A TALE OF TWO WEDDINGS.
Disclaimer: This is a true story of my lived experience. Some names and details have been changed.
I just didn’t want to do it. Last time I went to church it was ages ago, plus the church and I were not on good terms. Right before my Holy Communion, the priest calls my mother in his office to talk about some serious allegations against me. I am 8 years old and I can’t imagine what he is referring to; apart from my daydreaming during Sunday school and my constant questioning of the validity of the existence of the Catholic Church as an obsolete, oppressive and anti-women institution, I can’t think of why he would be concerned. Turns out priests are not big fans of tiny feminist anarchists and my mother is now following me around the house spritzing Holy Water on me-which he gave her for a hefty donation-after he told her I was indeed “the AntiChrist”. As the owner of such a title, I am banned from taking communion-All of which is fine with me, but I am confused: if the anti Christ ingests the body of Christ, wouldn’t the anti Christ become a little more Christ? Or would Christ became more anti of himself? Wouldn’t Christ win? Also, I never had any problems with Christ, just his corporation, so what’s he talking about?
Well, my mother is desperate! She has never stood up for me; not once; not to my grade school bully when he threatened to punch me on the hour every hour, not to my dance teacher when she would list my never-ending shortcomings and not even to my husband when he would harass me, call me names and threaten to hit me with a baseball bat! But this! No child of hers would galavant around our small town as the resident AntiChrist! Oh no! The family reputation of good Christians who go to church once every two years will not be tarnished! I do not know what she said, or worst, what she did to the priest to change his mind, but two weeks later, here I am, in my light pink crocheted outfit, white shiny ballerina shoes trying to hide my annoyance at actually having to go through with this farce! We got the hotshot Monsignor handing us the communion wafer, but I give a side-eye look at the priest when I stick my tongue out, way more than was needed and I roll my eye-balls back just a little, just for his enjoyment. Even then, I would give the people what they wanted! Amen!
“But why don’t you want to get married in the church?”, asks my adoring husband-to-be holding my hand and softly gazing in my eyes.
I want to say: “Because of this!”; my outer skin breaks open to reveal a gigantic horned being with yellow slits for eyes, a bifurcated tongue and a humungous tail swatting away Mother Theresa, Gandhi and Martin Luther King all at once.
Instead, I choose to say:”Because I am not really religious; but if it’s important to you, I will do it!” (Catastrophe averted…for now!)
It was the love story of the century and everyone was talking about it! Young farm girl from Florence and city boy from New York City meet at a Chelsea theater while she is wearing a very confusing dance costume with a penis made of clay and they fall in love. So in love that they can only stay apart long enough for the girl to finish high school and for the boy to buy an intercontinental ticket for her and two of her suitcases to move to New York City and be with him forever. So romantic! To this day, the only one who thinks it’s creepy that a 30 year old grown man would sweep an 18 year old girl off her feet and move her across the world away from her family to have his way with her, is my son. I kind of agree with him now, but hindsight is 20/20.
We got married because we wanted to be together and I needed a more permanent visa to remain in the US. We were in love and we wanted to celebrate with everyone, both of our families and all of our friends.
Our first wedding was a small affair in New York: a justice of the peace binded us in everlasting love-or at least I think he did; he kept calling me by another name, but the documents looked official enough. Then we had a little shin-ding in his mother’s backyard and we were gifted enough money to buy ourself a trailer for his landscaping van…well, that just dills my pickle! All was good with the world: his father was there flirting with my friend, while his girlfriend dujour was probably fixing her new boobs in the powder room and we performed our first dance as husband and wife to some Flock of Seagull song of his choosing. I think this is why our marriage worked for the first few years: I would pretty much do whatever he said because, in my eyes, all he did was out of love for me.
Months earlier he had insisted he wanted to ask my father for my hand in marriage. No matter my recalcitrant complaints at being treated like a commodity for my father to pass on to someone else and his lack of enough Italian language skills to actually pull this off, he begs me to stand by him while he “does the right thing”. Dinner is over, we are sitting at the table with my father, who is smoking a cigarette; my mother is in the kitchen nearby doing the dishes by hand-even if the brand new dish-washer is obviously purring for work. My lovely partner calls my father by his first name to get his attention while he caresses my right cheek. Then he suddenly turns to me:
”Giada, ask your father!”
My bottom jaw drops so low I think I hit my knee with it and I start shaking my head in complete desperation.
“Please, please, please, I love you!” He prods.
Now remember, I am 18 years old, he is 30. In my eyes he is saving me from a life of sadness and I comply, shaken, so embarrassed.
“Babbo, vuole sapere se gli dai il permesso di sposarmi.”
“Tell him he can have you!” I translate.
They laugh then hug each other. I feel something is so terribly wrong deep inside, but I do not have the skills to recognize what it is; so I smile. My mother overhears and comes over to congratulate us. I want to disappear in a hole in the middle of the earth. But I sit there and smile instead.
Our second wedding was the big one in Italy: invitations, white dress, DJ, big dinner…church! I agreed to get married in a church, but I refused to be married by my family’s priest. Honestly, way before the big scandal about the lascivious behavior of Catholic priests came to the forefront, as I child I felt something was devious about this specific priest. He eventually got transferred out of our parish, all hush-hush in the middle of the night. Who is the AntiChrist now? To not get married by your parish priest, means to not get married in the parish itself, which requires enough paperwork to make you want to give up on living. But I am determined and victory is mine! Another priest in another parish will marry us! Plot twist! We still need to attend a condensed Pre-Cana, a marriage training by the priest of our parish. Wait, a priest giving marriage advice? Will he quote all theoretical research data to us? Can I ask him about conalingus?
So here I am, face to face with my childhood nemesis, in his dingy little study next to his bedroom. I shiver thinking at what goes on in there! He is sizing my American husband up, who is fidgeting in his chair, giddy as a school child to be in the presence of a holy man and eager to be tested on his Bible knowledge. Years later, he would use this knowledge to pull up all the paragraphs or parables about wicked women in the Bible and either quote them to me over the phone foaming at the mouth or inscribe them on boxes and hand them to me after exchanging our son as part of his visitation routine.
On this cold winter day-cold for Italians, my New Yorker husband is wearing a t-shirt!-he can’t wait any longer and starts reciting some obscure lesson from the book of Matthew or John or one of them, which I have to diligently translate of course. It is pre-app time, and I serve as his official human Duolingo penguin. He blurts the obscure lesson out all in one breath and sits there waiting, hands on his knees, torso leaning forward, adoring eyes transfixed on the priest. The priest looks at him, then me, then him-eager-, then me-bored-, then him-more eager-, then me-wondering if priests cook their meals in their habit or in their underwear- and finally with weighted certainty he proclaims:
”He is a much better Catholic than you”. Genius!
The priest has no choice but to give us his blessing, my husband being the teacher’s pet he is and me being able to answer his complex questions right, such as
“Will you cheat on your husband while married?”
I wish I had the support of the six-months full Pre-Cana training behind me, but I venture a hopeful
“No, I won’t”
and ding-ding-ding I win the prize. We get married in a beautiful tiny church on a hill in the Tuscan countryside surrounded by friends and family. My father-in-law has flown all the way from New York City with yet a new girlfriend; this one not speaking English, or is it speaking Spanish only, no wait, not speaking at all? I can’t keep track of them. Anyway they are here and so are all my high school friends, who were live witnesses to our blooming romance back then. Last year. My friends are mostly hippies, anarchists and stoners, so thank you little church on the hill for welcoming all the rejects. Maybe the 99 cents suits and party dresses confused you, but you hosted a horde of infidels in your bosom; just say it! It was the most fun you had this year!
Another successful wedding ceremony accomplished, followed by delicious food, good music, more money to add to my husband’s growing landscaping business, and transaction completed.
I didn’t realize it then, but by following all the outdated patriarchal rules surrounding marriage, I had an active part in becoming that subservient fair maiden I loathed so much. Of course, the biggest mistake I made, was marrying the man that was right for me at 19, but was impossibly wrong for the rest of my life. My high school friends had tried to warn me:
”But he is Catholic AND conservative? What are you doing?”
I didn’t listen. I was too exhausted of the fight I was having at home and I needed to escape it as fast and as soon as possible. He provided me with hope and I believed his promise of letting me become who I was meant to be. But on our second wedding night, he asks:
”You’re taking my name right?”
And I knew I was in trouble!
If you or someone you know needs help, please visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
