A ribbon of canary sunlight escaped through a gap in the curtains and played upon the terracotta floor in an otherwise dark room. I pulled back the heavy curtains to let the late summer morning flood in.
The hills in the distance rolled golden out of their slumber. The olive trees shivered sage and silver in a light morning breeze under a sky of aquamarine. Despite the fact that this scene, this Tuscan landscape, may have appeared very much the same for over a thousand years, today was in fact a day unlike any other. Today was my wedding day. As the late morning easily became mid-afternoon, and not forgetting that the wedding was that very evening, I retired to my room for a long hot bath. I opened the window wide as I bathed, and watched the impossibly white clouds roll by in a crisp blue sky, when I heard the first signs of something ominous to come. Was that thunder? It couldn’t be – the sun was too warm and the sky too vivid. But sure enough, little by little the white clouds turned to grey and covered the whole of the sky. The once-distant thunder rumbled louder and louder, and soon it was certain that we were not to escape a minor tempest. As the wives’ tale goes, rain on your wedding day brings good luck. And perhaps it does. But it can also thwart the best-laid plans and force the implementation of Plan B. Plan B in our case would mean having dinner after the wedding in the wine cellar rather than on the terrace. Not that this was an altogether inferior option, but for my wedding, I wanted nothing else than to dine after our vows in the company of fireflies and in the breath of a warm summer night. The concept for our wedding began and ended there. Nevertheless, it is not unknown that nature is fickle, and whatever will be will be. I thought this in an unusual state of calm, admittedly even for me, as I stood on my balcony wrapped in a white robe, watching the rain pour down. The wedding was to begin at 5.30 that evening in the tiny chapel across the way, and it was already past 4.00. But as the clouds kept a rapid pace, they were soon past and gone was the tempest. From that point forth, everything was perfection. I was escorted down the aisle by my father. My bouquet was, in my view, one of the most exquisite arrangements of orchids ever – crisp white with sunset-colored pistils. White orchids and candles adorned the tiny medieval chapel that was the perfect size for our closest friends and family, yet no less grand in its aesthetic aspect than any cathedral. My dress, for the curious, was the color of Mexican fire opals. And this was the only color I could imagine it being. After my fiancé and I were engaged, I decided that this was the color that suited me best – in personality and in hue. “The color of love,” Roger, our Australian priest, had proclaimed the previous day when I told him what to expect. Since determining it should be this and no other color, my fiancé set out to acquire for me some Mexican fire opals that I should wear at the wedding. He selected the stones and designed the settings for earrings and a necklace, and presented them to me on my birthday preceding the wedding. Fortunately, I was able to find a fiery silk dress to match. During the ceremony, Ave Verum lilted upward toward the rafters in a timbre that could only be described as angelic. We thanked God in both English and Italian, and asked for his blessing. Tears were shed and rings were exchanged. My husband and I made our exit to a flurry of rose petals and the jubilant chiming of church bells. We had begun our life together. After the wedding, we shared prosecco and canapés with our guests. As the sun was setting, we moved the party onto the terrace, where a jazz duo welcomed us and an exquisite table of orchids and tiny glass lanterns awaited us. The mood was relaxed, the new night air, intoxicating. We laughed and we drank and we indulged ourselves on course after course of the most sublime food imaginable. Although invitations for our wedding party went out to guests representing every inhabited continent, and went as far and wide as Bangkok, Copenhagen and Sydney, our guest list was nevertheless very small. We invited only our closest family, and as far as friends went, our closest and our favorites. As the twilight receded behind the Tuscan hills and the lights of Siena began to twinkle in the distance, I realized that I could not have been happier. We achieved what at the start of the planning process seemed next to impossible – executing the perfect wedding. Or as my husband describes it, the best wedding in recorded history. So that is my wedding story. Or so it seems. But that isn’t all there is, and I want to let you in on a secret – my really big secret as to how it was all possible. Her name is Luciana Morgera and she is an angel. I hope you get the sense from reading my story that not only were the wedding and the reception executed to perfection (which truth be told, many are), but also that there was a certain perfection that preceded them as well. This, I think, is the truly extraordinary aspect. Completely absent was any sense of stress, tension or frenzy, and in its place there was only a sense of excitement, anticipation, and the rarest of all in that time preceding the wedding, tranquility. Never once have I ever seen or heard of a bride who just languidly enjoyed all the day in the hours leading up to the wedding. Not at any time did I resemble a chicken, a hen, or any other sort of fowl running around without its head. Permit me to tell you how this was possible. It was possible because I knew everything was being, or had already been, taken care of to the highest possible standard and by the most capable people. It was possible because when you have the kind of confidence in someone that I had in Lucy (as she told us to address her from the beginning) and her team at The Wedding Planner in Tuscany®, it’s easy to relax. From that point on, we were in constant contact with Lucy, exchanging ideas and shaping a concept for the wedding. Lucy was a dream to work with: she was always quick to respond, she always came through with anything we needed, and she always surpassed our expectations. In addition, she was an absolute pleasure to speak to, and an absolute delight with whom to correspond. In the months prior to the wedding, she confirmed for us everything that was in place. Once we arrived in Italy, we met with the priest, after The Wedding Planner in Tuscany®, had made all the arrangements for us and had taken care of all the required paperwork, and then we met with Lucy herself. She showed us samples of all the details, including my bouquet. I had given her a sense of the type I wanted, but then left the rest to her. As always, she came through with flying colors and rendered me speechless with a bouquet that was nothing less than a work of art. The day of the wedding she and her team arrived early. They spent the day ironing out last minute details, decorating and setting up for the evening’s festivities – all of this while my fiancé and I lounged by the pool, drinking prosecco and lazing in the sun. Lucy had thought of every last stylish detail. She had overlooked nothing. Even when the rain set in, I remained remarkably panic-free because I knew Lucy was on the case, and whatever Plan B she put into operation would have been the most extraordinary Plan B ever devised. The wedding was not simply a collection of plans that had been executed, flowers that had been arranged and candles that had been lighted. It was so much more. It was a dream. It was the atmosphere of heaven, interpreted specifically for us, so that we might have come as close to the true spirit of marriage as is possible on Earth. The dinner afterward was likewise not just a menu, some courses and some elegant music. It was a late summer reverie, an effervescent memory unfolding. There was magic in the candlelight, mystery in the wine. And to a person, our guests said it was the best, most romantic wedding ever. In the words of one guest, “it was pure enchantment.” Thank you, Lucy. |