The day I was to leave for my European swing, I received a wedding invitation with Italian flounce from Luisa Kochel Zaide, eldest daughter of my good friends, our envoy to Germany Ambassador Jose "Toto" Zaide and his wife Victoria "Meng." I telephoned Toto from the Budapest Embassy of Ambassador Estrella Berenguel, who was arranging my exhibits in Warsaw, Bratislava and Budapest. With my Schengen visa, we figured out that I could squeeze in my schedule.
For this reason, I interrupted my sojourn to Eastern Europe to detour to the Feast of Cana by the Varese Mountains on the Italian side of the Lugano. The place is in the beautiful region of Lombardy, on the border of Switzerland.
Varese, renowned medieval village, seat of an ancient and important market, became a town in 1816 and a royal town in 1875. The place serves as a departure point for visiting lakes Maggiore and Lugano.
Lugano is a popular resort with two main sights. First is the 16th-century church of Santa Maria degli Angioli, containing striking frescoes by Bernardino Luini. Then there is the Villa Favorita with a collection of paintings amassed by Baron Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza. The villa also contains the works of old masters and some European modern art.
As for the bride and groom, what a beautiful match! And fate favored them to meet... and fall in love. Andrea Ossola comes from Old World Europe and lived on the other side of the Varese Mountains. And Luisa Kochel Zaide comes from the older world of Asia and lived on the other side of the Philippine seas.
The couple met at Dubai Hyatt. She, at the business center, he, the sous chef. I would later learn that during those two years, Luisa Kochel e-mailed her parents in Berlin about holidays with her friend named Andrea, in Oman, in Bali or some parts of the Levantine. Mother Meng had entrusted her daughter Kochel to the watchful eyes of general manager Josef Kral and his doting wife Baibhee, family friends from a previous posting in New Delhi. But it was only when Kochel arrived with her friend for the family Christmas dinner that the parents would discover that Andrea was a man’s name!
It wasn’t difficult to accept Andrea. If the fastest way to the heart is through the stomach, a three-star chef should easily win over a prospective mother-in-law.
Because Andrea’s lola, Signore Ada, is afraid of flying, the wedding was set for his village, Clivio, close to Lake Lugano, bordering Switzerland. The bride and the Zaide family all flew in — the ambassador and wife from Berlin, the brothers, Jose Jamil on a break from Gemini consultants, and Renato Paolo, who just graduated with a degree in architecture at the Bartlett in London, and sister Luningning Beata Zaide and her husband Stefan Kerber, from Hamburg.
Ambassador Peter Scholz, a two-term former German ambassador to Manila, and I wore barong tagalog at the wedding. (Perhaps as concession to the locals, the father-of-the-bride wore a traditional black Italian suit — which looked very capo di tutti). Other well-wishers came, too — Peter and Edith Platzek, Chit (nee Hernandez) and Peter Maack and their debutante Cleo, all from Hamburg; Ambassador Peter Scholtz drove five hours from Bolzano, likewise the former European Commission representative to India Ambassador and Mrs. Manfredo Macioti from their Tuscany retreat; and Dresdnerbank director Hermann and June Reuter from Frankfurt. (As if to help me soak up the love feast, Singapore Girl June sang Celine Dion’s Color of My Love. I gifted the couple a quick sketch aquarelle of the Parochia Santi Pietro e Paolo, where the wedding took place on the feast day of the two saints.)
Also bearing gifts were P&G Russia and Eastern Europe market research director Irene Reuter and niece Stefanie Brandt, Hyatt general manager Ignacio and Carmen Gutierrez from Madrid, Whitehall finance director Olivier and Fanny Lacoste from Paris, the bride’s school chum Jacqueline and her husband cineast Andreas Hoffmann and Evelyn Saligumba Ziegler from Vienna UN. Consul Antonio Morales and the ambassador’s cousin Jeanette Zaide from our Rome Embassy alternated translating speeches of the father-of-the-bride and of Ambassador Scholz into hand-spoken Italian. Markus Hardenbicker and Hanne Schon of Deutschewelle photographed the wedding. Denise Weber flew in from Zurich to represent her husband Leela Hotel GM Thomas Weber. The groom’s side completed the rest of nears and dears at the Madonnina Albergo e Ristorante wedding feast — Lola Ada, his mother Signora Fernanda vda. de Ossola, Mario Bartoloti, the sister Sylvia Ossola and Delfio Craco, uncle Arialdo Scarpazza, aunts, nephews and nieces, his best man Mario Rozzato and closest friends from Clivio.
It was a fairy-tale wedding. The bride’s train was a delicate designer’s lace-and-ribbons retazo painstakingly sewn by her mother, Meng and the gown was iron-pressed by the mother-in-law, Fernanda. Cinderella arrived with the diplomat-father of-the-bride in a tandem horse carriage. Officiating priest was Don Ausonio, whom the groom had served as sacristan, while the sister Sylvia’s parish choir sang hymns.
The village turned up to shower rice on the bride and groom who received guests at an afternoon reception at the alcove corridor of the 150-year-old library with a breathtaking view of the Varese and Lake Laguno. There we found the village seniors bent over their regular canasta game. The septuagenarians looked up briefly at an intruding wedding party, before returning to their cards without allowing the outside world to disturb an idyllic Saturday afternoon in Clivio.
After the wedding, I continued my journey, hitching a ride with Ambassador Peter Scholz, who was returning to his holiday home in Pfalzen, Bolzano, on the German-speaking side of Italy. On that pleasant drive on the Italian autostrada, I would learn more of Dr. Scholz’s interest in Philippine affairs, his suo moto work for Radio Veritas and amigos para siempre National Artist Francisco Sionil Jose.