A Roman Wedding

Hello from Rome!!

While I am keeping a blog of this whirlwind trip, I figured to recap the wedding for the Sunday post I missed yesterday. I'll try to keep it short, because this Italian keyboard puts its punctuation in weird places.

Today was the wedding. I only knew two people here before arriving, the bride and Naysayer P Squirrel, but her whole Cuban family has been so welcoming that I feel like a part of them. Regarding the wedding itself, we woke Monday and immediately began helping the groom get ready (on some level Naysayer and I were his best men, which I was flattered to be called), and then everyone except the bride and her dad jumped on a shuttle from the apartment we are in to take us through the side entrance of St. Peter's Basilica. The wedding was in one of the side chapels of the main walk, where St. John Chrysostom is buried in the altar. Talk about a relic! It was considered the Choir's Chapel at some point in history and was beautiful, with gold inlaid ceilings, two organs, carvings and paintings at every point, it's own dome above and a giant fresca of Our Lady Queen of Heaven.

The wedding itself was only 45 minutes long, with the first part of the liturgy. The groom is not actually Catholic, so I witnessed my first Catholic wedding that did not include communion. There is a full Mass tomorrow for those interested to make up for it, but based on timing and because he is not Catholic, I think that was the exception. Food for thought. Overall it was beautiful with some special latin american culture thrown in with one rosary binding husband and wife and aras, which are gold coins dropped into each other hands. Very cool.

We then followed the bride and groom through St. Peters to the outside area and felt like celebrities. All the hundreds of tourists were taking pictures and we were like a famous persons entourage. It was amazing and surreal. After taking many pictures outside St Peters we jumped in the shuttle for our secret location, the Albergo Hassier Hotel at the top of the Spanish Steps. We were treated to a breathtaking panoramic view of Rome with champagne, antipasta, and live cuban singers. After an hour on the rooftop taking it all in, we went down for our seven course meal, dancing and drinking. Everything from shrimp to sea bass, ravioli to cappuchinos, mojito bars and more wine than ever, the wedding was lovely. And with only about 25 people, it was cozy and we all could enjoy the musicians singing and playing through the afternoon. I'm not a terribly comfortable dancer, though when I do actually dance I have fun. But I really am terrible. Towards the end, of the night, the dancing stars took the floor. At one point Naysayer and Pippa were like flying and flipping across the floor. There was the requisite drunk uncle who danced with everyone too. It was great. By 8pm we had partied for 7 hours and retired to see Rome and send off the newlyweds to their hotel.

What a day!

Hope you all are well back home. I'll have a full report on Sunday.

Much love and blessings from Rome and Vatican City,

-JTY