Ponza, day 2 (the wedding)

This is the day of the wedding. It’s a civil wedding, which means more fun (Church wedding are so boring, aren’t they?). I don’t know about Deutschland, but we in Italy we have a new law, which allows basically anybody to be the officer of the wedding. You can do it once in a lifetime, I was told. I already shot my arrow, I might say. I celebrated the wedding between my friends Davide and Samanta, in Puglia, last year, and being the public officer for one day I got to wear the mayoral sash with the Italian “tricolore” (white, red and green: our flag). That was fun, actually.A

Anyway, Ludovica and Nicola’s special guest officer is one of Italian Cinema’s new masters, a.K.a Paolo Sorrentino, the director of La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) which I think is out in German cinemas in these very days and which I highly recommend. Nicola and Paolo are close friends, and besides that Nicola is the produced who launched Paolo years ago and produced all his films so far. If it wasn’t on the island, many more people from the Italian Cinema biz would have shown up but here it’s just close friends. Among them, some cinephìle would recognize Toni Servillo (the protagonist of the Great Beauty) and Valeria Golino (do you remember her in Rain Man?).

Anyway, the place is packed, Sorrentino starts the ceremony and as first thing call me as a dear friend of Ludovica to say a few words: it’s the moment of my speech. I walk trought the hall (the wedding takes place in the Ponza’s Museum) and I go in front of everybody. I take out my papers and starts reading… with a broken voice. Because, you should know, even if I am a big man, I am easy to get moved. Not in general, but I admit I am overwhelmed by other’s people joy: I always cry when I see the Oscars Ceremony, for example. When they say “The winner is…” and a guy goes on stage to receive the award and all the applauses, I start crying. I know, it’s embarassing, but it’s the way it is. So while I am reading my speech my voice tremble beacuse I can see the joy in Ludovica and Nicola’s eyes, my friends who are sitting there in front of me, and behind them all these people who love them… It’s hard. So I read fast, ’cause If I read fast I will make it to the end without getting moved. And I do. Almost. More or less. Everybody likes my speech, the laugh where they’re supposed to, and they get moved a little bit in the end. The ending is that joke from Annie Hall’s ending, the one about the eggs… You remember? So I made my speech, it went well, I almost cryed but I made it and now, while I walk back to my sit, the wedding can officially start.