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Volume II
Issue 9 January 2000
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Memo from the World: The Wedding Party by Peter T. Helger The wedding was spectacular. The ceremony itself was in a smallish parish church in the Bronx - with the world's roughest looking camera crew wielding two network-news-size shoulder-mount video cameras throughout. The chief still photographer was an extremely slim-hipped person, with exaggerated tailoring (square shoulders, tight ventless skirt on the jacket, and pegged pants.) Since his pockets were stuffed with rolls of film and other paraphernalia, he presented a silhouette that made me giggle a lot. There were also a vast number of cousins on the bride's side - many of them wearing the four-button black wedding suits we saw in all the tailor shop windows in the Abruzzo last spring. The reception was awesome. At a club on the Sound, in New Rochelle - across a drawbridge, with semi-resident swans just outside the windows and lots of boatyards flanking the approaches. First, cocktails and antipasti for about 400, with live music. The food was marvelous - served from a dozen kiosks scattered around the room, each one specialized. There was the Italian country sausage, olives, roasted peppers, and cheese place; the shellfish bar; the red meat bar (with stuffed boneless leg of lamb, stuffed veal and pork tenderloins, and London broil); the pasta bar; the crostini and bruschetti bar; etc. etc. etc. After about 90 minutes of this, we all trooped upstairs for the sit-down dinner, which began with - but of course - a plate of antipasti for each of us. This course was cleared and replaced by baked ziti. That course was cleared and replaced by the meat course of either chateaubriand, chicken cordon bleu, or broiled salmon. That course in turn was replaced by individual chocolate souffles with ice cream. Which were cleared and replaced by wedding cake. After which they announced that cappuccino, cordials and, of course, desserts were being served just outside the dining room. And throughout it all, every time anyone got up from their place, a tuxedoed minion would appear to re-fold their napkin. There were actually half a dozen tuxedoed minions whose sole job appeared to be refolding napkins - I swear mine was folded at least ten times. And of course the band was playing the whole time - using 4 (four) singers in continuous rotation. They did the tarantella, good imitations of Sinatra, Bobby Darin, and countless other Italo-american singers, bunches of contemporary songs in Italian - which the crowd seemed to like a lot more than I did - Beatles stuff, a little blues, etc. All told, we ate and drank for about six hours. On our way between the wedding and the reception, our usually reliable car crapped out. Fortunately this happened (1) after we'd left the expressways, and (2) just in front of a carload of cousins. So the cousins stopped traffic and helped me push the car into a nearby Home Depot parking area, and gave us a ride to the party. After the pig-out some more cousins gave us a ride back to the hotel in White Plains. Then Monday morning still another cousin drove us back into New Rochelle, and with a jump-start got the crippled machine to what turned out to be a very good garage a few blocks away, where the battery and alternator were quickly diagnosed as dead, and replaced. We got back to the hotel in time to say goodbyes to the stragglers from the official brunch, and we got on the road by 12:15 for a quick and uneventful trip home. All this week I've felt like a veteran of interplanetary travel. The drive up and back was like passing through a veil - raining, grey and featureless, with nothing to focus on for hours of twilight. The city was so exciting, and the cousins were so numerous, and the food and fellowship so overwhelming that this simple country bureaucrat came home utterly bedazzled. About our correspondent: Peter T Helger works for the Federal government near Washington DC. He is married to a woman of Italian heritage, who has introduced him to many things in life, including this wedding party.
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