San Jose Mercury News Article

Boulder Daily Camera Article

This article appeared in the San Jose Mercury News in January 2000

Tying the Knot in Tuscany
A Determined Bride-To-Be Finds Florence the Best Place in Which to Make Marry

by Chandi J. Wyant

MORE THAN anything in 1998, I had wanted to wed in Florence, Italy. But family members said, ``You can't get married there, it's too far away.'' And our friends said, ``You can't get married there, you're not Catholic.'' But my fiance, Dave, encouraged me to go on an investigative trip to my beloved city anyway. So I did.

I paid many visits to the marriage office in Florence's town hall, as well as to the American consulate, in attempts to understand the civil documentation process. Both places gave me mind-boggling lists of appointments, oaths, certificates, witnesses, stamps and sworn statements.

Typically, the two offices contradicted each other in their respective rules and regulations. I also spent a week searching for a priest and a church, encountering plenty of obstacles. Then I made two discoveries that paved the way.

One day while sharing a biting espresso with my Italian friend Cinzia in her little apartment, she asked, ``Didn't you say David was Catholic?''

``Well, yes,'' I replied. ``He was brought up that way.''

``I think it might be solved then!'' said Cinzia, explaining that a ``mixed ceremony'' was possible if one of the sposi was Catholic. What Dave needed to prove was his batesimo and cresima.

I phoned my fiance:

``Are you a certified Catholic?'' I asked him. ``Can you prove it?''

``I don't know, I suppose so. Have you found a priest and a church?''

``No I haven't,'' I said, tearing at a fingernail. ``Look, this is important. Call your mom and find out if you've got baptism and cresima certificates.''

``Crazy what?''

``Oh,'' I groaned. ``How do you say cresima in English? You know, that rite-of-passage thing Catholics do!''

The next day I got the good news. Dave was a certified Catholic with papers to prove it. That night Cinzia took me scouting for a wedding dinner location. Chasing up a narrow country road on the south side of the city, she took a wrong turn and stopped in what happened to be a little church's driveway.

``Oh, by the way,'' she said, ``that's a cute church.''

I got out and peered through the darkness. We were on the crest of a hill. Ancient stone walls hugged the quiet via; cypress and Mediterranean pines rested against one another in slumber.

I curiously entered the shadowy courtyard, noticing the unadorned simplicity of the small church's stone facade. On the other side of a low wall I sensed a Renaissance landscape through the Tuscan darkness.

The next morning, I looked up the church of Santa Margherita a Montici in the phone book and dialed with hope and trepidation. The priest, Don Gamberucci, answered. After introducing myself and explaining my interest, I was thrilled to hear his cheerful ``Vieni, vieni! Come on up!''

Don Gamberucci, with an agile step and lively eyes, greeted me as if he were a long-lost relative. He showed me the antique organ that was recently restored, and the triptych paintings of the Virgin Mary done by a follower of Giotto.

I loved the rough stone walls inside the church. The building dated from the eighth century, and was dedicated to Saint Margaret of Antioch, who was known as a protector of women in childbirth. We picked a date for six months hence -- in September -- and he loaded me up with instructions, calling out, ``Auguri, auguri!'' (best wishes) as I departed.

Back in California, the challenges I faced in organizing a wedding from 7,000 miles distance, and dealing in another language, proved to be immense. One of the greatest struggles was understanding and correctly completing the daunting civil documentation.

Luckily we were blessed with a gem of a priest who was always patient and helpful every time I phoned him in desperation. The clarity I finally managed to gain was this: Once in Florence, Dave and I would have to spend a morning completing the civil documentation first at the American consulate, where we'd do a sworn statement called a Nulla Osta. Then we'd have to rush (di corsa! the priest had emphasized rush) to the Prefettura, where we would legalize the consulate's signature.

Then he advised taking a taxi (di corsa!) to the Pretura (not to be confused with the Prefettura,) before they closed at noon for the day, to do the Atto Notorio, a sworn statement requiring two witnesses and the notarization of an Italian magistrate.

My fiance, typically, was not interested in the wedding details and my mother was in England for the summer. It proved to be extremely fatiguing to be so totally on my own in arranging the event. It certainly didn't help that I had a bevy of health problems and a 50-hour work week. For financial reasons we had chosen not to hire someone to organize it for us, the way most people do with destination weddings.

I arrived in Italy six days before the ceremony, completely exhausted with plenty of tasks still to complete. When Dave arrived, we found trattoria for the wedding dinner with only three days to spare.

Daniele, the young owner, explained his philosophy about food and wine with a passion that brought tears to my eyes. We sampled his September specialty: penne with Gorgonzola and grapes, which Dave pronounced ``awesome.''

When Dave asked for his favorite Italian dessert, panna cotta, instead of a wedding cake, Daniele immediately called to his assistant and said, ``We'll need six tubs of fresh cream for Friday night!''

The evening before the wedding we were given a Tuscan treat when Don Gamberucci offered to take Dave and me and our guests up the church's tower. With anticipation we crowded behind him at the bottom of a barely discernible spiral staircase.

``He says the tower was built in the year 900,'' I translated to the others.

``Piano piano, attento la testa!'' Don Gamberucci called gaily to me.

`Watch your head and go slowly, he says!'' I called to the muffle of bodies below me. Clambering onto a platform we observed four beautifully ancient bells in the purple evening dusk.

``They are endangered bells,'' I translated, ``so they aren't played anymore, but he'll let us just hear their tone, which he says is still perfect.''

Don Gamberucci demonstrated how we could ever so gently pull the heavy tongue and touch it against the edge of the bell. The resulting sound was worth the entire trip. Each bell had its own exquisite tone, and together they made up the tone of Italy. Everyone was hushed, mesmerized by the magical sound echoing across the vale of Florence far below.

Half an hour before the ceremony was to begin, everyone except two of my friends had departed for the church. Yet these friends disappeared as the makeup artist was finishing and I found myself alone. The more the minutes passed with no return of my friends, whose support I desperately needed, the more anxious I became.

I tried to put my dress on but it was impossible to get either the dress or the corset over my head by myself. By the time I arrived at the church, with crooked corset and frazzled nerves, the only feeling I had was of wanting to burst into tears.

During the ceremony the priest charmed everyone with his enthusiasm, which shone through without need for a common language. And I knew, once I was able to breathe again, that the ancient church filled with afternoon sunlight on the Florentine hill was the most perfect church in the world.

Sunset found us at Piazzale Michelangelo's terrace bar. We had drinks and hors d'oeuvres overlooking the dreamy panorama of Florence, which Mark Twain so eloquently described:

``To see the sun sink down, drowned in its pink and purple and golden floods, and overwhelm Florence with tides of color that make all the sharp lines dim and faint and turn the solid city to a city of dreams, is a sight to stir the coldest nature and make a sympathetic one drunk with ecstasy.''

At Daniele's intimate trattoria we sat around one long table and in genuine Tuscan fashion ate, drank and made merry for more than three hours. Even my quiet new husband seemed to take on Italian mannerisms that night, waving his hands, having a few conversations at once, and giving a speech about passion and food.

We closed down the trattoria with everyone on their feet, swaying together with linked arms, singing ``Aulde Lang Syne.''

Back home in Silicon Valley I wrote a letter to the mayor of Florence, singing the praises of the Florentines who made our wedding so special, and thanking the city for allowing me to have my dream. The mayor, in keeping with the genuine nature of our experience, sent back a hand-written card, thanking me for my ``beautiful words for Florence and her people.''

This article appeared in the Daily Camera in February 2005

The Italian job
Boulder wedding planner puts couples under the Tuscan sun

By Lisa Marshall, Camera Staff Writer
February 24, 2005

"To see the sun sink down, drowned in its pink and purple and golden floods, and overwhelm Florence with tides of color that make all the sharp lines dim and faint and turn the solid city to a city of dreams, is a sight to stir the coldest nature and make a sympathetic one drunk with ecstasy."

— Mark Twain

It was a gray, bitter cold day in Boulder and the icy roads were crawling with time-crunched commuters on their way to work. But within the fresco orange walls of Chandi Wyant's home office, you could almost feel the Tuscan sun shining down.

Around her desk hung framed pictures of newlyweds embracing in Florentine castles or sipping wine among rows of olive trees in the countryside — images so romantic they'd leave even the coldest cynic longing for Italy.

It was Wyant who — from her perch at her computer 6,000 miles away — helped create those images.

For the past five years, since she left the furious pace of the high-tech world behind, the 40-year-old Louisville woman has made a comfortable living helping brides and grooms-to-be plan the Italian wedding of their dreams.

At first, it seemed too narrow a niche for a business, but Wyant has since learned it's not so narrow: Inspired by the publication of Frances May's 1996 bestseller, "Under the Tuscan Sun," and the subsequent 2003 hit movie starring Diane Lane, it appears Americans are longing for all things Italian.

"Americans are yearning for a place where beauty and art matter, where time is not the enemy, where the day feels like a Pablo Neruda poem, where you have time to savor family and good friends and good wine," Wyant says. "Italy epitomizes all of that."

Wyant's own love affair with Italy began more than 20 years ago when, at the urging of her grandmother, she set out to travel the world after she graduated from high school.

"When I went to Rome and Florence I was just absolutely stunned with the history that was alive and around me. I had never been anywhere as aesthetically pleasing as Italy," she says. "I was in love from day one."

She spent a year there learning the language, but then her travels took her elsewhere, including India, Siberia and Poland, where she worked as a peace activist, helped coordinate study abroad programs and did other odd jobs. Years later she returned to the states and, "out of desperation," joined the corporate world, working for four years in Silicon Valley as an event planner.

But Italy kept calling her back.

She planned her own small wedding there in September 1998, saying vows at a picturesque stone church in the countryside and dining at an "elbows on the table" Italian eatery where the wine flowed freely. When she sent a first-person account of it to the San Jose Mercury News, they printed it. And by day's end, she was shocked to find her inbox full of inquiries.

"The e-mails just kept coming in," she says. "People were saying, 'That is the wedding I want. You've got to help me.'"

So she did.

Today, Wyant plans about 12 weddings per year, handling everything from overseas paperwork hassles (and there are many) to flowers, photography and lodging plans, depending on the clients. Because some of the vendors she works with in Tuscany have yet to embrace the Internet, she has Italian assistants there who can print out her e-mails — with pictures of things like flowers and bridesmaids' dresses attached — and deliver them via moped, if necessary.

Wyant has handled weddings ranging from $4,000 to tens of thousands, from quaint casual gatherings to painstakingly planned productions complete with opera singers and the couple's own private label wine.

One couple arrived at a castle by boat, greeted by a crowd of friends and family members. Another said their vows in a Catholic church, then gathered at a candle-lit castle, where an Italian tenor provided the background music.

But most clients, Wyant says, want simplicity.

"In a way they are trying to escape this overwhelming thing that happens in the United States where they have to invite 200 people because they don't want to leave anyone out."

After Susan Taylor, 27, of Alberta, Canada, got engaged, she began scouring the Internet looking for a wedding planner, and was struck by Wyant's personal touch. With Wyant looking on this summer, Taylor and her husband wed in a circa AD 903 church in the Florentine Hills.

The highlight of the day, recalls Taylor, was when the newlyweds walked out of the church to find a crowd of local villagers looking on. Outside the church door, they'd fashioned a giant heart out of rose petals.

"I hate to think of people who start off their marriage and all they have to remember is 'my mother-in-law was doing this,' or 'the weather was doing that,'" Taylor says. "For us, everything was perfect, and everything was perfect because of Chandi."

Wyant lived in Florence for an 18-month stint, but came back to Boulder in September when her husband got a job here. She now does the majority of her work via the Internet, with occasional visits to Italy to attend client weddings. Make no mistake, her job is not all roses. Like anything else, it comes with drudgery, she says. But the payoff is tremendous.

"When I hear the tenor singing 'Ave Maria' in this timeless, beautiful church in the Tuscan countryside and I see the smile on the bride's face, the last year of stress is over," she says. "It's all worth it."