L'amore

This is my friend, Joanna.  She's pretty cool.

We lived next door to each other in the dorms at IU.  She is a ton of fun and one of my favorite people.  During college, we spent time hanging out, going out, and eating because we both love food.

At an IU football game in college.

Joanna and her now husband (!!), who is Italian, live in Naples.  I spend a lot of time being jealous of where they live, especially when it's freezing in Chicago and they are on the beach.  Also, the pizza.

When we got the save the date for their wedding, I knew that we were going to do everything in our power to make it.  For one thing, we haven't seen them since our wedding and for another, I wanted to experience an Italian wedding.  And now that I have attended one, let me tell you how awesome they are.  

The ceremony was held in a beautiful church that's older than my country.  When the newlyweds walked out, we got to throw rice at them!  And they had a fun "getaway car" - an old school VW bug.

After the ceremony, we headed to the most beautiful venue I have ever been to in my life.  To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, here are some pictures:

They got to show up to their reception on a boat.  How cool is that?

And then there was the food.

There were a million courses.  A by a million, I mean about five.  Luckily, we were warned about this beforehand so I didn't really eat anything leading up to the reception.  There was so much good stuff to eat, like pasta and fresh seafood.  And I mean fresh - I picked up a prawn to eat and was told that it was still crudo.  I had no idea what that meant and was willing to shrug it off until Joanna's mother explained to me that it was still raw.  She saved me from a day of being ill, and for that I am forever grateful.

One of the many fun parts of the night included a duo of Neapolitan singers that serenaded us during dinner.  They had beautiful voices and it was a lot of fun having them walking around and singing all sorts of different songs.

Since Joanna is American, there were some American aspects to the wedding - father/daughter and mother/son dance, as well as a speech from the Maid of Honor.  I love going to weddings where different cultural aspects are woven in.  So cool!  And of course we ended the night dancing away under the moonlight. 

It was a beautiful wedding and I'm so happy that we were able to share in the love!  Auguri Fabio e Joanna!