We always said if we ever got married, we'd go back to Italy for our wedding. After all, without Italy we wouldn't be together.
We met because of a perfect tangle of misadventures – an impulsive side-trip, a railway strike, a bus crash, lost tickets, a missed connection – things that could only seem "meant to be" in hindsight. And we fell for each other by accident, really – blame the bridges of Venice at midnight, an orchestra practicing in the back streets after dusk, homemade wine, fireflies like Christmas lights on the hills. When it comes to amore, Italy doesn't mess around.
When we planned our wedding in Florence, we didn't forget the chaos of the time we'd spent in Italy (it was charming, but it was chaos) and we decided to keep things as simple as we could. I made our invitations and I bought my dress in Dallas, without a single alteration. My father-in-law chose my wedding shoes. My mum did my hair (if you could see the back, you'd know she's a genius). I did my own makeup. My brother Aaron made my bouquet from flowers he found at a little roadside store on the morning of the wedding, and my brother Jules played the piano in the church. The priest was an old friend of Nathan's med school chaplain. We had our reception at a 14th-century villa on an olive grove in the countryside – a place we saw for the first time just three days before the wedding. Every question the owner asked us, we answered "just do what you usually do, and we'll be happy". We even skipped the usual crowd of attendants – Aaron was my best man, and Nathan's best man was John (his friend since fourth grade, who was with us when we met – poor soul).
All our simple plans aside, we were determined to expect the unexpected and not come unglued if it all went awry. Really, what's Italy without a few twists in the tale?
Imagine our amazement when everything – and I mean everything – went right. The sun shone in the middle of February! The day was warm, where 10 days earlier there'd been snow! The photographers came all the way from Poggibonsi, and were brilliant. The priest felt like an old friend. And out of all the Australians and all the Americans, not one of our 50 guests got lost.
Our wedding day was four years ago. But when we think about February 17, 2004, it sometimes feels like yesterday. I mean it – when it comes to love, Italy doesn't mess around.
{Photography by Carlo Carletti and Angelo Governi of Arte Fotografica}
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