I Do

Skipping ahead a few weeks in my list of things to blog about, I want to write about the wedding I went to this weekend! Guido, one of my beloved ex-coworkers, got married on Saturday. Our entire office went, bosses included, and we had a good time - this was not a drunken celebration wedding, but a calm nice pretty wedding. Strangely, the live musicians also played Hava Nagilah - why on earth an Italian band would ever know this song, I have no idea. But one of the guests actually got onstage and sang along, and I felt a moment of Jewishness! (It helps that my choir is learning the song, so I actually know all the words.)



Anyway, the beautiful couple is pictured above, trying to avoid the rice that they were being pelted with. For my readers who actually want to know what her dress looked like - and it was an amazing dress - it's pictured below.



This wedding was an anomaly because the food was really good, the flowers remained perfect, the musicians had endless energy, and the newlyweds stayed pretty and fresh all night long. However, this is all very much in the style of Guido, so I believe it.



Pictured above is a collection of my male ex-coworkers. Is it any surprise that I have one of the vastest repertories of vulgar Italian language of anyone I know - including Italians? (And yes, I'm proud of it!)



This is me with Giovanna, who was my wholehearted supporter during all of the drama that took place at work over the past month. She fed me, reacted sympathetically yet wryly to my tears, lost sleep over my own problems and defended me with all her might. Pretty great, right?

Giovanna told me the bouquet-throwing story of her wedding. As a hard-core feminist with pink hair, Giovanna invited like-minded friends to her wedding. When it was time to toss the bouquet, she turned her back and blindly hurled the flowers, as tradition requires - only to turn around and find that all of her friends had fled the scene. The only woman remaining was her sister, who despite standing alone and having 100% bouquet winning potential, had let the flowers fall to the ground. No one received a guaranteed marriage that year.



That's me with Francesca, who was my partner in Marketing and Communications shenanigans. She titled this photo, "The Model and the Dwarf" - and yes, I do look way too tall. But really I just wanted to show you my awesome dress.



A general shot of the chaos that follows us around. But also, doesn't Guido look remarkably fresh and awake for a just-married man? There's an Italian tradition that I don't really understand, in which the groom has friends over for drinks while he gets ready to go to the church or town hall to get married. Anyway, Guido had 80 (!!) friends at his apartment, drinking, while he was getting dressed. Ten minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start, he still wasn't ready. But he managed to show up in fine form, regardless.

Here we are on take two - Sara, another ex coworker, looks quite inebriated. Already.



And of course, the dancing . . . which was interesting.