Jenny and Ken get married
Well wouldn't you just know it, but in the summer of 2011 I was in Italian Wedding Heaven as within two weeks of getting back from Amalfi I was back on a plane to the land of pasta, Fiat, opera and massive sunglasses for another unforgettable wedding.
La Dolce Vita.
This time it was the turn of my good friends Jenny and Ken. And pleasingly for me it was a different part of Italy we were headed to: the rolling countryside hills of Tuscany and ancient town of Siena.
Unlike in Amalfi, for J & K's bash all guests were staying in the same venue - a sprawling mansion and its buildings, packed full of hundreds of years' worth of history. It was a incredible place.
I'd flown out with friends Mark, Jake, Barbara, Lizzy and Lara and we had picked up a couple of hire cars at Pisa airport.
The journey was largely uneventful, save for getting slightly lost on the Autostrada (and me having a mini hissy fit with Lizzy and Lara and their map-reading. Sorry guys.) and Jacob scraping the wheel of his car on a kerb.
But before long, and after a pit stop at a supermarket to pick up supplies for our self-catering cottages, we arrived.
Lizzy and Lara were in an apartment near the main hall of the venue...
...while Mark and I shared one room and Jake and Barbara the other in what was possibly the perfect pad for a wedding guest. We had a large kitchen/diner/lounge, with a door that opened onto a grassy veranda that looked over this:
When I saw that I metaphorically spat out my Cornflakes. What a view.
And that wasn't all. Our cottage had the double-whammied benefit of being a) the furthest apartment from the other rooms, meaning it was the obvious venue for noisy late-night shenanigans and b) the nearest apartment to the swimming pool - a 30 metre walk up a fir-tree lined path:
So basically we were like pigs (or should that be boars?) in shit.
We spent the first couple of days making new friends by the pool (amazing what a shared interest in The Human Centipede can do), eating pizza, drinking in Siena and kicking back on our veranda with a view.
It was the first time I'd caught up with most of my mates in 6-7 months following my sabbatical travels, and had a laugh with Simon, Gaz, DJ Gelato and others.
The big day was soon upon us and we were ferried to nearby Siena in buses. The main piazza, where we'd gathered the previous evening for drinks, was the venue for a quick stiffener before the Town Hall event.
The ceremony took place in an atmospheric room inside the famous town hall and it was great to see Jenny being walked down the aisle by Father Ted and Ken decked out in his Sunday best. The sunshine-yellow theme worn by the groom, bridesmaids and ushers was a nice summery touch.
Proceedings done - first in English and then Italian for legal formalities - Mr and Mrs Easter walked out into the bright sunshine of the piazza, where hundreds of local and tourist onlookers craned their necks to get a look at the married couple. We got a few snaps ourselves:
The reception was back at the venue. On our return we were met by a duo playing live stringed music on a lawn in the gardens and were soon diving into the prosecco and tempura canapes. We spent an enjoyable hour or two lounging in the sunshine in an incredibly picturesque setting.
If Carlsberg did weddings...
The meal and speeches took place in the central courtyard under the backdrop of the centuries-old mansion house. Ted's deadpan delivery during his Father Of The Bride speech was hilarious, a stream of Carter USM jokes, anecdotes about Jenny's teenage traumas and several gentle-but-cutting putdowns of poor Ken. All in good humour, all brilliant.
Best man Badger then delivered a similarly witty speech as only he could: spoken like an RAF corporal showing up a younger officer (ie, Ken).
The tasty meal lasted a couple of hours and then it was onto the dancing, first outside in another courtyard and prompted by a live band (including a slightly lecherous lead singer who kept thrusting at anything in a skirt) and then inside under the tutelage of DJ Gelato.
Jenny, being the cheese obsessive that she is, had organised a unique wedding cake:
Mmm, cheese.
Things were quite boozy by this stage, and everyone got their groove on to a series of dancefloor fillers - Come On Irene, Girls and Boys, D.I.S.C.O and more.
At some point in the early hours the owner of the venue, perhaps not familiar with the British way of celebrating weddings (ie, lots of booze, dancing to Cyndi Lauper) gently asked us to cut the cord and head to our rooms.
A plan was swiftly hatched to continue the night at our cottage down the hill, and Chris was soon putting it into action by hauling the speaker off over his shoulder.
We were soon set up back at our place and Gelato decided to get the message out about the new dancefloor by playing a dubstep tune at Volume 11. They probably heard it in Rome.
I would go into detail about the next few hours but I'd be lying as I can't remember much. I blame the Pampero rum - a South American favourite of mine, but bought in an Italian supermarket:
We all took turns on the decks and, despite some dodgy connections on the leads, kept the music going well into the early hours:
It was a great party, and a fitting end to a memorable day.
The following morning we hauled our weary bodies up the hill to eat a post-wedding breakfast. We were in collective 'hanging' mode - a 100-strong hungover collection of weary partygoers tucking into pastries, cheeses, hams and buckets of OJ.
At one point I sought out some shade to rest my pounding head:
Gaz wasn't faring much better; one word: ruined.
We spent the afternoon at the pool piecing together the previous night's escapades. The weather was glorious, everyone was in a great mood, and Mark and I even hatched a plan to go Japan.
I couldn't get enough of the pool, at one point doing the hilarious playing dead/drowning thing with Mark and Lara:
In the evening I drove some of us into Siena and Lara, Lizzy, Mark, Mike and I found a little pizza joint off the main square. We had a pleasant final meal (ignoring the pizza with an oven-chip topping. Urgh) and then walked through the piazza to get an ice cream.
Here's Lara, the study of concentration as she chooses a flavour:
The following morning it was time to say our goodbyes. We packed up the cottage, caned it back to Pisa on the Autostrada before catching our flight home.
It was a brilliant weekend: old friends, new friends, sunshine, partying, chilling. I wish I could go to weddings like Jenny and Ken's every year.
