When my cousin Maria Carolina announced her engagement to her long-time boyfriend, Antoine, not a single person was surprised. They had been dating for nine years and are a better couple than half of the married couples I know. When they later announced that their wedding would be in Italy, I still wasn’t surprised. Maria Carolina and her siblings are actually the most international people. Their dad (my dad’s brother) is 100% Italian and was raised in America. Her mom is Columbian and was raised in Columbia. After my aunt and uncle got married they moved to Paris, France and had three children. So their children are some type of French-Italian-Spanish-American mix. AND THEY LITERALLY SPEAK ALL FOUR LANGUAGES!! Seriously, if you want to feel inadequate and sheltered in life, just let me know and I can easily introduce you to my cousins. (They’re super nice people if that makes it any better…although that could also make it worse. Definitely debateable.)

When Andy and I found out about the Italian wedding I was SUPER pumped. The last time I had been to Italy was 2013 and I missed it. Really missed it. Andy, on the other hand, was a tad bit hesitant. He had never been out of the country and traveling just wasn’t his thing. It’s not that he is against traveling per say, it’s more that you can’t miss what you’ve never had and he’s just never had the desire. However, everyone in the family did a good job of convincing him and before long he was in. We got him his first passport ever and booked our tickets! Being that I have been to Italy various times before, I wasn’t expecting to be shocked by anything. Of course, I was wrong. No one could have ever prepared me for the adventure of attending a European wedding.

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Andy and I first arrived in Verona on July 13, 2017. My parents and sister had arrived two days earlier and so they were able to pick us up from the airport in the rental car. All five of us were staying in an Airbnb about 1.5 miles outside of the city center. After we arrived to the Airbnb the first day, Andy, Mara and I headed out to lunch and then took a walk around Verona.

People always say that you really get to know someone once you travel with them. Well, I would like to say that I know my husband pretty well, but I swear this boy keeps throwing surprises at me. One of the interesting things that I learned about Andy on this trip is that he really likes taking pictures…with statues. Nope, this is not a joke: statues. I’m not really sure where this came from, but to his credit he really does put energy into his poses.

Of course we took a pit stop at the “Casa di Giulietta” aka the house of Juliet (of Romeo and Juliet). For those of you that didn’t know, Verona is a well known city around the world thanks to Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet. The play was set in Verona and Juliet is the daughter of a well known Italian family, the Capulet family. When you get to Juliet’s house you can walk through a courtyard (courtyard seems like too fancy of a word…it’s more like a 30 X 50 stone area). Once in the courtyard the two most common things to do are (1) to take a picture of the balcony (i.e the one that Juliet stood on and Romeo called out to her from the courtyard) and (2) to take a picture with the statue of Juliet (mostly stroking her right breast which is legended to bring you luck in love). If you want to push your way through countless tourists and pay money, you can also take a tour of Juliet’s house and stand on the balcony yourself. Super cute right? Well, it would be cute if it all wasn’t so fictional…

1. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a work of fiction. Fiction as in it is NOT real and there really was no Romeo and Juliet in real life.
2. Even if the story was real (which it is not), having the characters be Italian makes zero sense. Juliet’s last name is Capulet which is French, not Italian.
3. On top of all of that, there is no balcony in Shakepeare’s story!!!!!! The whole concept of a balcony didn’t even exist in England architecture at the time that Shakespeare wrote his play. Yes, I know this is mind-blowing information. Apparently, the balcony wasn’t associated with Romeo and Juliet until the 1936 Hollywood version of the movie was released, creating renowned interest in the city. Verona’s museum director at that time decide to take advantage of this interest and renovated a 13th century house to resemble the supposed house of Juliet. During his renovation he added a balcony and Juliet’s balcony is forever engrained in the history of Romeo and Juliet. Although, let’s be real, you can’t blame the guy because his actions were certainly profitable.

Even with all the fakeness, I still pushed Andy and Mara to the front of the line and made them take a super cliche tourist photo. In retrospect Mara and Andy should have switched spots since personally I don’t think Andy needs luck in love (not biased or anything). Instead, Mara just got a left boob rub.

Afterwards we headed over to Verona’s Teatro Romano (Roman Theater). This was the fourth time I have visited Verona and I can honestly say I did not even know that this place existed. Most people when thinking about theaters in Verona think about the famous Arena. However, the Teatro Romano was built well before the Arena (around the end of the first century B.C.) and while part of the theater is in ruins, it is still used on occasion for shows. After the fall of the Roman Empire the theater was not used for many years and around the 10th century a convent was built on top of the theater. In the early 1800’s a land developer purchased the land and it was at this point that the theater was “re-discovered.” The current day Teatro Romano is part theater, part convent and part museum with interesting artifacts of Verona.

The worst part about the Teatro Romano: The entrance to the theater is located directly off the street and is actually at the very bottom of the whole place. To get to the convent and the museum we had to climb up an excessive amount of stairs. Given that it was a sweltering hot day and we were exhausted from traveling, this was not ideal. I think I smelled pretty bad by the end of the experience.

The best part about the Teatro Romano: THE VIEWS WERE AMAZING!!! AMAZING I TELL YOU!! No really, once you get over the fact that your legs are burning from all the stair climbing, you can actually appreciate some of scenery.

Additionally, when you get mostly to the top, you can relax in the courtyard from the monestary. I’m not a super religious person, but there is something incredible about touching items that were made eleven centuries ago.

The creepiest part about the Teatro Romano: I’m still super confused about this…but for some reason in the museum there were just random body parts of mummies (one foot and three hands to be exact). This really creeped me out so I decided to take a picture (aka the natural reaction being the millennial that I am).

The happiest part about the Teatro Romano: There was a cat statue!!!!!!! Specifically, the cat goddess Bastet. Of course, I’ve always known that cats are godly creatures, but it was very rewarding to see a cat memorialized in a museum as being godly. Long live the kitties!

Overall, I would definitely recommend the Teatro Romano to someone who is looking for something to do in Verona. It was a really great way to learn about some of Verona’s history as well as have a different experience in a relatively touristy city.

The next day (July 14), all three of us (Mara, Andy and I) took a train to Venice for a day trip.

Finally, on July 15 it was WEDDING DAY!!!!!!!! The wedding ceremony started at 4:00 PM and it was a Catholic mass. Here’s the thing: I am not Catholic. I’m not even close to Catholic and I think I’ve maybe been to one mass in my entire life when I was about six. To top it all off, the ceremony was all in Italian! Actually, that’s not really true. It probably would have been easier for me if it was all in Italian. However, there were multiple songs and readings and everything alternated between Italian, French, Spanish and English. Italian I can usually get the gist if I really concentrate. Spanish is somewhat similar although Mara was there to translate. But for all the French stuff I was 100% lost. You know it’s bad when you can’t even follow the written words on paper when someone is speaking them.

While the ceremony was not my favorite part of the wedding, it wasn’t horrible. The church was beautiful and just looking at all the amazing art was worthwhile.

Unfortunately, the church was SO hot. Per typical Italy standards there was no air conditioning and with so many people inside on a hot day it was pretty stifling. With how hot I was, I can’t even imagine what it was like for the males in full suits.

After the ceremony, we headed to the reception which was in a small town outside of Verona, about 45 minutes away from the center of the city. Maria-Carolina and Antoine had rented an entire villa for the wedding. I did not understand the significance of this until we arrived at the villa. The villa was, in fact, a palace.

Our cousins were staying at the villa as the villa had various bedrooms throughout the place. The place was huge and looked like a mix of the Lincoln memorial and Monticello. Even more perfectly, on our way to the reception it had rained so when we arrived there was a beautiful rainbow in the sky.

There was a happy hour with amazing food and drinks (prosecco and wine) when we first arrived. I don’t think this is actually called a happy hour in Italy, but it was basically the time to greet everyone, determine who actually spoke English and take pictures. The villa was situated on top of a hill that overlooked the Italian countryside. The pictures literally do not do the view justice. With the sun setting in the background, the beautiful fields and the Italian houses littered all over it was truly one of a kind.

Probably the best part about the wedding was being able to connect with family.  Honestly, it’s pretty rare that all of our family is able to be together at the same time.. The older we get, the farther away everyone moves and the harder it is to find time to have everyone in the same place. At my wedding this past March we had almost everyone but my aunt and uncle (Zio Sandro and Zia Beatrice) as well as my cousin Franco. At Maria Carolina’s wedding we were also pretty close to being fully together, but Nonna (our grandmother), my uncle (Zio Gian) and my brother (Luke) were unable to make it. Even still, it was a wonderful showing of family and I wish we had had more time together.

[Total side note: Are you also as impressed as me that literally my entire extended family is super attractive? I would like to give a shout-out to those ballin’ Italian genes.]

We finally were seated for dinner around 9:30 or so (honestly, time wasn’t really a factor at this wedding so I could be a bit off on that estimate.)

There was a poster hanging up that listed which table everyone was seated at. It was beautifully written and I found everyone in my family super quickly…except me. Yes, can you believe it – I was completely left off of the seating chart!?!?! I even had my dad and my aunt come over and they were both just as flabbergasted.  We searched every Fiorio on that poster and I was actually not there.
My aunt then asked what table was Andy sitting at. I realized that in my shock I hadn’t even looked for his seating placement at all (Really, I’m only a slightly terrible wife. I wish I could say that Andy would have looked for himself, but if I didn’t tell him where to sit he probably would have just joined any random table haha). I started searching for Andy and I found his table pretty quickly…and then I found myself. I WAS LISTED AS JULIA RASDORF!!! I know that this probably is not that surprising to most of you since Andy and I did actually get married. But I am still a Fiorio!!! I look at the name Julia Rasdorf and I swear that is someone else, not me. Clearly, I still have a ways to go before I get comfortable with the whole changing my name thing.

The people who sit at your table at a wedding can make a huge difference on your overall experience at a wedding. Luckily, our table was pretty great. Andy and I were at one of cousins tables so everyone was connected to Maria Carolina somehow. The food was buffet style and was fantastic. Throughout the meal we listened to a TON of speeches (although interestingly the father of the bride speech was done before dinner).  I was slightly upset because Antoine’s cousins gave a speech and Carolina’s cousins didn’t!! The next Fiorio wedding though we cousins will come together and give the most amazing speech you’ve ever seen (there may or may not be a choreographed dance involved).

So here is where the European wedding actually starts to get crazy. We didn’t leave the dinner tables until 12:30 AM. Yes, you read that right… hours after most American weddings end, we finally headed to the dance floor. Basically, we were at an all-expenses paid club for the night and it was fantastic.

First, there was a latino band and SO MUCH salsa dancing!! Andy and I can’t salsa dance at all, but we are very good at pretending that we can (aka just moving our body and telling ourselves we look amazing and we’re totally doing the salsa). After a couple hours of the band, we transitioned to the main hall of the villa we here there was a DJ with a laser light show. A LASER LIGHT SHOW!! THAT ACTUALLY STARTED AT 2:30 AM.. I COULDN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP IF I TRIED.

On top of all the dancing there was also a lot of drinking. A lot. While there was only wine and prosecco available previously, after dinner a full bar was available. It was during this time period that Andy became acquainted with Grappa. For those of you that do not know, Grappa is an after dinner palette cleanser. You get a small glass of it (usually shot size) and you are supposed to slowly sip the Grappa . Wellll that didn’t exactly happen at this wedding. Andy became a fan favorite to take Grappa shots anytime someone wanted to take one.

Grappa is strong. And Grappa really doesn’t taste that good. I’m actually impressed Andy survived.

We finally left the wedding around 3:30 AM. And drove back to Verona for the night. By the time we got home we realized we had spent over 12 hours celebrating the wedding. Totally worth every second 🙂

Another crazy thing about the wedding is that there was a brunch the next morning back at the villa. This in itself was not crazy, but the brunch was from 11:30 AM – 2 PM. AKA after people had finally stopped partying at 6 AM, they somehow were able to wake up the next morning after only a couple hours of sleep and START DRINKING AGAIN!! I kid you not…people were drinking wine, prosecco, etc. Europeans must just be stronger than me. Andy and I only drank water during brunch as we sat there with our sunglasses on trying to pretend like we weren’t hungover in the slightest.

What was nice about the brunch is that were able to see the villa in the daytime. While it was gorgeous at night, it was just as incredible during thec day. Andy and I grabbed two hammock chairs and and sat on the hill soaking up the gorgeous view. My mom joined us shortly afterwards.

After a couple of hours we said our good-byes and headed back to Verona. Andy and I were beginning our honeymoon the next day (Monday) so we had to say good-bye to the entire family. It’s hard saying bye to people when you don’t know the next time you will see them. Hopefully, it won’t end up being too long of a time!

Once we got back to Verona we decided to head into the city center one last time and climb the bell tower. Somehow when we got to the bell tower we convinced the women at the front desk to give all of us discounted tickets. (Although, for full disclosure I think this was more due to the fact that they just wanted us to move out of their way than our great negotiation skills.) We climbed all 384 steps to the top of the bell tower and the views of the city center were fantastic!

While in Verona, we met up with our Maryland Fiorio cousins who were also staying pretty close to the city. We all got dinner together and it was nice spending time with them. Even though they only live in Maryland,  it is pretty sad how infrequently we see each other!

Based on popular request: here is Mara at her finest!

That night, we all packed up our bags and got ready for the next leg of our trip. For Andy and I we were “officially” beginning our honeymoon (aka actually spending some time just the two of us haha).  My parents and sister were heading north to Riva del Garda to spend some more time with the family as well as see my grandfather’s grave.
I am so thankful that Andy and I were able to find the time as well as the resources to come to Verona for Carolina’s and Antonie’s wedding. It’s weird as you get older how much more you value family and those relationships. Antoine and Carolina are a great couple and I’m super excited to officially (and FINALLY) have him as another cousin. Auguri a Maria Carolina e Antoine!!