We will be getting married in a year’s time, almost to the day. I can’t believe how time has flown! We announced our engagement a year ago and I thought it was madness as the wedding was so far away. I spent most of the past year ignoring the fact that we were going to get married, with intermittent bouts of wedding fever inbetween. I am becoming less reluctant the closer it is getting to the day and more business-like about its organisation. Talk about a crash course in Event Management!

I mentioned in my last entry that my brother Dermot was getting married to his lovely Italian bride, Claudia, which brought my family to a wonderful part of Sicily that I barely knew existed - the Aeolian Islands. For those who like me slept through Junior Cert Geography, the Aeolian Islands are a cluster of volcanic islands located off the north coast of Sicily. Claudia’s family are originally from Stromboli, the most northerly of the islands. The thing about Stromboli is that it is a live volcano, with streams of lava constantly flowing down one side and a mini explosion belching grey volcanic smoke into the sky approximately every hour (sounds like a gun shot). Aside from the beautiful and exotic nature of the island, it also provides a certain element of surprise…well, part of it did collapse on itself in an eruption last New Years Eve!

Apart from volcano watch, about 25 Irish descended on the island for a long weekend for what turned out to be a very personal wedding. Dermot & Claudia are quite relaxed people by nature, so a formal wedding was not really going to be their choice. They opted instead for a traditional, but informal wedding. The day of the wedding was the most relaxed I have witnessed. Everyone including the bride & groom were at the beach until about 2-3 hours before the wedding. We then retired to where we were staying, a compound with a central courtyard surrounded by lemon trees and fig trees (very tasty & handy for our beer & gin!). All the Irish and Italian guests were staying here for the weekend, which made for a great atmosphere, with the guys hedging their bets to get the girls to iron their shirts for them. Needless to say, they ironed their own!

The wedding ceremony did not take place until 6pm as seems to be the Italian way. Considering the heat, I could see the practical reasoning behind this. No one was really in the mood to get ready until about two hours before. While they married in the local church, Claudia looked beautiful in a very relaxed but still formal, full-length wedding dress with flip-flops and a posy of fresh flowers she picked from her parents garden that afternoon. Dermot was wise to have chosen a linen suit, while the rest of the Irish men melted in the unnatural heat. I thought one of his witnesses was going to pass out in the church! My mother was so worried about him and tried to give him a very womanly black lace fan for him to cool himself, but he declined (funnily enough!). He obviously wasn’t bad enough for that!!

After the ceremony and the photos the party strolled down the road to a small restaurant for a champagne ceremony on the roof top terrace. This gave us plenty of time to recommence our new favourite pastime, volcano watch. The volcano duly performed for us with a loud bang and a puff of black smoke; it couldn’t have been timed better. From the terrace we went downstairs into the courtyard for a meal of many courses, lots of wine and champagne. Ferrari does more than make great cars! To this point it was all very civilised and good fun, with lots of shouts of ‘Sposati!’ a toast to the bride & groom. However, the fun really started after midnight. Our parents and, lets say, ‘the older generation’, went in one direction for a soiree in Claudia’s uncle’s house while the ‘younger generation’ went in another direction to a party in Claudia’s friend’s house and from there we boogied into the small hours and went to the beach to watch the sun come up.

I would definitely recommend the Aeolians for a holiday or honeymoon, possibly not to stay on, but for a few days. We travelled from Rome to Naples and on to the islands, which was a great route. Some of the rest of the gang chose to travel from Sicily to Stromboli, and on to Naples and Rome after the wedding. I would recommend any of you to consider it as a travelling sun holiday. You will get to see lots of Italy this way. One of the other Aeolians, Vulcano (where the name came from) has enriching volcanic mud ponds for those who love to visit the beauty salon.

I hope this has given some of you some ideas about Italian weddings and a possible honeymoon. You never know! Dermot & Claudia’s wedding definitely tops the list of the best weddings I have been to. For all of you who are planning foreign weddings and are going crazy…it will be worth it.

Until the next time! By then I will be preparing for full wedding swing!

Siobhan