Old Cameras
Wedding day. Dense clouds enshroud the valley below, and a thick dew covers the otherwise dry hills. I stack in breakfast and wait for Brian’s cousin to come pick me up to take me to the wedding preparations at the villa. JP arrives shortly, and we fruitlessly do a brief search for a grocery store of some sort, as the villa is without supplies, and people are anticipating breakfast. Instead, JP makes a run out into the villa’s garden and scrounges up whatever presents itself to a makeshift breakfast. Cabbage and tomato salad with scrambled eggs and peppers is the menu and nobody complains, though I’m quite happy to have tucked in handsomely at my own hotel previously.
Wedding preparations for myself resemble the army with a hurry up and wait attitude. Now that I’m actually at the villa, there seems no press for me to be there at all, and I doze off by the pool while the wedding chaos swirls around me. And chaos it is, the villa is as remote as any destination in my homestate of Wyoming, on top of a remote ridge, accessible only by a treacherous gravel dirt road that twists and turns, and denies many of the italian vehicles passage as they stall out on the steep road.
The wedding planner seems to be a particular problem, strong language follows almost any phone conversation with her, and I am particularly glad that it’s not my problem. “Don’t have a wedding in Italy,” Alyssa advises, the bride to be passing on her hard learned intelligence.
Eventually the wedding commences, me in my tuxedo playing the role of usher in this bridal party, amid a fantastic landscape harboring an extravagant villa. The decorations are rather amazing, the piles and piles of flowers rivaling nothing I’ve seen since the day my uncle was wed some twenty years ago to a senator’s daughter (niece?) in Washington DC. The day however is murderously warm, and rivers of sweat run down my chest in the confines of my three piece.
Something hitches in the chamber orchestra. Our wedding party is extremely short, and the orchestra keeps repeating their last page of music because the wedding planner hasn’t communicated to them that the wedding procession has ended. The music drags on and on, the orchestra looking more and more desperate as nobody comes up, Alyssa in full bridal garb getting more and more frustrated as her bridal music has not played to allow her to process down the aisle. Eventually, Alyssa’s sister takes charge, informing them to change the music, and Alyssa finally makes her appearance, resplendent in a mermaid style bridal dress. For the rest of us, it is a relief that things can move on, as mascara melts in the afternoon heat, and the flower petals we’re supposed to shower the bride and groom with are rapidly wilting.
When they are finally wed, they take off for their pictures, and the rest of us lounge around, drinking strange orange Italian drinks, and eating fancy h’ordeurs. Here I get to watch two families attempting to interact as they’re brought together in the periphery of marriage. A couple characters instantly stand out amongst the family. Paul, is Brian’s stepdad, and is a self-admitted redneck from Alabama. He’s got a stash of beer in the fridge which he indulges in frequently, and I take an instant liking to the fellow and his rustic edges. In many ways, his unease with the unknown, in food, drink, and Italy, are something I can empathize with in my own Wyoming roots. Though I’ve long since moved on in my regard for the world, I sense a comforting colloquialism in Paul’s mannerisms and world outlook. The other character is Larry, Brian’s birth father. The man has a lazy eye that Brian has inherited slightly, but his conversation and history make for fascinating listening, and I am entertained by his stories, and large heart laced with scar tissue from an emotionally strained life.
Finally, late in the evening, the bride and groom return, allowing the jazz set to leave, and for us to proceed to our wedding dinner. A sumptuous spread is put before us, filet mignon, lobster, and an excellent pasta in a well reduced sauce, a spread of red and white wines, and an abundance of champagne. Even the bread here is good, which is a surprise, as for the past few days, I have been entirely underwhelmed by Italian bread, which up to this point I’ve considered to be bland and without character whatsoever.
As dinner ends, we make our way to the opposite side of the building for the wedding cake. A very modern affair, which is enhanced by a spread of fireworks; this has now officially gotten to be quite the extravagant event.
And also the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Apparently we were supposed to get an extravagant fireworks show, as opposed to the merely dazzling one, and Aylssa’s tensions with the wedding planner comes to a head, the yelling brought indoors as various members of the family try to assist the situation.
For the rest of us, there is wedding cake, and ridiculously sumptuous desserts that I dig into to ignore the war going on inside. Eventually the wedding planner leaves in a flurry of shouts, doing their best to avoid a stall out on the road outbound and having to face the disgrace of coming back to face Alyssa.
The mood has dipped considerably, but we patch that up with a flurry of shots and moves on the dance floor. Larry now busts out his hidden weapon, the man is quite well versed in many forms of dance, and he leads many a woman out onto the floor, schooling them on the floor right and left. I haven’t put this much effort into dancing since the last wedding a year ago, but I discover that tuxedo shoes slip and slide on the dance floor, making previously unobtainable dance moves suddenly easy, although treacherous as more then once I almost end up on my face.
The night finally ends with Alyssa and Brian diving in full wedding regalia into the pool, much to my shock. I’m strongly tempted to follow suit, but refrain as I don’t want to take the spotlight off the bridal couple, nor am I particularly interested in racking up additional charges on my rental tuxedo in the event of inadvertently ruining something beyond repair.
Tuscany Sunset
