian. I even got the priest to say ‘you may now kiss the bride’ in English which is not so common I think in Italian weddings. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The church was at 5.30pm and we are still in the morning.

Since the rites of marriage was in Italian I wanted the baptism to be in English. We had been to visit the priest a few nights before the wedding to go through the wedding plans, but I was under the impression his church was in Cosenza and it was not, so by the time we found the church in a mountainous town we only had a 2 second chat before we had to rush off. I had remembered badly, as you do when you have 100000000 other things to do, and thought the priest had said he didn’t need me to print the English baptism booklet for him. Bel marito not trusting my memory made me call the priest, on the morning of the wedding since I had tried the day before but there was no answer and I forgot to try again. So my bad memory was confirmed, the priest wanted the baptism in English and I in my emotional state (tears for now and tantrums later) didn’t know what to do. The internet was so slow I don’t know why I bothered using it, the websites impossible to find, and when I finally found some random sermon it was so stupidly random talking a lot about the devil that my twin told me to let it go and have the baptism in Italian.
It has been said that I am stubborn, ok, it is a well know fact that I am so, and I wouldn’t give up but in the end I had to give in. I had to because if I didn’t stop crying my eyes would be puffy before the wedding even began.

Once I had calmed down, waited in line to have a shower since being a bride doesn't always mean you get precedence, and once I was feeling almost my normal self, ready to go to the hair dressers there was a knock on the door.

Promessa

I'm still here, still alive and well but so, so busy. I work 6 days a week, spend the majority of my free time playing with bel bambino, and the other random free moments are spent planning our wedding which is only 7 weeks away! So much to do still!

We made our promessa on Saturday...I almost didn't make it, what with the Giro D'Italia (the national bike race) taking place without my knowledge and blocking my roads home, forcing me to cry like a lunatic in front of the carabinieri, befriending some locals who half escorted me through the Calabrian mountains until finally, finally I got home, thanks to an old man that is who thankfully was wandering the mountains and was able to tell me I was driving in the wrong direction and had to turn back.

So, with hair still wet and a blood shot eye from having had a way too fast shower I made it to the comune and promised myself to my bel fidanzato. The promessa is done in the church and the town hall (the church only if you then intend to marry in the church.) You have to sign legal documents saying you are both free to marry, and that within 6 months you will marry. I hope we can marry within 6 months, in 7 weeks to be precise...it depends on my mother really. Whilst we had the church promessa Friday night, the priest casually let slip that I needed a freedom of marriage certificate signed by the bishop....What?!!! He forgot to tell me earlier. Yeah, thanks buddy. I knew I had to get copies of my baptism and confirmation certificate and mum had taken care of that, but what on earth is this freedom to marry thing. I don't live in Australia, I haven't lived there for about 9 years and my mum's parish priest doesn't even know me so how am I to get this document... As the Italians say boh!

Hand made wedding invitations

I was searching around for specific paper to use for the inside of our wedding invitation booklets. I wanted something that would go with my handmade books, but I couldn't seem to find anything in the shops or on the internet. Bel fidanzato's brother said why didn't I make my own. He had seen a television program where they used normal white printer paper and 'painted' it with coffee to give it an old, antique effect. That got me thinking, why didn't I just make them myself?


When we were little, I remember the delight my twin and I used to take in decorating school projects. If we wanted to make an old looking document we used to do just that, cover the paper with coffee and then maybe burn the edges a little bit. Simple, yet effective. My only concern was that the paper would look like a children's school project, but with time on my side, I decided to give it a try. If successful, it would be a money saving option.

Up to this minute I have not actually spent one single cent on making the invitations. The booklets are hand-made recycled paper, which I just used odd bits of scraps, the decorations are mostly wild flowers that I picked in the spring time, and even the glue was an old tub that I found lying around. I stole the white printer paper from my in-laws who had a stash of it, but of course no computer, or printer in the house! I was going to buy ink for the printer, but my sister-in-law works in a computer shop, and her boss gave her some left over ink cartridges for free. I never set out to make money less invitations, but hey...all the better for me if in the end I haven't spent anything!

Every time we made coffee, I would poor the left overs into a container.




I then found an old cloth to use as a paint brush.

Next I got an old, large cloth to not dirty the place, placed the white paper on top and dabbed the coffee onto the paper. If it dripped, or was uneven in parts then all the better. I used more then one coat to make the colour darker.

I was worried that the coffee smell would never go, but I left the paper outside when the weather was accommodating, and sure enough, there is no more odour of coffee.

Next I had to print the invitations which was easy seeing that the paper was already printer paper. I then cut the pages and glued them into my booklets. The English invitations are almost done, then I'll move on to the Italian ones. I still have a lot of paper to paint with coffee, especially now that I have decided to make the envelopes too! I was thinking of buying them, but again had the problem of finding something to match the booklets. It was bel fidanzato's mother this time who told me to make them myself. And yes, I thought, why not!

House update

Baby may be coming to live with us at the end of January, but that does not mean we'll be moving into our future home. That, unfortunately is still a long way off. Our future house is a lovely, old, stone building. I am not sure how old it is as we need to do some investigation into this, but about 50 years ago it used to be a school, a small school mind you, but a school none-the-less. Us living there is a long way off for 2 reasons: 1 we have only enough money at the moment to replace the roof, and secondly we have the world's slowest builders working for us. They have spent the summer taking off the old roof and they still haven't finished putting it back on. When people say you need patience to live in Italy they are NOT joking. These builders are slow because they take on more work then they can manage during the summer months. One day you see them working on your house, the next day at someone else's and it is not unusual for a week to go by and they don't do anything to your house at all. Annoyingly they cost less then other builders and when they get around to finishing do a good job...so for the time being we have to be patient.

When the builders started taking off the roof they found some unstable walls, so had to knock the walls down until they reached something secure. They then had to rebuild these walls, and also raise them as we want to have a usable 3rd level. Before it was not high enough to be a floor, but now it is.



Our house is obviously the one without the roof. It looks small compared to the beast of a 5-bathroom-who-knows-how-many-bedrooms-house behind us.

The builders have fitted all the wooden panels onto the roof and now just need to relay the old tiles, and add the drain pipes (or what ever they are called.) The bricks you see are where they re-laid the new walls, and it will have to stay looking like that for now. We can cover that at a later stage, but there is more important work to be done.



These photos were taken from our balcony as we use the zoom on the camera to spy on the builders from afar. I will take some more photos once they get around to laying the tiles. We then need quotes on how much it'll cost to relay all of the floors, as being old, most probably some of them will have to be destroyed and replaced nice, safe and evenly.

Bilingual priests

All is calm on the wedding front at the moment. The venue has been booked, my perfect dress has been found and someone to make it can wait for now, the invitations are half done and once my brother-in-law remembers to give me the printer then they can even be finished, I'm not bothering with booklets for the church and now the church too is sorted.

Bel fidanzato and I were a bit worried about what the parish priest would say. He, like the local doctor, is a fool of a man who makes up the rules as he goes along. Remember our issues when bel fidanzato was getting confirmed? Once we had decided to get married in the church (only to keep my mum happy) we knew that we did not want that priest for the ceremony. He is the dullest man alive and enjoys talking about irrelevant things at weddings. The main part of bel fidanzato's brothers wedding was the priest talking about the lotto and how we should not gamble. At a friends wedding a few weeks ago he talked about baptism and how we all need to be baptised - so you can see he rarely talks about love and what not.

We had to some how get rid of this priest, but without being offensive. We thought it would be hard, but it was not! We went to the church and explained that most of my family does not speak Italian, and we want to have a bilingual ceremony. We casually asked if he spoke English, knowing full well that he did not. The priest said no, and we pretended to um and ah, thinking of a solution. He suggested finding a translator to translate his words (as if!) then we suggested finding a bilingual priest. The priest didn't seem bothered and agreed, saying we can do as we please. (I don't think he really likes us.) We also mentioned that I was pregnant and we wanted to have a joint wedding/baptism. He said he had noticed that I was pregnant (no congratulations or anything, sour, old man) and said that too would not be a problem. Maybe it's because we are already living in sin, maybe it's because we had conflicts with the confirmation, maybe it's because I am pregnant out of wedlock, but he seemed eager to rid us from his church in a hurry. Whatever - we didn't care!

Now to find a bilingual priest, but that will not be a problem as there are a few floating around.

My wedding invitations

I am on holidays, bel fidanzato is not so I have been taking advantage of my time alone in the house to work on our wedding invitations. My work shop is the table in the living room and I do make a mess with the dried flowers, glitter, string, glue and other bits and bobs.

Here finally are some photos but please note they are not yet finished! I am still working my way through making all the front and back covers. We are going to have a small wedding, with about 90 people but I'll also have to make enough invitations for the people who will not be able to come. I however will not make the envelopes as that is just too much of a bother!

Weddings - an expensive affair in Italy

It's wedding year here in Malito. Bel fidanzato and I have been to so many already, and with one down last night, we have only (at this stage) 2 more to go until wedding season finishes. We all know that it is expensive to host a wedding, but here in Italy it is also expensive to attend a wedding.

Most couples let it be known if they want buste - envelopes (filled with money) or if they prefer gifts. Some people have gift registries like other countries, but I have never seen one for any of the weddings I have attended. The norm is to take a little, gift sized envelope with you and put some cash inside. Now, the amount of cash depends on the wealth of the givers and also their relationship with the married couple. The aim of the cash filled envelopes is that you are paying for your being at the wedding. You are paying for your meal technically, so the bride and groom don't get lumped with a massive bill at the end of the night. Normally you put a little extra in so they also end the night with some money left over for them and their new life together. 

Weddings here range from 65euro per head and up, up, up....and up some more. As a guide a guest will put a minimum of 100 euro per head into the envelope. So you can see what I mean with weddings being an expensive affair for the guests! The Italian weddings I have attended normally all follow the same protocol (I will go into detail in another post.) 

At the end of the rather massive meal you all go outside, normally by the swimming pool if there is one at the venue. There is always a lavish buffet of dessert set up and the big wedding cake. In Australia we cut the wedding cake half way through the meal, but in Italy they wait right till the end.

Once the dessert is underway, the bride and groom go and stand near a specially prepared table where they have the thank-you gifts set up, and a decorated box. This is the cue for the guests that they can begin to depart should they wish. Once you are ready to go home, you walk up to the couple, kiss them, thank them etc...and put your little envelope into the box which has a small slit in the top just for these. (I however hand make my little envelopes and cards and the other week it was too big to fit into the slit so the bride had to open the box to put it in!)

I think I'll have to get onto making myself a box for our wedding envelopes one of these days.

Such stress over sugared almonds

Our wedding is one year, 2 months and 3 days away but I have already selected - and ordered - the material for the bonbonniere...not that I've told anyone here.


Bel fidanzato's mum and his sister-in-law told me that I was mad to start making my bonbonniere now. As I mentioned in a previous post, I need to buy sugared almonds to place inside (I need to put either 3 or 5 inside the little material sack for good luck.) I was thinking of using silver and ivory tulle/organza but changed my mind after bel fidanzato's sister-in-law started going on and on that silver is the colour for the 25th wedding anniversary - not the right colour for a wedding. God forbid should I use the wrong colour! Bel fidanzato's mother said I could do whatever I wanted, but...well actually sister-in-law had a point and silver is the wrong colour - but I could do anything that I wanted. No pressure there!

My bel fidanzato will tell you that I am testa dura or testarda (he tells me everyday.) I agree, I am very stubborn, and don't always like to take advice from others, or listen to others opinions. I will mostly always do what I want regardless of what someone else says. Yes - not the best way to be, but that's me and it's too late to change!! So, while sister-in-law and mother-in-law were going on and on about silver I strolled over to the glass cabinet where there is a hefty collection of bonbonniere.

Sister-in-law I said, your bonbonniere is gold. Is that not the colour of the 50th wedding anniversary? Sister-in-law came over to the glass cabinet, took her wedding bonbonniere and said no, it's a dark ivory, not a light gold...

I pulled out another beautiful bonbonniere which is a large, dark pink, organza flower. Is this a wedding bonbonniere? I asked? Si, yes, it's from XXX wedding last year mother-in-law said. But is pink not the colour for baby girls?

The colour of my bonbonniere was not the main issue however. The issue with me making my bonbonniere now is rather simple, but rather complicated (just like Italy!!!)

I cannot buy the sugared almonds now as they may go off. I pointed out that the family was still eating the sugared almonds left over from sister-in-laws wedding last August and they are fine. It was agreed that technically sugar almonds last a long time BUT (and this is when it really stops making sense) if I buy the sugared almonds now, then by the time the wedding arrives they will be one year old and then if someone wants to open the bonbonniere and eat the almonds a year after the wedding, then they may have gone off - and wouldn't that be brutta figura. So I cannot buy the almonds now, on the off chance that some random guests will want to eat the almonds a year after my wedding, thinking that the almonds are only 1 year old (so still good) when in fact they are 2 years old.


So, now you see why I have bought the materials for the bonbonniere and soon I will buy the almonds, and make all my sacks and then hide them and not tell anyone that I have made them!

Getting married to an Italian

Bel fidanzato and I have more or less decided on our wedding date! It will most probably be the 9th of July 2011 which works well for my twin sister who will be coming over during uni holidays with her husband, my beautiful little nephew and my as-of-yet-unborn other little niece or nephew (yes, my twin is pregnant again...and with a baby as cute as this one below, you can't blame her!)

It will also be school holidays for my other nephew (below we are both feeding the babies) so he will not have to miss out on school - or not much anyway.

Our wedding will be rather low-key when compared to many Italian weddings. Coming from an Italian family myself, large, elaborate weddings are not new for me. I want to do as much myself as possible, and although the wedding is more than one year away I am going to start arranging the bomboniere.

Bomboniere (sometimes spelt differently, especially when looking on an English language website) is something that my family uses in Australia. I believe in the UK they are called wedding favours and basically it is a small gift that you give to wedding guests to thank them for coming to you wedding. The tradition started centuries ago with mainly French and Italian aristocrats. They used to give a box made of crystal, precious stones or other beautiful materials and inside they would place sugary sweets.

This tradition has spread to many nationalities, and today with the Italian weddings we give a little gift, and some sugared almonds wrapped in a material sack. Bel fidanzato's mother has all of her bomboniere, collected from many weddings and other special occasions stored in her glass cabinet. Bel fidanzato and I too have a little collection going and that is only from the weddings/parties we have attended here in Italy...not sure where all my Australian ones have gone. Probably packed away in my parents garage!

I prefer the tulle arrangements, and (at the moment) I am thinking of having 3 layers of tulle/organza:  light grey/silver, white and darker grey. White is nice and all, but I want something a little different! I have found on the internet lots of little tulle flowers, ribbon etc...as it is cheaper to buy them online, and saves me the hassle of hunting down fabric stores here.  I have an idea of a gift, but my twin has to go and source them as I saw them when I was last in Australia. I know it is very early to start arrangements, but as you may recall, we are in the process of saving money for our house (the new roof will hopefully go on this summer) so if I start buying little bits at a time it will not hit us so hard! 

Most of the time the parents pay for the weddings here in Italy, not all of it, but some of it (and in Australia too depending on the couples) but bel fidanzato and I want to pay for it ourselves.

So stay tuned for more wedding news!