What Confetti Really Means, and Other Facts About Italian Weddings

 

Before I start, I need to be upfront about something: I am not an expert on Italian weddings In fact, I have been to a grand total of one wedding in Italy, and the couple were both British. But one of the delights of multicultural life (or friends have been resident in Italy for several years) is that sometimes you get to pick the best from each of the cultures and put them together to make something even better, which is what our friends did, and the result was a truly beautiful occasion which I can't resist writing about.*

Our friends got married at a civil ceremony in the Valle d'Aosta. They actually live in another part of Italy, but were able to give "personale" as their reason for choosing a different commune for their wedding. The legal part of the ceremony was quite short: the mayor confirmed the identities of the couple and their witnesses, read out the relevant legislation (3 articles), then read out the wedding vows as "Do you ... ?" questions, to which they only had to answer "Yes". They then signed the register and the mayor summarised what had been said and signed. I've found the legalese read out at other weddings a bit dull, but I liked the fact that the articles from Italian law focused very much on making choices in the best interests of the couple and any children they might have, including giving the children an upbringing appropriate to their capacities, natural inclinations and aspirations. After that there were two readings chosen by the couple, one in English and one in Italian and the bride's sister sang a song. (These were not allowed to have any religious content) Our friends also chose read out the English wedding vows to each other, but obviously that didn't have any legal significance. After that there was time for a few photos, then we all had to leave before the next wedding party came in.

As the couple exited the town hall, we all threw confetti ... but only in the English sense. The actual Italian meaning of confetti is the sugared almonds that guests are given as wedding favours in a little bag or box called a bomboniera much later on. If you threw Italian confetti at the happy couple, they might not stay happy for much longer!

This was just the beginning!

The reception took place in a hotel with a terrace and garden looking out over the mountains. It started with prosecco and aperitivo snacks on the lawn, and as it was about 2pm by this point, we were all hungry and tucked into the buffet. An hour later, when we sat down at our tables for the actual meal, most of us wished we had been a little more restrained - the menu covered both sides of the piece of paper ... and not because there were lots of choices! We started with four different antipasti, or starters, which included little cheese pastries, insalata caprese, local hams and sausages and vitello tonnato (veal with a tuna sauce). Luckily there was a break before we moved on to the next course, with a speech from the father of the bride. (This is a British tradition - I believe that at Italian weddings it's normally one of the witnesses who gives the speech.) The next two courses were risotto then gnocchi, followed by meat with a mushroom sauce ... luckily with more breaks and British-style speeches from the groom and finally the two best men, then we went out to the garden for desserts, wedding cake and spumante. (Prosecco and spumante are both sparkling white wines, but prosecco is drier and is usually served before the meal, while spumante comes afterwards.)

By this time we had been enjoying magnificent food for about six hours straight and as we finished up our desserts, we were also treated to a magnificent sunset over the mountains. Italian friends told us that this would normally be the end of the wedding, with people giving their presents and saying their goodbyes. The tradition is to give money in an envelope rather than actual gifts, and you can buy special cards with a pocket for the money inside for exactly this purpose. While our friends made it clear that the money was to go towards their honeymoon, the tradition in Italy that you give at least enough to cover the cost of your meal. This is also the case in France, whereas in the UK I think the amount spent on a present is based more on how well you know the couple, with friends who aren't particularly close often giving quite small presents.

Our friends' wedding ended with music, dancing and more drinking for those who could take it, but that part was definitely more British. The band did a great job of performing covers of English-language songs, even although they had admitted beforehand that they weren't very sure of some of the words. And so ended a very special day that combined all the best of Italian and British tradition!

*If you would like to hear more about Italian weddings from someone who knows what they're talking about, Leanne at From Australia to Italy has a whole series of posts on the subject that gave me a good idea of what to expect!

Estate Valdostana

The Valle d'Aosta is a tiny region nestled in the north-west corner of Italy, next to the borders with France and Switzerland. Tiny in horizontal square kilometres it may be, but in its verticality it is grandiose, home to some of Europe's most impressive and beautiful mountains, including, but not limited to Gran Paradiso and the Italian sides of Monte Cervino (the Matterhorn) and Monte Bianco. It's also officially bilingual, having once been part of Savoia/Savoie/Savoy, but unlike in Italy's other bilingual region, Alto Adige/Suedtirol, whose questions of cultural and linguistic identity stem from much more recent and painful history, it carries its two languages with ease. Most of the people we met seemed to be mother-tongue Italian speakers but all were perfectly at ease in French. One old lady we met sitting outside her house in the hamlet where we were staying explained to us that, unlike most people in the area, she never learned to read and write French because she was at school at the time of Mussolini, but she could speak it fluently.

I learned to ski in the Valle d'Aosta five years ago, and I remember being awestruck as the instructor named the peaks of Europe's highest summits that were dominating the view in all directions. (Gran Paradiso is the highest mountain entirely in Italy, and as well as Mont Blanc and Monte Cervino, you can also see Monte Rosa, the highest peak in Switzerland and the second-highest in the Alps.) But if anything, I liked it even more in summer, when as well as the sweeping vistas, I could enjoy the detail of the tiny wild flowers, the stone houses with their characteristic slated roofs and the geraniums that spilled over every windowsill and flower pot. It's a story that tells itself better through photographs than words, so without further ado:

The centre of Vens, where we stayed. As well as this hotel, there was a church and some houses, and that was all.

Pretty Flowers

Roofs and mountains

Monte Bianco emerging from the clouds.

Wild Flowers

Butterflies were everywhere.

Wild Rose

Free range chicken in the town square!

Hiking up to the Lacs de Laure

Approaching the Lacs de Laure

Lac Inferieure

Waterfall

Looking across the valley from Vens.

Vens

La Settimana Bianca: Après-Ski

On our first day in Pila, we only bought half-day ski passes. Our lessons finished at 12.30 and we figured that we could easily fit in an extra bit of practice before the passes ran out at 2 o'clock if we wanted to. By Tuesday, however, we had realised that we were unlikely to want to do anything other than collapse in the sun with lunch after a 3 hour skiing lesson and that the view from the chalet terraces alone was worth paying an extra ten euros to stay an extra couple of hours and look at. As I said before, the centre of Aosta was pretty, but not quite pretty enough to compete with a stunning panorama of Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa and the Cervino mountains.



As well as me and Mr A, several of our friends from Milan were up, so most days we met for lunch and caught up with each other's adventures (being hit by a kamkaze skier in freefall (me), falling on the ice in the street before I even got to the cable car (me) and being dragged along a conveyor belt while appearing to embrace a chairlift (oops, me again!)). After lunch, I usually skied down a couple of the easier slopes by myself before meeting up with Mr A for some more sitting around in the sunshine then getting the cable car back down to Aosta.

One of the consequences of all this snow and sunshine was that I ended up with very obvious panda eyes from my sunglasses. Nobody else got them, which I found most unfair.


After a shower and a nap at the hotel, we went into Aosta for dinner. On Monday, we had pizza in La Grotta Azzura, which was nice and not at all expensive, although my 4 seasons pizza did appear to be missing a season, as it only had 3 toppings. On Tuesday we went to a place that I think was called something like Ristorante Moderno. It was in a state of chaos when we arrived and appeared to have been feeding school parties all evening, but they were gone by the time we got there and the restaurant did an incredible 3-course set menu for 13.50. I was unfortunately too full to eat it, but my friend had a delicious-looking bubbling lasagne, two enormous pork medallions with vegetables, a plate of chips and a sorbet. Inspired by him, I ordered something similar the next night in Le Carillon, but it was more expensive, the lasagne was less bubbly and there was no sorbet. There were, however, sculptures of naked women all over the walls, so that might be to somebody's taste.


Mr A and I were alone on Thursday night and we had the meal that we had been waiting for all week: cheese fondue. We went to Ulisse, a restaurant recommended by our hotel. In a town filled with tourists, this restaurant appeared to be frequented only by older Italians. The waiter explained exactly what was in the fondue, told us how to eat it and gently suggested white wine when we tried to order red. The fondue arrived in a plain old saucepan over a simple burner, served only with a basket of bread, and for the next half hour or so, we were in melty, gloopy, cheesy heaven. We left the restaurant reminding ourselves that Aosta was only a 2 hour drive from Milan and we could come back whenever we wanted, but we might just buy a fondue set instead.

La Settimana Bianca: Skiing in Pila

The possibilities for going skiing in Italy are almost endless. At first, we had big plans for hiring a chalet for our February holidays with a group of friends, but as usual, the big plans didn't quite work out and we ended up heading to Aosta for five days, staying in a hotel and having skiing lessons at the ski school in Pila.

Pila is a ski resort in the Valle d'Aosta, the tiny bilingual region in the top left-hand corner of Italy that borders France and Switzerland. On our first day in Aosta, we went into a bar and the man behind the counter, realising that I wasn't Italian, spoke to me in French. I don't know whether it was because he heard me speaking to Mr A or because I accidentally asked for “water with marbles” instead of “water with bubbles”, but he finally switched to English and I was left feeling a little bit disappointed.

Aosta was a Roman town and there are still some Roman remains to be seen, but the centre, which has a lovely big square and pretty pedestrianised streets, is mostly medieval. We stayed in the Albergo Mancuso, which was cheap and conveniently located five minutes walk from the cable car up the mountain to Pila. Our room was basic and decorated with bright green curtains and an orange and yellow candlewick bedspread that would have made any 1970's housewife proud, but it was big and had a full-size bathroom with a nice hot shower and the hotel staff were friendly and helpful.

Before I go on to describe the skiing lessons, I should probably say something about my prior experience of skiing. The first time was at Hillend, the dry ski slope in Edinburgh when I was about ten. All I remember of that was being very hot from walking up the hill with skis on and the pain of sliding on spiky plastic brushes ever time I fell over. The second time was seven years ago when I was in my first year at university and a friend offered to take me and two of my friends to Glencoe with his family for the day. The Scottish ski season is generally pretty unreliable, but this was a good year and the mountains were covered in snow and glistening in the sunshine as we drove up. We survived the ski fitting and the chairlift up the mountain quite well, but things started to go wrong when we tried to get on the drag lift. Friend No 1 managed it but Friend No 2 and I failed to get on or fell off a couple of times and were eventually sent by a member of staff to walk to the nursery slope with our tails between our legs so that all the people in the queue behind us could actually get up the mountain.

Embarrassment aside, we actually quite enjoyed sliding around the beginner slope for most of the morning, but the ground was very icy and when our friend, reappeared at lunch time, he told us that the snow was much better up at the top. He and his family helped us with the lifts this time and his parents were incredibly kind about helping us to ski down the run, despite the fact that we were falling at every turn, and, in my case at least, every time I got too much speed up and didn't know how to stop.

And that was how I ended up doing red runs on my first real day of skiing. I remember the terror, I remember the ache in my legs all throughout the day, I remember not being able to brush my hair afterwards because my arms were so sore, I remember the bruise the size of a tea plate on my thigh, and I remember, despite everything, the sense of achievement at the end of the day.

It was unsurprising, therefore, that my first skiing lesson in Pila was something of a let down. I decided that it would be a good idea to start from scratch and signed up for the beginners' lesson. Unfortunately, in Italy, most people only take beginners' lessons when they are under five, so I was put in a group with about ten three year olds and two teenage boys and led off to the nursery slope. We had about ten instructors and helpers with us, but given that the children were too young to even realise that they were supposed to try to slide down the slope and basically needed an instructor each, I and the two boys were more or less left to our own devices and after about half an hour it got boring. The nursery slopes in Pila have magic carpets, which are essentially conveyor belts, instead of lifts, so there wasn't even the excitement of trying to catch a button lift. At one point, I felt nauseous and sat down with my head between my legs, and the instructors didn't even notice because they were too busy pulling toddlers down the slope and making sure they didn't fall off the magic carpet. Given that the ski school had about 170 instructors available, I thought that it was pretty bad for them to put adults in groups with such young children, especially as the kids were basically getting one-to-one tuition and the adults, who had paid more, got next to nothing.

The next day, therefore, I asked to change to a higher level group. Unfortunately, the next group up was composed mainly of five and six year olds who could at least stand up on their skis but weren't particulaly keen to actually go down a slope. I thought I was going to have a repeat of the day before but luckily the instructor realised as we set off and three out of the five children started to cry, that this group wasn't going to be much fun for me either, and handed me over to Renato, who was teaching a slightly more advanced group with older children who actually wanted to be there. There was another adult as well, the mother of one of the kids. She and I became known as “le mamme” (“the mums”) for the rest of the week, but we had great fun together avoiding the kamikaze kids and being scared of doing any jumps.

Renato was a great instructor and the rest of the week was fabulous. On Tuesday, we went down easy blue runs and learned the beginnings of parallel turns. On Wednesday, there was a covering of fresh powder on the slopes, the turns became easier and suddenly Renato's instruction to “lean further down the mountain” started to make sense. We went down our first red runs that day, which was probably why my muscles hurt so much on Thursday, and I didn't feel like I skied so well. Pila is a great resort for beginners though, with lots of blue and red runs and nice trails through the forest, so it was fun just trying out all the different places to go with someone who knew what they were doing to stop me from accidentally finding myself on a black run. Friday was the last day of the course and everybody was supposed to participate in a competition. My fellow “mum” and I were reluctant at first, more because of the idea of being watched by the proud mummies and daddies on the side than by fear of the course or the competition, but Renato convinced us and it wasn't too painful in the end.

While I was doing all of this, Mr A was having snowboarding lessons. He found it tricky at first, mostly because standing up on a snowboard when you're 6'4” tall is very difficult, but by the end of the week he was making it down the runs as well. He was lucky, too, that toddlers don't learn to snowboard, so at least everybody in his group was over the age of ten!

By the end of the week, both of us felt confident enough to go skiing by ourselves, so all we have to do now is save up some more money...