July 10th, 2008 - Mr. and Mrs. Gordon!

Much has happened after the last post: we were too busy to even keep our blog up to date! The last weeks before the wedding were spent running around in stores for the last fittings, buying shoes, organizing the last few things, printing the last stuff such as menus and place cards, etc.

Then June finally arrived and so much has happened! Marcel's friends arrived the week before the wedding, so we had a great week meeting with them for dinner every night. Marcel's Canadian side of the family came in on the Thursday before the wedding. There was literally no time to settle in and enjoy meals together, etc. The last few days were a continuous running around. We had to meet with the organist and with the new priest (yes, yet another one) the day before the wedding. And then we had to prepare the mass booklets, the menus, etc. It was quite crazy for a couple of days!

The celebrations started on Friday night, with a great BBQ at Il Passo degli Ulivi. Antonella and Donato: we will never thank you enough! And Dave, Amber, Steve, Kirsten and Brent: you did a great job! The dinner was the occasion for our parents to meet, and for family and friends who had already arrived to get to know each other and to catch up. Most of the people there had not meet in years, so it was really great!

That night I went to sleep at my parents' place, so that in the morning I could be there to get dressed etc.

The morning passed in a wink! I was worried that I would have had to wait: on the contrary, I had to run! Some friends and my cousin and uncles and aunts came to the house while I was getting ready. The dog did not enjoy the wedding madness and chose to hide under the bed! Letizia did my hair (thank you so much: I loved my half-do-up!) and Marisa did my make-up (thank you to her as well, as I was very satisfied!). I dressed up quickly and... I ran out. I took a couple of photos with my dad going out and then Andrea picked us up to go to the church.

We ended up being actually early, so we stopped for a few minutes at the top of the road to give people time to get into the church. I had agreed with my witnesses Bea and Debbie that they would give me a call when the bells started to ring! While I was sitting in the car, I was so relaxed. I was not a bit nervous. All I could think was how lucky we were for the weather change: it had rained every single day for weeks, but not for a few days. It was sunny and warm, but not too hot. After a while, my friends called me to tell me that it was 4pm, but no bells were ringing, so we decided to go anyway. We got there at the perfect time, exactly when the bells started to ring. Eleanor was waiting for us outside the church with our lovely flower girl Chiara: she was so cute!!!

I got out of the car and started walking towards the church. Chiara walked down the aisle, but the music did not start, so we had to stand for a minute on the door. It was cool though, as I had a chance to look at Marcel who was waiting and to chat with my dad, who, I think, was way more nervous than me. Not to speak of my mom and gradnma...!

When the music started to play, my dad walked me down the aisle and left me with Marcel and the mass began. I loved the decorations in the church. It was stunning, perfect! I had already been very pleasantly surprised by my bouquet, after Lorella had been freaking out for a couple of days because they had not sent her the right flowers! It was amazing!

The mass was quite long. Marcel's father, Andrea and my grandmother read the readings and then Don Francesco read the Gospel. Then Don Virgilio did the homily... not exiting but it passed! Then came the marriage rite. I was scared that my ring would not fit but it did! Everything went smoothly: we were not nervous, so we read with no troubles and it was actually very nice. I think that both of us really enjoyed the ceremony too and were very happy. It was great having 4 people that we really love as our witnesses, even though I would have had a long list! And I suppose Marcel would too. It was nice to exchange looks with our witnesses every once in a while, and it is a miracle that we did not burst laughing!!!

After the mass, and after the difficulties that the priest had in reading Eleanor's full name... everybody came to congratulate us and then left the church. We took a couple of photos inside and then walked out at the sound of a wedding march. We were covered in rice and rose petals... no need to say where the rice ended as far as I am concerned...! It took me a while to dig it all out!!! This was a great moment because we had a chance to chat with everybody, take some photos with family and friends and a really cool photo with everybody!!

We then left to go to the castle. While driving, Lorella called me to tell me that my hot pink runners had been hijacked by the evil neighbours at the castle! I went nuts!!! So when we finally got to the castle, and we were the first by the way!... we ran to meet her and begged these people to return our stuff. They did thank God!

We went back to the part of the park where we had organized the aperitivo and it was beautiful! The caterers had done a great job. There were tables with white table clothes, white sofas and wicker tables and chairs. It was the perfect temperature, the shade was great. We thought that it was perfect.

Bula called us to go take some photos around the castle grounds, since the light was great. Our dog arrived all dressed up with her pink and green satin leash, and so did my comfortable fuschia shoes! We went to take some photos and we essentially did not see anything of the antipasto. It was nice though. We had fun. We didn't want the classic poses, so we were walking around, talking etc while Bula was taking pictures. When I saw the lawn with the dinner tables I was speechless: once again Lorella had made it perfect. It was so beautiful!!! Exacly like I wanted them!!! And the tableau hanging from the ceiling was also really cool!

After taking the photos we went back to the antipasto area, but people were moving on to the dinner area. We took it easy, thinking they would start without us, instead they were running after us because the food was ready and we were nowhere to be found! We were giving Candy dinner and letting her off the leash for a while, before leaving her in the cottage that we had rented for ourselves.

We ran to sit at our table and it was great to see everybody sitting down so merry and enjoying themselves! Assigning seats at the tables had been one of the most momentous tasks!!! The food was delicious, the service excellent. We kept standing up and trying to chat with everybody, but with 140 people it was not very easy!

I should also mention the "animatori" for the kids... they were excellent. They kept them busy all night and they conquered the adults too!!!

After the dinner, before some people started to leave we cut the cake: everybody keeps raving about the cake. It was actually very good, I think. They made it right then and there. I gave a short speech, and I am sure we forgot somebody... and then we moved on to the bar area. That was the beginning of the end!!!

Gin & tonic is not a digestive, Jill... I have proof now!!! Anyway, Stefano brought the guitar out... and we all know what that means! Davide the musician was also very nice and helped him out with the Caterinella for me first and with... my very private full monty strip tease!!! All the guys, including the groom, danced half naked in thongs... how wrong is that!? It was so funny though!

We started dancing, I fell down twice..., then at 3am the same evil neighbours sent the police, and we had to shut off the music. It is actually understandable why they are evil if every wedding is like ours!!! At that point most people left, but it was such a perfect night and we grabbed a few bottles and moved to our cottage.

To cut a long story short, I ended up asleep in the antipasto lawn, and Alex had to carry his father up the stairs... the sign of a perfect party!!!

Luckily we were all staying at the castle. Elisa and Andrea, who had planned to go home, also ended up staying. Since we are going on our honeymoon together, we felt it was a good beginning to also spend our first wedding night under the same roof!!!

The following morning was... difficult! I looked like Shirley Temple and my head was pounding. What is worse we had no car, and Elisa and Andrea had already left when we got up. We had to call them and ask them to come back for us. And they did... and brought me, Marcel, Alex, the dog, her bed, and a lot of stuff back to Civitella. And oh... Andrea was still in a thong!!!

Marcel left again to go to Pari and to do some "day after chores"... I passed out on our bed after a shower. That night we went to my parents' place in the countryside for dinner and for the ugly Italy-Spain game...

The following days were a sort of continuation of the celebrations. Marcel's family went to Rome and we went to Pisa to have a little party with our friends there. It was beastly hot, but we managed to eat and drink at Betsabea anyway! I was happy to see some friends from the SSIS that I hadn't seen in a while, and all the friends from CLI and the department.

In the meanwhile, my friends Carissa, Chiara and Denisse, whom I hadn't seen since I left Chicago in 2001, had also arrived. It was GREAT to see them, and it was also very easy to remember why I loved my stay at the I-house so much! When we got back from Pisa, Marcel's family got back from Rome. Frank's parents arrived on the Friday as well, and we had an Indian dinner that Marje prepared for everybody. We ate at my parents' place: and to my great surprise, they loved Indian food. Marje, that's a huge thing, because they are very fussy with foreign food!!! It was really delicious!

On Saturday 28, Frank turned... well, it was his birthday. Everybody went on a wine tour with Carlo and loved it. That night we went to La Pievanella and Ursula had organized the PERFECT dinner for us. Everybody was stunned by the place and the quality of the food. Besides of course the location. The evening ended with drinks and late night chatting at our place. It was a great day.

The Sunday was the day of the rinfresco at Podere Santa Maria. It was also beastly hot. I had to rush to get ready and I was not feeling well for the heat. I had a beautiful green dress, a lovely hairdo and silver and green make up... too bad I couldn't resist the heat in that dress for more than 1 hour. I was literally melting, and with great disappointment I had to run home and change... I was so upset. Marcel was also looking great in his brown suit with green tie. The evening was busy and pleasant. There were about 250 people there and everybody seemed to have fun. It was great seeing some friends who I hadn't seen in a long time, such as Francesca and Matteo, and Francesca, Chiara and Nadia. Too bad in these situations you don't really have much time for anybody.

Elena the owner of Santa Maria did a great job. We loved everything, the setting, the food, her kindness. The evening ended with everybody in the pool (not me thank God) and with a happy birthday to my cousin Elisa! Marcel jumped in the pool. But the highlight of the night was certainly Colin "strip and dive"! Well done! As Andrea put it: getting Colin in the pool was as difficult as convincing Marcel to drink a beer. That says it all.

Everybody left on Monday or Tuesday and we have been trying to catch up with the work we have left behind. It was great. We could not have hoped for anything better! Now there's the trip to Canada and more celebrations! And we are looking forward to that too!!!

Many thanks to all the people who made our wedding so special and so great!

May 18th, 2008 - Rehearsal dinner, rinfresco, marriage licence and more!

Time for an update on the planning!!! We have finally managed to obtain our wedding licence after months of paperwork!!! We went to collect the approved file from the Curia in Siena on Friday. We were hoping to be able to see the priest of the parish where we are getting married today, but he didn't have time, so we made an appointment for next Saturday morning. Hopefully everything will run smoothely.

Last week I went for my first fitting and I was satisfied. I have to go back at the beginning of June. Marje was so kind as to send me shoes from Canada, which I absolutely love so I think the "shoe matter" is taken care of!

I also went for the fitting of the dress for the rinfresco of June 29, and I was quite happy with it as well. It might be a bit too elegant, but who cares!?

We have received more presents and once again we wish to thank everybody for their incredible generosity! We really appreciate the display of great affection that we are receiving!

On Friday, we have finalized the details of the rinfresco with Elena, the owner of the beautiful Podere Santa Maria. She gave us a wonderful proposal and we are very very happy that we have chosen her farm for the party, because she is nice and competent.

We are still finalizing the last details of the decor with Lorella, the florist. At the end of the month, Marcel should go to the castle to take a look at another wedding catered by the same company that we chose. I will be away for my bachelorette weekend getaway with my friends, so he will have to have a careful eye and report everything. Maybe Lorella will accompany him.

The last details of bachelor and bachelorette weekends are also being finalized. I am going to Spoleto, in Umbria, to a festival called "Vini del Mondo" on May 30 and 31. Marcel is going to Madrid on June 5 and 6.

Last but not least, we are planning a "rehearsal" dinner for the 20th. It is not going to be anything fancy, nor there will be any rehearsing: it will be a BBQ-potluck sort of thing by the pool at Il Passo degli Ulivi, where Marcel's friends are staying. A special "thank you" goes to our friends Antonella and Donato, the owners. What would we have done without them?! The party will hopefully provide the opportunity for our family and for the friends that will have already arrived to meet before the wedding. Early night though: you wouldn't want a bride with bad bags under her eyes nor a groom with a bad hangover on his wedding day, right?!

May 1st, 2008 - Our regitry is online!

After a week of the flu, we are back on our feet and running late on everything as usual. Our wedding registry is online, and available in the store. We have already received the first presents! Thank you!!! We still need to make a few phone calls to thank people who sent presents because we were really sick. We will do it tomorrow.

I was supposed to go for my first fitting this week, but I have moved my appointments because I am not feeling alright yet. We were also supposed to go to Siena to get the marriage licence but of course we had to postpone that trip as well.

So more to do next week!

We have mailed most of the invites, but we still need to hand many out to friends and relatives. We will take care of it this weekend and next week.

We have chosen our wedding bands last week: they are a present from my cousin Elisa and her husband Andrea (and Iacopo of course!). Thank you!!! We chose very classic, plain gold bands. This might be one of the few traditional things we have done!!!

April 14th, 2008 - Mailing invites and fighting with the Vatican!

Last Wednesday we finally picked up our invitations form the printer: they are amazing! ...ok... this is immodest... I LOVE THEM sounds better! Andrea did a great job! We are now gathering addresses and mailing them out. We want to give them personally to as many people as we can. The keyword here is MANY... we have many people invited to the wedding and way too many to the rinfresco. That's ok: it's a cool party!

We have almost finalized all the details with the caterers for the menu and the timeline. We are still deciding on some items for the registry, but everything will be available online by the end of the week.

Marcel has chosen his suit: he bought it in the same store as I bought mine. It very nice!

Other than this, we are still trying to put together all the documents necessary to get married in a church... Oh boy: if you think that Italian bureaucracy is painful, you have no idea of the Vatican one! Our priest asked that Marcel provides a stamped certificate from every single parish where he has lived since he turned 16. These certificates should state that he has never been married in a church before. This is crazy. We had the priest from Pari issue one of those (which covers only the years from 1996 to 2004) but absolutely refused to ask the Canadian parishes (which he ignores by the way). So on Friday we have to meet with the priest (again...) and sign a paper where Marcel swears "before God and his conscience" (yeah right...) that he never got married before. Don't ask. Please.

We have almost finished arranging our hen night and bachelor party! I am going with some friends to Spoleto for a wine festival followed by a "white night", a night where all the shops, restaurants and bars are open and when there is music in every square. We are going at the end of May. Marcel is going to Madrid at the beginning of June.

Last but not least, we have started planning the flower decor. We are sure Lorella will do a great job!

March 20th, 2008 - More progress being made!

We have finished the course with the priest and today, we got the form that we need to bring to the Town Hall to get the necessary civil papers for the wedding. We are going tomorrow morning. We have also done all we needed to do at the church in Pisa, so now all is left in terms of documents are the announcement in the church in Civitella and in the Town Hall. Then we need to take all this stuff to the priest who is going to marry us.

We have found the fabric for the table runners! This morning we bought it so that my grandmother can work on the things. We also went to Ikea to by candles for the tables.

Andrea gave us the design (beautiful!!!) for the invites, and we ordered the envelopes which were delivered at the beginning of the week. The paper has also arrived and we have an appointment with the printer (Tipografia Cursi) at the beginning of next week to give him the files to print.

We have bought part of the stuff we need for our favours and we will start preparing those soon. We chose not to have a "real" favour but only the traditional small bags with "confetti" (sugar-coated almonds) with a card explaining our choice. We have decided to donate the money that we would have spent on favours to the association where a friend works. It helps kids in Ecuador: Un sogno per la strada. We thought it made more sense to give them the money, rather than spending it on some dreadful item that everybody hates but doesn't throw away because the feel badly about it! We hope everybody will agree with our choice.

We have essentially booked the whole castle: most people are staying for the night. Which is really cool! We are very happy about it!

March 8th, 2008 - The wedding gown is bought!

The wedding gown is bought! In the end I bought it in Follonica in a store called Non solo bianco. I placed the order today, and I have an appointment for the first fitting on May 2. In the end I found something that it is not too terrible and I added some stuff that certainly makes it non-conventional. I cannot say more though!!

We have also found the perfect fabric for our table runners: my grandmother will try to sew a piece of it to see how it goes. We have decided on the paper for the invites and on the graphics. As soon as our designer and family come back from their skiing holiday, we should really get going.

Lorella, the florist, has prepared two sample favours which are amazing, so we are going to start making those as well (not as well as she would, I am afraid). Plus we are also trying to decide what to do for the tables (we give tables names here, not numbers). Actually planning the tables will be very difficult... we wuold like to avoid mixing people up who have nothing in common.

Finally, we have almost finished the course at the church. We are starting the paperwork to get the licence.

February 28th, 2008 - Busy bees...

3 more weeks have gone by and this is what has happened... We have already had three meetings with the priest, which means that we are halfway there. There is another couple attending the "classes" with us, which is ok. After the priest scared me by telling me that my "testimoni" were supposed to be both confirmed and married (they are neither... one is not even baptised... and the other is pregnant...), he realized he was mistaken, and that in fact, being only a "civil" role, they can be as sinful as it gets! So, everything is ok as far as my two witnesses are concerned!!!

We have received the semi-definitive proposal for the dinner from the caterer and we are quite happy with it. We have asked for some minor changes, but all in all... we are getting there!!! What we are still trying to define is the reception decor... I would like a white, hot pink and green palette, but this country is very boring, and it seems practically impossible to find hot pink table runners and stationery!

What I would like (Marcel is not thrilled, but just puts up with me and goes along with my plans!!!) is to have hot pink menus, and invites, etc. But I haven't been able to find a coloured envelope anywhere!!! It appears that in Italy, wedding invites have to be white, cream, golden or other dull colours. So I had to spend some time surfing around the internet to find some American or British websites which could deliver envelopes to Italy or Canada. I found two. I am now waiting for the samples from Canada (thank you Marje!) and from the UK.

In the meanwhile though, I have found a very "different" (and very fuschia...) type of paper... but, unexpectedly, I am not the only eccentric around here and both my florist (who is in charge of the decor) and Andrea, the designer, loved it, so... we are now thinking to go with it. We need to go to two printers tomorrow morning to ask whether they think that they can print on this type of paper without any trouble, and if they do, we can order it from the sole paper store in the area that sells it. Simple is not for us, I know.

In the meanwhile, the caterers have come up with some nice pink table runners... but it's a light pink, so now I do not know whether our original idea of decorating the tables with pink stationery would work, because this hot pink might clash with the lighter one, although, I am all for taking a look at how a contrast might work. We will likely go to Florence to see how these table runners and the invitation paper go together.

We have also bought some fabric to prepare the favours, very simple bags with 5 "confetti" (in the Italian sense of traditional iced almond candies). We need to experiment with those as well. Lorella, the florist, has generously agreed to prepare a couple of samples that we can copy... although probably we will not be as skillful as she is!!

This week I have finally started shopping for my wedding gown... not as painful as I thought, and I think I might have actually found what I want. I have another appointment tomorrow afternoon near Grosseto and then I want to make a decision, as I have already seen stuff that I like and after a while they all look the same!!!

We are still waiting for Marcel's documents to arrive... both the certificate of non impediment and the baptism and confirmation certificates. Let's hope they come soon as we need to have all the paperwork done by Easter, as this young priest that is helping us might be gone after that.

We have a semi-clear idea of who is coming and who is not, and we recommend all those who want to come and have no accommodation booked yet, to book as soon as possible.

February 2nd, 2008 - Documents and courses...

After Marcel had sent all the papers to the British Embassy, including his passport, as indicated on their official website, on Wednesday, he had to go to Florence in person... It appears that the instructions published online are wrong and they do not want anything to do with passports and sent documents. They want you there in person and they want to see you swear on the New Testament that you do not have wives/husbands scsattered throughout the Commonwealth. Anyway, at the end of February they will send the certificate of non impediment, so at least that stuff is done.

Today we started the course with the priest. It was not as painful as Marcel fiercely feared. It was actually quite nice. The young priest in the village is a sensible, nice person, so it was really ok. We will meet for 7 more meetings.

It also seems that we can confirm the church, as he gave us no troubles at all. Anyway he was going to ask his superior about the official documents we have to do with him etc. More stuff for the next few weeks. We need to have all the documents ready by the beginning of May.

January 23rd, 2008 - Priests

On Saturday, Marcel's documents finally arrived from Canada (thank you Colin and Marje!) and now we have to send everything to the British Embassy in Florence to get his certificate of no impediment, without which we cannot start the painful bourocratic process of getting the papers here.

Last Friday, we went to speak with Don Giovanni, the priest who is responsible for the church in which we want to get married. The priest with whom we had spoken up to now has been transferred to Siena. Although this parish has decided that they don't perform weddings in the church we've chosen, since we had already agreed on the church with the other priest, they are going to give us permission anyway.

My priest in Pisa has no problems with that, now let's see what the priest in Civitella thinks about it. Yes... it's terribly complicated, because here the parish to which one belongs depends on where one resides legally and even the religious procedure is as complicated as the civil one.

Anyway, we will start the course with Don Francesco, the priest of the parish in Civitella, on Saturday, so we should have a definitive answer by Sunday as to the church where the ceremony will be held.

We asked Andrea, Eleanor's husband, to design our wedding invites, because, believe it or not (...believe it...), we have found nothing that we like here in Italy. Invites are either very boring and plain or sparkling and romantic. We want no hearts and no rings on the thing. So, since Andrea is a great graphic designer, and he is willing to put up with us, we are very happy that he will create our stationery.

January 8th, 2008 - Fiori e Dintorni...

The Fiori e Dintorni website is finally online! Our friend Lorella, the owner, will take care of the wedding flower design. She is an excellent flower designer, she is creative, really nice and I hope she will help me choose colours because I am awful at that!

January 7th, 2008 - The reception venue is booked!

Wow... another month already... we are quite slow with this planning!!! Anyway, yesterday we finally signed the contract with the owners of the reception venue, Castello di Grotti, so now there is no going back without losing money!

Other than that we met with the priest for the course, so that he could finally meet Marcel, and we arranged for the first meeting to be on Saturday 26th. We have also started looking into the papers. The first thing we have to do is to get Marcel's certificate of no impedement from the British Embassy.

Still looking into colours, still no idea...

December 13th, 2007 - too much to do (for work...)

More than a month has already gone by since the last time that we updated our blog. We have been so busy with work that we have had no time to do much for the wedding. Still some progress was made.

First, the course. We will start the course in January with the young priest in Civitella. He could not start before January 20th, because he is busy with the kids who have to receive Confirmation on the village Patron Saints' day. We will take the course with another couple so it won't be too terrible, hopefully. We will have more details when we see Don Francesco on Christmas Day... he hasn't met Marcel yet...!

The reception. We went to see the caterers yeasterday after getting lost in Florence and driving around without a clue for over 30 minutes. That city is a trap. We had a very interesting meeting: they really seem to know what they are doing. We talked about the menu, the logistics of the event, and about the decorations etc. Yes, about the open bar too... They will prepare a detailed proposal and will send it to us in January for approval.

Other than that, it is really time to start planning the details, such as colours etc because the catering wants to have a clear idea. Poor Marcel will have to put up with this girly stuff!

November 4th, 2007 - To the church in search of enlightenment...

Without success. If you want to get married in a church, you need to take a course, the course for fiancés, also known as the much-feared "corso prematrimoniale" (literally, the premarital course). The course is organised by parishes and lasts 6 to 10 encounters. Except in Pisa, where there are 15 two-hour meetings during which men and women are separated and given some food for thought. They are asked to discuss a specific topic and to create a poster. Then they are asked to "regroup" and find out why men and women are in fact not made to be together...

Kidding aside, we decided that all that faith and devotion was too much for us (especially for Marcel) and we opted for something a bit less painful. Or so we thought... because, as a matter of fact, this last week, I went to mass 3 times, had an equal amount of chats with the village priest and always came home with no answers. I wend to church in search of enlightenment and came back home empty-handed. The priest got my number, though (he is a very charming man).

Kidding aside (part 2), the priest in the village is substituting another priest who is not well at the moment. So, he has to ask the priest in charge, who lives in the next village down the road, but apparently he was away or has been very busy over the past few days, so they could not discuss the thing. Hopefully, we will know where and when we can take the course soon, because "no course, no party", as one could say with an irreverent quotation from George Clooney's TV commercial for the Martini sparkling wine... (God bless him). So long as we do not have the course attendance certificate, we cannot ask for the documents to get married in the church that we like. So let's hope that we get some answers soon.

October 22nd, 2007 - 20 crazy days

Summarizing the last twenty days is hardly possible... after we heard about the possible sale, we tried to get in touch with the people from the Castle of Monte Antico without success. They kept telling us that they knew nothing yet but that they would know something soon. It became soon evident that we were about to be left in the middle of the street... So we started looking around. We contacted our second best choice, Castel Porrona, but unfortunately it was already booked for June 21st. That left us with no idea of where to look for...

To cut a long story short (without lingering too much on the huge amount of stress coming with this mess), we contacted a long list of places, most of which were not suitable for our large group or already booked for June 21. In the end we found two places that are a bit far from the church but which were very nice.

The first is called La Costa: it's a beautiful Bed and Breakfast in a village between Pienza and Montepulciano, Montefollonico. It has a fabulous restaurant with an amazing view over the Val di Chiana: you can see up to Cortona and Lake Trasimeno. The food and the owners were great. We would have loved to celebrate our wedding there, but my parents feel it is too far away from home, and they do not feel comfortable asking people to stay out for the night. Too bad, because the place is lovely, and we will certainly go back for lunch with some friends.

I should mention that we went to see La Costa on a Sunday after driving to the church that we have chosen. We realised that the other big "problem" is the road. There are as many curves as breathtaking views over the Val d'Orcia: we cannot ask our guests to do that road... or we will have to wait for a couple of hours before serving any food!!! But boy, the drive IS spectacular.

After lunch we went to see the second place, the Castle of Grotti, near Siena. Marcel liked it enough, but hey, I am the bride and I LOVED it. It has an amazing garden, great views and it is 10 minutes away from the Siena-Grosseto highway, which means that everybody can be home in an hour. There are apartments and rooms that we can rent for 50 euros per person for the night, which is always a great thing because I do not want to drive home drunk after my wedding reception!

In the meanwhile, the guy from the Castle of Monte Antico had contacted my dad saying that maybe we could find a solution. Se we decided to hold on for another while. We kept contacting caterers just to make sure and we found a very good one, which had also catered for my cousin Elisa's wedding in 2005, Lo Scalco.

We discussed all the options and in the end, we decided that waiting longer was not worth the stress, especially because the people in Monte Antico are clearly unreliable. What are we supposed to do if they change their mind again?! So we decided to get rid of them and their American billionaire and book the Castle of Grotti. Hopefully, they will not give us any surprise...

So, new venue, and we hope that this time they will keep their promises!!!

October 2nd, 2007 - it looked too easy!

When people told us that planning a wedding was stressful, we didn't believe them... well, it is, and in this country it's twice as stressful as it needs to be.

So, few days after we had spoken with the people at the castle to confirm, I hear some rumors about them wanting to sell... So of course, we call to ask what's going on and... apparently, soma American guy with 20,000,000 euros to spend has decided that that's just what he needs for his holidays in Tuscany and he is actually trying to buy!!! Now, if they sell, we have to find another place for the reception.

No big deal... except we had just confirmed the place and we had started looking for a location a while back to make sure we could get the place we wanted for the date we wanted. Even if they do not in fact sell... how are we going to trust them ever again!?

They should give us an answer by the end of next week... but in the meanwhile we have started looking into some other places we like, and if we find some place we trust more, we might decide to change location anyway.

At least, the priest has confirmed that the church that we would like is available... for now! Let's hope he does not change his mind too!

Oh, and we think we have found the perfect place for the "rinfresco" on June 29. Details coming soon... maybe.

September 22nd, 2007 - we are making headway!

Another month has just gone by and we haven't really added much to our plans, but we are slowly making progress!

We have finally decided where the wedding reception will be: it will be at the Castle of Monte Antico, near Civitella. My dad (they should hire him as a full-time promoter because he was the castle's biggest supporter and he convinced us all!!!) has confirmed our reservation last Sunday, so we are now waiting to discuss the details with the owners of the venue. There is plenty of time for that.

We have contacted the priest of the church where we would like to get married and he said that there should be no problems, so we are now waiting for him to actually confirm that the church is available on June 21st and that we can have the wedding ceremony there. He seems very nice and friendly, so we hope that we will be able to get married in his church. We don't want to say much until it's confirmed! Following his advice, we started looking for a course in Pisa (in preparation for the wedding, in Italy you cannot get married without taking this course organized by parishes) but we got scared by the 15 meetings organized at the church of San Michele degli Scalzi with groups and posters to draw followed by a general discussion... we have decided to make do with something hopefully slightly more "low-key" in Civitella. We actually want to ask the priest in the village as a more intimate course seems to suit our nature better than the large discussion group...

We have asked our friend Bula (Gianluca Giannone) to be our photographer and we are thrilled that he said YES! First because he is an amazing artist and second because this way we are sure that he will be there! We hope he'll bring a tripod, otherwise how are we going to get a few photos with him!?!?!?

August 14th, 2007 - Not exactly bridezilla...

Well.. almost another month has gone by and we haven't done much else since our last message. We are actually very busy with our work so we haven't had a real chance to organize anything. Not that there is much to do... it's so early!!

We went to see the place that we like for the reception and we are just waiting to sign a contract before posting the details online. But it won't be until September because apparently, they do not want to think about next season before this one is actually over.

We have told everybody at this point and everybody keep asking about our "wedding outfit"... no need to say, we haven't even thought about it AT ALL yet... That and much more will have to wait until the new year.

We have added a "links" section to the website so that we can post cool links to interesting sites or links to recommended hotels. And by the way, we will need to have a general idea of who is coming by November/December in order to book accommodation in the area since the big booking period for the summer months is January and February.

July 21st, 2007 - A little update...

Most people know about our wedding plans now. We still have to go check out the place that we like for the reception so, no significant progresses have been made. However, we have decided on the type of events that we want and we also have a tentative guestlist at this point, both for the wedding and for the rinfreschi, the following week.

We are planning on visiting the reception place this week with Gloria's parents and we have chosen our florist and asked her to save the date. We suppose that is some progress, although not much.

July 4, 2007 - Our "wedsite" is ready!

Not that we really know what to write here for the moment, but at least it is a good way to break the news to the people who are far and whom we don't see that often.

It is also a good way to say "save the date"! And hopefully it will help us keep everybody informed on the events of the next few months.

Now... let's see where we are at the moment. We have picked the date and started telling everybody. We wanted to start searching locations for the reception which is one of the few things that we need to do well in advance, given the period that we have chosen and the number of guests. In fact though, we haven't really had the time to do anything serious. And we still need to tell most people about it. Oh boy, we are so bad at this!