A wedding in Tuscany
June 20, 2004 | 12:00am
A few weeks into the year 2004, my wife and I received a cryptic note embossed on excellent Italian stationery. The note said:
SAVE THE DATE
Mai Cojuangco & Andrea Zini
Fifth of June
Two Thousand and Four
05.06.2004
Florence, Italy
PLEASE SAVE THIS SPECIAL DAY!
With ties to the Mai’s family stretching back almost 50 years, we knew this would be the prelude to a wedding invitation. Most people normally greet wedding invitations with an air of nonchalance but a wedding in Tuscany – now that would be hard to resist, and we made no pretense of doing so. Preparations went into high gear almost immediately.
The first item on the agenda was to call friends to check out who would be going, the point being to plan an extended trip with as many friends as possible, without any thought to the logistics and complex organization involved. Well, after preparing several itineraries with many calls, faxes, meetings, and dinners in between, reality quickly set in.
An unexpected pregnancy, romantic entanglements and disentanglements, differing schedules, political considerations, divergent tastes, and the demands of work and family made the plan ultimately unachievable. Despite the disappointment, this was no doubt just as well considering a cautionary tale a good friend had told me about the "tour group from hell".
Once upon a time, two sisters decided to bring each one’s entire family on a tour of Europe. They were so numerous that hiring a personal tour bus and driver to take them around the south of France at their own pace became a necessity, not a luxury. Unfortunately, as the trip progressed, some unpleasant facts kept intruding on what should have been a really enjoyable trip. Each member of the family was traveling at his own pace completely out of sync with everyone else; their tastes in what to see and do were invariably at odds; and eating at a mutually acceptable time became an increasingly frustrating exercise. However, they did have one thing in common – an unruly bladder, which demanded relief at every inopportune moment. Their tour bus was lurching from one pit stop to another and what would normally take an hour to reach would take at least two. In no time at all, the two matriarchs were not talking to each other, tension always filled the air, and their bus driver was threatening to leave them all stranded in some gorge in the wilds of Haute Provence. One sister was my friend’s aunt, the other was her mother.
Five months after receiving our invitation, my wife and I flew to Rome and drove to Certosa, on the outskirts of Florence, where we had rented a villa together with two other couples invited to the wedding. Coming after a 27- hour-long trip (we made a detour to Rome to have a long and languorous lunch with an old friend), we were pleasantly surprised at our choice of accommodations. Mai had recommended that I get in touch with Florence Dreams, a group that specialized in renting out Tuscan villas. Our group of three couples agreed on renting the Casa Firenze, a three bedroom villa with four bathrooms, the latter fact sealing our choice of accommodation. We were, however, unprepared for everything else that was in store for us – an eat-in country kitchen with every modern appliance including an espresso maker, a formal dining room for 10 in pale lime green, a formal living room in pale lemon yellow with two large armchairs and a sofa grouped around a scaled down medieval fireplace and a CD player, and a family room with flat screen TV and powder room. Each one of the public rooms was connected by a gallery fronting a garden which was planted with, among others, red and white rose bushes, lemon trees, basil, rosemary and lavender. The villa was built on top of a hill and so the garden and every room in the house commanded a view of the rolling hills of Florence with its fields of barley and wheat, its vineyards, its olive trees, its forests and the ubiquitous cypress trees.
The next day was the day of the wedding. After lunch in the city and a flurry of ironing, our group drove to a central meeting place where all guests were to be assembled and bused to the church to ensure that no one would get lost.
In the final uphill stretch of a road lined with cypress trees, through a small park called Il Pratino, lies the Basilica di Santa Maria dei Servi. The steps of the Basilica will take you to one of the highest points in Siena where you can enjoy a breathtaking view of the city. There you can admire the beautiful city and its walls, the Loggi dei Nove of the Palazzo Publico, Mangia’s Tower and the Duomo with its characteristic unfinished façade and bell tower. Inside are works of art created by the Sienese school of the 13th and 14th centuries, the late Byzantine style Madonna del Bordone by Coppo di Marcovaldo, the Baroque Birth of the Virgin by Rutilio Manetti and the Massacre of Innocents by Matteo de Giovanni from the Renaissance era.
As we alighted from our buses and walked up the hill to the church, we were greeted by the groom Andrea, who was dressed in cutaways and a smile from ear to ear, no doubt deliriously happy at having won his prize after eight long years of courtship. Seeing the bridegroom greeting the guests at the steps leading to the church struck me a quite unusual but, unbeknownst to all of us, Andrea was frantically overseeing the transportation of all the guests and looking for Mai. He need not have worried as she showed up on time.
As we admired the architecture and the artwork of the Santa Maria dei Servi, my wife and I couldn’t help but remember Maimai as a little girl. Our most vivid recollection of her was visiting with us in San Francisco when we still lived there. She and her sister China loved to play with our two boys. Mai was a very cute 11-year-old with a very cute puppy. One day, her parents decided to take her to Disneyland on condition that she leave her puppy behind. So she asked us to take care of it during her absence. The minute she left, her very cute puppy took a dump behind my favorite armchair.
Our reverie ended when the bells started to peal, the bridal entourage assembled at the door of the church, and the reason for this whole trip began to unfold.
The wedding entourage walked down the aisle in the traditional Philippine manner with the flower girls, bridesmaids, sponsors, the parents preceding the wedding couple. The Manila contingent of the entourage was all dressed in Filipino dress, especially Tingting who looked like she had walked out of an antique print depicting an Ilustrada of the 18th century. As for the bride, when we first espied her, she was framed by the arch of the doorway to the church with the setting sun blazing behind her, making it difficult for the guests to see her at first. When we finally did get to see her in all her glory, she was wearing a bridal gown designed by a Florentine designer with a bustle, a short train behind her and a long lace veil which elicited sighs of admiration from the guests. As she progressed down the aisle with a very proud Peping by her side, it became quickly apparent that Andrea had every reason to smile from ear to ear – Mai-mai made a stunning bride.
Mass was a bilingual affair, partly in English and partly in Italian, but said by a Filipino priest. The traditions followed in this wedding were also a mix of Filipino and Italian – a sure sign of the spread of the Filipino diaspora.
After the wedding was over, everyone was brought to the Borgo La Bagnaia, which was where the reception was to be held.
In 1445 Jacopo de Galgano Bichi purchased Borgo la Bagnaia for 1200 florini. Today the village consists of 1,100 hectares of land, 600 of which is virgin forest where roebucks, hares, pheasants and horses roam freely. Located on a strip of the Maremma which extends from Siena to the Thyrrenean Sea, the Borgo has unparalleled and unobstructed views of Siena and its hills. At the heart of the Bagnaia lies the small consecrated medieval church of Saint Vincent and Anastasio. A few steps from the church, there is a panoramic pool in the midst of gardens and olive trees.î
The reception was held in the garden which was on the highest point of the Borgo, which was itself on top of a hill. As we walked into the garden before the wedding dinner commenced, guests were treated to a bewildering display of food set up in separate buffet table. There were fresh oysters, crayfish, lobsters, a vast array of cheese, all manner of hors d’oeuvres and Florentine specialties, and many more. The bar was of course the center of the action as it was sending out a never-ending stream of champagne and liquor.
At the edge of the garden from where one could enjoy a panoramic 270-degree view of Siena and its surrounding countryside, a gleaming white tent had been erected to accommodate 300 people. Inside, everything was in gold and white. The interior of the tent was illuminated by candlelight on the tables and in the chandeliers above us. In the middle of the tent, there was a cascade of tulle sprinkled with gold stars. At the bottom of the cascade was a round table on top of several crystal candelabras which had been placed to properly illuminate the wedding favors. Tied to them were the names of each guest and their assigned seating.
Dinner was excellent and was a relatively simple affair, considering that we were dining in the heart of Tuscany: acquacotta with porcini mushrooms, risotto sautéed with thyme and rosemary, lobster tail with herb butter, sea bass en papillote with a bouquet of field greens and a raspberry vinaigrette and zucchini flan, green tea and mint sorbet with dark chocolate leaves. The wedding cake was the piece de resistance, a fluffy butter cake with strawberries and light cream icing with a hint of white chocolate. Dinner was highlighted by a piano performance of Bach by Max Ilusorio Bildner, an 11-year-old prodigy. After dinner, we were treated to a fireworks display and a performance of an allegory of love conquering all by acrobats on stilts dressed in medieval costume. Then the band struck up a tune and the dancing commenced.
The night was crystal clear, the air was crisp, and there was a blanket of stars above us as we left the wedding festivities in the wee hours of the morning. Just as we were leaving, we saw another large buffet table filled with chocolates, petit fours, crepes suzette and lots of champagne – all designed to fortify everyone who would be dancing and carousing til daylight. The Zinis had pulled out all the stops and made sure their guests would remember this wedding for a long time to come. Our trip from halfway around the world was worth it.
In the end however, no matter which way you look at it or however simple or lavish the proceedings may be, a wedding means only one thing – a couple declares their love for and commitment to each other before family, friends, and the community. But to my wife and me, it was much more than that. We had just witnessed a rite of passage; a reminder of the inexorable march of time; of birth, life, marriage, children, family and the change which is the only constant in our lives. But, most of all, we had been witness to the metamorphosis of a cute little girl who once had her puppy who liked to relieve itself anywhere. Mai was now a woman.
SAVE THE DATE
Mai Cojuangco & Andrea Zini
Fifth of June
Two Thousand and Four
05.06.2004
Florence, Italy
PLEASE SAVE THIS SPECIAL DAY!
The first item on the agenda was to call friends to check out who would be going, the point being to plan an extended trip with as many friends as possible, without any thought to the logistics and complex organization involved. Well, after preparing several itineraries with many calls, faxes, meetings, and dinners in between, reality quickly set in.
An unexpected pregnancy, romantic entanglements and disentanglements, differing schedules, political considerations, divergent tastes, and the demands of work and family made the plan ultimately unachievable. Despite the disappointment, this was no doubt just as well considering a cautionary tale a good friend had told me about the "tour group from hell".
Once upon a time, two sisters decided to bring each one’s entire family on a tour of Europe. They were so numerous that hiring a personal tour bus and driver to take them around the south of France at their own pace became a necessity, not a luxury. Unfortunately, as the trip progressed, some unpleasant facts kept intruding on what should have been a really enjoyable trip. Each member of the family was traveling at his own pace completely out of sync with everyone else; their tastes in what to see and do were invariably at odds; and eating at a mutually acceptable time became an increasingly frustrating exercise. However, they did have one thing in common – an unruly bladder, which demanded relief at every inopportune moment. Their tour bus was lurching from one pit stop to another and what would normally take an hour to reach would take at least two. In no time at all, the two matriarchs were not talking to each other, tension always filled the air, and their bus driver was threatening to leave them all stranded in some gorge in the wilds of Haute Provence. One sister was my friend’s aunt, the other was her mother.
Five months after receiving our invitation, my wife and I flew to Rome and drove to Certosa, on the outskirts of Florence, where we had rented a villa together with two other couples invited to the wedding. Coming after a 27- hour-long trip (we made a detour to Rome to have a long and languorous lunch with an old friend), we were pleasantly surprised at our choice of accommodations. Mai had recommended that I get in touch with Florence Dreams, a group that specialized in renting out Tuscan villas. Our group of three couples agreed on renting the Casa Firenze, a three bedroom villa with four bathrooms, the latter fact sealing our choice of accommodation. We were, however, unprepared for everything else that was in store for us – an eat-in country kitchen with every modern appliance including an espresso maker, a formal dining room for 10 in pale lime green, a formal living room in pale lemon yellow with two large armchairs and a sofa grouped around a scaled down medieval fireplace and a CD player, and a family room with flat screen TV and powder room. Each one of the public rooms was connected by a gallery fronting a garden which was planted with, among others, red and white rose bushes, lemon trees, basil, rosemary and lavender. The villa was built on top of a hill and so the garden and every room in the house commanded a view of the rolling hills of Florence with its fields of barley and wheat, its vineyards, its olive trees, its forests and the ubiquitous cypress trees.
The next day was the day of the wedding. After lunch in the city and a flurry of ironing, our group drove to a central meeting place where all guests were to be assembled and bused to the church to ensure that no one would get lost.
In the final uphill stretch of a road lined with cypress trees, through a small park called Il Pratino, lies the Basilica di Santa Maria dei Servi. The steps of the Basilica will take you to one of the highest points in Siena where you can enjoy a breathtaking view of the city. There you can admire the beautiful city and its walls, the Loggi dei Nove of the Palazzo Publico, Mangia’s Tower and the Duomo with its characteristic unfinished façade and bell tower. Inside are works of art created by the Sienese school of the 13th and 14th centuries, the late Byzantine style Madonna del Bordone by Coppo di Marcovaldo, the Baroque Birth of the Virgin by Rutilio Manetti and the Massacre of Innocents by Matteo de Giovanni from the Renaissance era.
As we alighted from our buses and walked up the hill to the church, we were greeted by the groom Andrea, who was dressed in cutaways and a smile from ear to ear, no doubt deliriously happy at having won his prize after eight long years of courtship. Seeing the bridegroom greeting the guests at the steps leading to the church struck me a quite unusual but, unbeknownst to all of us, Andrea was frantically overseeing the transportation of all the guests and looking for Mai. He need not have worried as she showed up on time.
As we admired the architecture and the artwork of the Santa Maria dei Servi, my wife and I couldn’t help but remember Maimai as a little girl. Our most vivid recollection of her was visiting with us in San Francisco when we still lived there. She and her sister China loved to play with our two boys. Mai was a very cute 11-year-old with a very cute puppy. One day, her parents decided to take her to Disneyland on condition that she leave her puppy behind. So she asked us to take care of it during her absence. The minute she left, her very cute puppy took a dump behind my favorite armchair.
Our reverie ended when the bells started to peal, the bridal entourage assembled at the door of the church, and the reason for this whole trip began to unfold.
The wedding entourage walked down the aisle in the traditional Philippine manner with the flower girls, bridesmaids, sponsors, the parents preceding the wedding couple. The Manila contingent of the entourage was all dressed in Filipino dress, especially Tingting who looked like she had walked out of an antique print depicting an Ilustrada of the 18th century. As for the bride, when we first espied her, she was framed by the arch of the doorway to the church with the setting sun blazing behind her, making it difficult for the guests to see her at first. When we finally did get to see her in all her glory, she was wearing a bridal gown designed by a Florentine designer with a bustle, a short train behind her and a long lace veil which elicited sighs of admiration from the guests. As she progressed down the aisle with a very proud Peping by her side, it became quickly apparent that Andrea had every reason to smile from ear to ear – Mai-mai made a stunning bride.
Mass was a bilingual affair, partly in English and partly in Italian, but said by a Filipino priest. The traditions followed in this wedding were also a mix of Filipino and Italian – a sure sign of the spread of the Filipino diaspora.
After the wedding was over, everyone was brought to the Borgo La Bagnaia, which was where the reception was to be held.
In 1445 Jacopo de Galgano Bichi purchased Borgo la Bagnaia for 1200 florini. Today the village consists of 1,100 hectares of land, 600 of which is virgin forest where roebucks, hares, pheasants and horses roam freely. Located on a strip of the Maremma which extends from Siena to the Thyrrenean Sea, the Borgo has unparalleled and unobstructed views of Siena and its hills. At the heart of the Bagnaia lies the small consecrated medieval church of Saint Vincent and Anastasio. A few steps from the church, there is a panoramic pool in the midst of gardens and olive trees.î
The reception was held in the garden which was on the highest point of the Borgo, which was itself on top of a hill. As we walked into the garden before the wedding dinner commenced, guests were treated to a bewildering display of food set up in separate buffet table. There were fresh oysters, crayfish, lobsters, a vast array of cheese, all manner of hors d’oeuvres and Florentine specialties, and many more. The bar was of course the center of the action as it was sending out a never-ending stream of champagne and liquor.
At the edge of the garden from where one could enjoy a panoramic 270-degree view of Siena and its surrounding countryside, a gleaming white tent had been erected to accommodate 300 people. Inside, everything was in gold and white. The interior of the tent was illuminated by candlelight on the tables and in the chandeliers above us. In the middle of the tent, there was a cascade of tulle sprinkled with gold stars. At the bottom of the cascade was a round table on top of several crystal candelabras which had been placed to properly illuminate the wedding favors. Tied to them were the names of each guest and their assigned seating.
Dinner was excellent and was a relatively simple affair, considering that we were dining in the heart of Tuscany: acquacotta with porcini mushrooms, risotto sautéed with thyme and rosemary, lobster tail with herb butter, sea bass en papillote with a bouquet of field greens and a raspberry vinaigrette and zucchini flan, green tea and mint sorbet with dark chocolate leaves. The wedding cake was the piece de resistance, a fluffy butter cake with strawberries and light cream icing with a hint of white chocolate. Dinner was highlighted by a piano performance of Bach by Max Ilusorio Bildner, an 11-year-old prodigy. After dinner, we were treated to a fireworks display and a performance of an allegory of love conquering all by acrobats on stilts dressed in medieval costume. Then the band struck up a tune and the dancing commenced.
The night was crystal clear, the air was crisp, and there was a blanket of stars above us as we left the wedding festivities in the wee hours of the morning. Just as we were leaving, we saw another large buffet table filled with chocolates, petit fours, crepes suzette and lots of champagne – all designed to fortify everyone who would be dancing and carousing til daylight. The Zinis had pulled out all the stops and made sure their guests would remember this wedding for a long time to come. Our trip from halfway around the world was worth it.
In the end however, no matter which way you look at it or however simple or lavish the proceedings may be, a wedding means only one thing – a couple declares their love for and commitment to each other before family, friends, and the community. But to my wife and me, it was much more than that. We had just witnessed a rite of passage; a reminder of the inexorable march of time; of birth, life, marriage, children, family and the change which is the only constant in our lives. But, most of all, we had been witness to the metamorphosis of a cute little girl who once had her puppy who liked to relieve itself anywhere. Mai was now a woman.
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