LA BELLA FIGURA was particularly important when it came to weddings, not only in dress but in the style of the ceremony and feast afterward. Nuptials were sometimes performed twice; first in a civil ceremony followed by a formal church wedding. Thus, they were always big business and a fine opportunity to show off. One of the most popular events at the dingy and dilapidated exposition center was an annual wedding display called Sposaroma.
Without much to do on a weekend when the expo was in progress and wanting to be prepared when Kathryn and Steve set their wedding date, we went to the show for some ideas. We browsed among stands laden with marzipan cakes in the shape of the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, and St. Peter’s. Fireworks technicians advertised that they could shoot off colorful bursts for receptions continuing until dawn. Dozens of restaurants catering to the wedding trade had space to display tables dressed with lavish silver, china, and sets of wine glasses for every type of wine. The proposed menus went on for pages, pasta and more pasta along with meat and fish. Florists recommended filling the entire church with bouquets, sprays, and festoons attached to everything, including guests. We looked at samples of wedding favors, bomboniere, in sterling silver or Murano glass, and confetti, the traditional sugar-coated almonds in dozens of flavors and colors, including some coated in gold and silver. They were made into flower arrangements or placed in little bags, always in an uneven number like the gladioli we sometimes bought at flower stands. I made a note to myself that the confetti came from Sulmona in the Abruzzi Mountains east of Rome, where the same company had produced them since 1783.
Wedding gowns and grooms’ outfits, modeled on runways or on mannequins, ranged from the most sober formal wear to the ridiculous. Most gowns were lovely, but some were my idea of a mother-of-the-bride’s nightmare. These included a crochet model with empty spaces that left little to the imagination, and a black-and-white Little Bo-Peep outfit with a lace-up corset-like bodice, a shepherd’s crook instead of flowers, and a large Marie Antoinette hat. Perhaps the groom was meant to be seen as a sheep or goat. Masculine outfits included tuxedo-like suits in sky blue or spring pea green as well as ultra-formal morning costumes with top hats. Somehow, none of the men’s models looked right for the casual Pacific Northwest.
Often when we poked around a church we could see that it was set up for a wedding ceremony. If one was ongoing we stood at the back where no one would notice us, looking at flowers, well-dressed guests, the resplendent wedding party, priests in their vestments, and the sanctified surroundings. But one church, Santo Stefano Rotondo, rated as the last place in the world I would have wanted to be married. The mother of all churches if you like torture frescoes, it is one of the oldest circular churches still in existence, dating from about AD 468. Like so many of these ancient buildings, it is built over a pagan mithraeum, where sacrificial bulls had their throats cut in second- or third-century rituals.
During the Counter-Reformation the interior was frescoed in a cycle of vivid and grotesque scenes of martyrdom, a veritable catalogue of ways to dispose of people in excruciating, and in some cases, disturbingly culinary ways like deep-frying and roasting. While these martyrs died for their faith centuries ago, the faded frescoes reminded us of the modern world’s abominations still centering on religious troubles. The last time we visited the church, it was set up for a wedding to be held on All Saints’ Day, the day celebrating the Church’s martyrs, the day before All Souls’ Day, which honors the dead. It seemed a particularly inauspicious site and day. But then we often saw brides photographed in front of the Colosseum, which ran with the blood of slaughtered animals and gladiators in ancient times. There’s no accounting for taste.
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There is an Italian proverb, “Rain on a bride’s wedding day is good luck.” We were invited to three Roman weddings, each bearing no resemblance to the standard American occasion, or to each other in style. All were celebrated on sunny days. One was a civil ceremony conducted in a small deconsecrated church, the Complesso di Vignola Mattei. This building was first constructed in the sixth century, then became a home in the 1300s and part of a villa’s gardens sometime later. It was furnished with ancient statues dug up from the grounds, adding to its romantic atmosphere.
Mark and Sophia were coworkers and partners. They decided to make their arrangement official because the groom was nearing retirement and it was mandatory to have a wedding before he retired if either of them were to have a survivor’s pension should the other die. (Marriages after retirement were not recognized by the UN pension system, an incredibly backward view since remedied, but at the time it was cause for numerous hasty weddings.) Adding to the urgency, Sophia was preparing to go to Ghana for an assignment the following week. Both were British but they soon determined that it would take weeks to get the deed accomplished in England, because of the length of time to publish the wedding banns. It was too expensive to fly to the States, a possibility though neither was a citizen. The fallback position was a marriage in Italy, where it would usually take a month to get the paperwork in order and the wedding scheduled. They obtained a nulla osta certificate from the British Embassy affirming that there was no impediment to marriage and went to the Italian records office to get the remaining paperwork, a promessa di matrimonio. When they told a handsomely dressed bureaucrat (whose fly was unzipped) that they wanted to get married within eight days, he dropped his cappuccino in shock. After mopping up and zipping up, he agreed. In an astounding act of alacrity he issued the papers the next day, assigned a venue, and scheduled the wedding for the following Friday.
The presiding official, the local assessore or district councilor, wore her green, white, and red ribbon of office diagonally over her business suit. Mark and Sophia, in dress suits, sat in two tall, elaborately carved gold leaf chairs upholstered in scarlet velvet. Smaller chairs for the witnesses sat at each side. The short ceremony was performed to the recorded music of Vivaldi. Afterward, we all adjourned to a nearby restaurant for a long seafood luncheon. I didn’t return to work that afternoon, being satiated after oysters, risotto with scampi, spaghetti with clams and mussels, followed by servings of grilled or baked fish including orata, branzino, or spigola. All this bounty was accompanied by champagne and white wine.
The next event was held on the Campidoglio, the site of Rome’s founding in the Iron Age. The venue was the Palazzo dei Conservatori, which also houses part of the Capitoline museum complex. The wedding took place in the magnificent sala rosa, red room. With its crimson damask wall coverings, tapestries, and period furniture, it was justifiably the most favored and beautiful location in the city. The site was so popular that ceremonies only took a hurried fifteen minutes, with no time for music or arranging flowers.
The Palazzo, like many Italian public buildings, had a long history. It was erected in the Middle Ages atop the ruins of a Roman temple to Jupiter and later remodeled by Michelangelo in the 1530s. The inscription carved over the door to the sumptuous room said Vniversitatis Tabernarior, which meant it had been used like a guildhall where shopkeepers had settled their disputes in former days. The pubblicazione di matrimonio, banns, were posted on the wall outside the wedding venue showing names and dates of birth of those to be married, fun for snooping.
Our bride wore a traditional white gown, not that the guests noticed. Instead of witnessing the wedding, most of the invitees milled around in the piazza talking on their cell phones and waiting for the reception to begin. Ceremony over, we jumped into our cars and headed to a rustic restaurant about forty miles north of Rome in the ancient hill town of Capalbio, founded in the eighth century BC. First a prehistoric settlement, then an Etruscan one followed by the inevitable Romans, it was abandoned at the fall of the Empire. Capalbio gradually revived after the barbarian invasions, taken over by popes and powerful families until they too gave up, relinquishing the town to independence, country houses, art installations, and restaurants.
The food was as elaborate as the local history. Helpings of three standard shapes of pasta with their sauces were followed by piles of grilled chicken, pork, and beef. As usual, everyone was shouting and talking after a few glasses of wine. But then the party got a little rough when the groom, who tended to be combative, got in an argument with the local Carabinieri maresciallo. Evidently the groom had parked his car in a no-parking zone, which happened to be in front of the jail. The annoyed maresciallo threatened to throw him in the conveniently located lockup. His groomsmen rushed to the rescue and, after a discussion that was heated even by Italian standards, an accommodation was reached whereby his car was moved and he was released. The celebrations took up where they left off as if nothing had happened.
However, neither of these two events could compare with our inaugural Italian wedding experience on my first tour. My legal assistant lived on the Appia Antica in an old villa that he shared with a flamboyant French lawyer. The villa was a home that real or would-be expatriates dreamed about occupying. Marble fragments that had been dug up during construction were set into the walls. A swimming pool from ancient times was sunk in the extensive grounds, which were dotted with umbrella pines and cypresses. The rooms were filled with antique furnishings and paintings. I knew the French lawyer but slightly. However, because I was his housemate’s supervisor we received an invitation to his wedding to an heiress. My assistant had told me about the arrangements for an elaborate reception to be held at their Appia Antica home, to which we had not been invited. In a complete social gaffe, I innocently mentioned this oversight, which then resulted in an invitation out of politeness.
The wedding was to be formal, and I was advised in no uncertain terms to wear a hat. After a wild-goose chase all over Rome to find one that was suitably elegant but not enormously expensive, I bought a little number to go with the red-patterned silk dress purchased especially for the wedding. I couldn’t understand why the shop clerk kept tut-tutting when I told her that I didn’t want a black dress. She valiantly persisted, bringing some delicious little black outfits for me to try. When we arrived at Trinità dei Monte, the French church at the top of the Spanish Steps, I realized the source of the shop clerk’s dismay. All the other female guests wore black, appropriate European wear for all formal occasions and not limited to funerals. Feeling the all-too-familiar sensation of being an ignorant American, I shrank into a corner of the pew hoping that no one would notice me.
But all eyes turned to the bride when she entered the church in a low-cut strapless number, so tight it must have been sprayed on. Looking not at all virginal, she could hardly mince up the aisle. The groom wore a morning coat, as did his attendants. The wedding party tripped over videographers and photographers who continually got in the way. The service was conducted by a cardinal and two priests in splendid outfits. Greetings from the pope were read. By the time it was over we were ready for champagne and followed the crowd to the villa. To the sounds of a string quartet playing Neapolitan love songs on the candlelit terrace and the smacks of guests kissing the cardinal’s huge jeweled ring, the groom opened the champagne bottles by swiping the corks off with a saber. He occasionally missed, breaking the bottle’s neck and releasing foam everywhere. After the toasts we left. No one noticed. There’s nothing like attending a party to which you weren’t invited! I bought a black dress shortly after.
Watching these rituals I remembered Glenn’s and my five-minute wedding at the home of two friends who lived on the rainy Oregon coast. In spite of, or perhaps because of, its drizzly beginnings, our union has endured, as has that of Kathryn and Steve. Their wedding day began with sunshine. It was drizzling by the time of the ceremony. The reception took place during a veritable monsoon. The Seattle setting couldn’t compete with Rome, but we did have confetti from Sulmona, small silver bags containing seven silver-colored almonds closed with silver ribbons and almond paste wedding rings with their names. Instead of black I wore an Italian suit in a color called tortora, turtledove, to my mind a more fitting color.
Unfortunately for the Roman weddings, the proverb about weather turned into reality and all three of the marriages we attended ran into storms.