b) While both our families got along, the idea of all of them in one room together was daunting. We both come from very large broods, and, both of us being of Irish/Italian or Irish/Hungarian descent, there was always the possibility of a fistfight breaking out, and
c) Benjamin, like Cal, the hero of Every Boy’s Got One (Non-fabrication Number Four) had some pretty negative opinions on the subject of marriage, and had often vowed never to marry at all. Since I’m all for marriage—just not weddings—this created an impasse in our relationship…for about a day. We were able to reach detente on the subject when our German friend Ingo suggested that if he were to get married, it would be in Italy, because it’s the most beautiful country in the world. Something about that appealed to Benjamin. And next thing I knew, we were filling out paperwork at the Italian consulate in Manhattan.
Eloping in Italy, back then, seemed the ideal solution to all of our problems… providing the Italian bureaucracy didn’t get in the way.
The mayor’s question about Las Vegas caused us to laugh nervously… until we realized he wasn’t kidding. Marrying Americans was apparently something the Comune di Diana San Pietro did not do often—in fact, they’d NEVER done it before.
And they weren’t very enthusiastic about making an exception for us.
I tried not to take it personally. It probably didn’t have anything to do with the fact that they were worried this was going to cut into their lunch hour. Right?
While we stood behind the railing that separated us from the secretario’s typewriter, our friend Ingo attempted to explain, in his excellent Italian, that the reason Benjamin and I couldn’t get married in Las Vegas like normal Americans was that we were not normal Americans. That both the groom and the bride were terrible romantics—that I, in fact, was a fan (though at that time, not yet an author) of romance novels, while Benjamin was a published poet—and that we had long ago decided that if we were ever going to get married, it would only be in the most romantic country in the world, Italy.
I stood there holding my breath, waiting to see if Ingo’s argument worked. It wouldn’t, of course, be the WORST thing if we didn’t end up coming home from Europe married. Neither Benjamin nor I had revealed our marriage plans to anyone except our four unrelated witnesses back in New York. Our plan was to return to the U.S. as a married couple, our wedding a fait accompli with which our doting families were going to have to cope… and which would relieve us of all responsibility of having to pick out china patterns or choose bridesmaid dresses. We could always, I figured, try again some other time….
But it wouldn’t be in Italy. As a poor graduate student (Benjamin) and administrative assistant (me), we’d blown all of our savings on this trip. We wouldn’t be able to make it back to Europe for some time.
To my relief, I could see first the secretario, and then the mayor, melting under Ingo’s eloquent argument (a miracle, considering how hungover he was after all the prosecco we’d consumed in our rented villa the night before—Non-Fabrication Number Five). Finally, with a frustrated sigh, the mayor laid down his sandwich and explained that he would marry us if:
a) We supplied a translator, approved by the Comune, who could tell us exactly what we were agreeing to when we said “si.”
b) We provided a “donation” to the “Children’s Fund.”
c)That we obtained additional paperwork, in the form ofcertificatos di cittadinanza from the Consulate General of the United States in Milan.
Since this last condition entailed a drive of approximately four hours each way, Milano being five hundred kilometers from Diano San Pietro—we argued strenuously against it, insisting that the Italian consulate in New York had said nothing of this additional form.
But the mayor remained firm. It was clear he thought we would bail on the whole thing if it meant an entire day’s drive. Because who in their right mind would give up a day of their vacation in Italy to drive back and forth to Milan? This would leave the Comune di Diana San Pietro free to do whatever it was they did all day when they were not marrying Americans… which appeared, to my eyes, to be very little.
When, defeated, we finally agreed to do all that they re quired of us, thesecretario, looking very official, rolled a sheet of paper into his typewriter and began filling out our request for acertificato di matrimonio .
“And when,” he asked, “do you want to be married?”
We replied promptly, “April first.”
The secretario began typing, then suddenly stopped, looked at us over the rim of his glasses, and asked, “This is a joke. You are—who you say?—kidding us,si? ”
I shook my head. It had been Benjamin’s idea to get married in Italy. It was my idea to do it on April Fool’s Day, playing on Benjamin’s belief that only fools get married in the first place.
I will admit that there was a delicious irony to the fact that, when we sent telegrams to our families afterward, they wouldn’t know until we returned from Europe whether we’d actually been married, or if it was all a prank.
Hey, at twenty-six, that seemed excruciatingly funny to me.
“You are not kidding,” the secretario said. He looked back down at his typewriter keys, trying not to smile.
The mayor eyed us suspiciously, then gave us another lecture on how in Italy, marriage is taken very seriously, unlike in America.
Then he picked up his sandwich and announced he could only marry us at nine o’clock in the morning on April first, since he was refereeing the Diano San Pietro boy’s football (soccer) game at ten (Non-Fabrication Number Six).
We assured him we’d be at the city hall promptly at nine. He looked as if he was thinking,Yeah. Right. The secretario, typing steadily, continued to smile to himself. It was clear neither man believed he would be seeing us on April first.
But the Comune di Diano San Pietro was sadly underestimating how tenacious a pair of young Americans in love can be.
We received only two speeding tickets on our way to Milano at five the next morning.
Non-Fabrication Number Seven:The wait in the Consulate General’s office turned out to be almost longer than the drive itself.
Non-Fabrication Number Eight: While we sat waiting for our certificatos, we listened to a young American woman as she tried to convince her older brother that marrying Paolo, an Italian auto mechanic whom she had met the week before, and who sat broodingly beside her, clearly not understanding a word of English, was a good idea. She was still arguing persuasively as we left, four hours later.
Non-Fabrication Number Nine: We really did eat at the Amici Amore restaurant, and the toilet really was just a hole with two footprints around it.
Fortunately, we received only one speeding ticket on our way back to Diano San Pietro.
Non-Fabrication Number Ten: The only CD in the car during this eight-hour drive was a collection of songs by Queen. “Fat-Bottomed Girls” really WAS our wedding’s theme song.
The translator was much easier to come by than our certificatos . Word of the impending marriage of two crazy Americans spread like wildfire throughout the village.
Non-Fabrication Number Eleven: The eighty-year-old woman from whom we were renting our charming, two-storied house in the hills overlooking the sea, insisted upon going down to the Comune and yelling at the mayor for us, to assure him that we were very serious about being married, and that he had better not wear his referee uniform to the ceremony.
Touched by this gesture, I asked her to be my maid of honor.
Meanwhile, a German tourist staying in apensione a few houses away introduced himself and said he would be happy to translate for us—his Italian was flawless, and he was a translator for a living.