The Best Wedding I Ever Attended

Twelve years ago, I attended the best wedding of my life—apart from my own wedding—and I neglected to blog about it because the task seemed too daunting.

“But Jenny, you wondrous wordsmith, how could such an event that made your ‘top list of all time’ be too daunting to write about,” you ask?

Well, my curious blog followers, it was the kind of experience that struck a fundamental nerve: it infused my life with something I didn’t know I needed, and provided an inexplicable sense of belonging in a very foreign place. Two other similar experiences come to mind: my trip to South Africa, which I’ve still never written about, and my first summer in Greece. That’s the summer I discovered why poetry exists, and I compared my experience in Greece to the best wedding I ever attended, this wedding, because even back then, I could tell something about them was the same.

The disadvantage of writing about an experience twelve years after it happens is that the details are blurry. While I did keep a journal at that time, I did not go into great detail; I wrote:

“The wedding. I don’t know that I will ever be able to express what an amazing event it was. I know that I am currently unable to do so: everything from the decorations to the food to the energy of everyone was like being in another world.”

Most helpful.

So, I will do my best.

To set the stage, I met the bride and groom while at Dartmouth. In fact, I was there the night they met. I want to say it was a party at Tucks Business School, but none of us were business students; Tucks threw the types of parties that drew everyone, from Creative Writers like me and Niusha to programmers like Alessandro. Come to think of it, perhaps programming is under the “Business” umbrella? Or maybe Alessandro isn’t a programmer?

In any event, wherever we were, at whosever party, I remember I was there when Niusha and Alessandro met. Although it was my first time meeting Alessandro as well, I guessed he fell in love instantly. Niusha, who was always cool and coy and hard to read, was smitten. They began dating shortly thereafter, and never stopped.

I spent one of my most memorable Halloweens with them, certainly my “best dressed” Halloween of all time. It was Niusha’s idea to dress like Dio de los Muertos (before it was a trend), and it felt more intriguing than having to wear “sexy” attire in late October in New Hampshire, so I was on board. We painted our own faces and then Niusha began the difficult task of painting Alessandro’s face. He talked and grinned and giggled the whole time, and that’s when I knew they were perfect for each other—I went crazy just watching the whole ordeal. HOLD STILL, ALE! FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND PURE. But Niusha was incredibly patient and managed to get him looking as beautifully dead as he could be.

Their relationship really was beautiful. Alessandro was born in a small town in Italy and had the thickest Italian accent. Niusha was born in Iran, and had she not told me, I would never have known her mother tongue was Farsi. They each learned phrases in the other’s native language, and they both loved cooking…maybe more so eating, but I’ve never had a friend cook as delicious food for me as Niusha did.

When they told me the wedding would be in Italy, I was elated. I had already begun following Liz Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love footsteps—visiting Bali and meeting Ketut—so Italy felt like the motherland, not to mention I had been on a quest for the best gelato since I started blogging. I ended up making an entire summer vacation based on this wedding, beginning in Germany with my best friend, Lauren, and culminating with us going to the wedding together in Padova.

At the last minute, Lauren had to back out of the Italy trip, and I had a panic attack. I went walking through a German field trying to remember how to breathe. I’d never traveled to a non-English speaking country by myself, and I projected my demise.

In short, due to couchsurfing angels (whom I describe in my Italian Diaries), I survived my first few days in Italy by myself until it was time to meet up with Niusha and the wedding guests.

The festivities began with a “Hen-na Party” in a small town called Bassano del Grappa—where the fiery liquor “grappa”* originated, where Alessandro grew up, and where I found and the best gelato I’ve ever eaten.

*the Italian version of tsipouro

The Henna Party, in fact, took place at Alessandro’s childhood home and was a cross between a bachelorette party and a rehearsal dinner. The only people I knew when I arrived were Niusha, Alessandro, and Niusha’s sister, who had visited a few times at Dartmouth. It also turned out I “knew” (insofar as I had exchanged a few words with) the girl from the Italian train.

Although I was a bit shy at first, clinging desperately to Niusha and her sister, their close knit circle of friends welcomed me very quickly. Fatemah** was animated and carried a Canon with her, taking what I’m guessing were far nicer photos than I did. Laleh, from the train, was soft spoken, with waist long hair and a sweet disposition. Niusha’s sister, Ava, is one of the few people I know who can shave half her head and still look stunning. Alessandro’s family was there as well—his sisters, aunts, mother—but they spoke only Italian, so we weren’t able to communicate (I decided it best to not lead with the select phrases my friend Nikitas taught me, like Sono pazza por cibo: “I am crazy for food”).

**this and the following names have been changed

Niusha’s friends and family spoke English, and they kindly did so anytime I was in earshot so I could be included. The first part of the evening, we took turns sitting with a Henna tattoo artist, choosing our design and its location in preparation for the wedding. I got a hibiscus flower on my forearm because it reminded me of Hawaii. Everyone got something different.

Then there was the food, the homemade Persian food I’d come to love so much: fragrant saffron rice, slow-cooked herb stews, stews of pomegranate and walnut, charcoal grilled chicken, bright salads of cucumber and tomatoes, dill and fava bean rice, yogurt dipping sauce topped with fresh herbs.

The Italians did not arrive to a party empty-handed, however, especially when it came to food. They provided antipasto—all my most favorite cheese and charcuterie with breadsticks, and of course, wine and Aperol Spritzes.

Evidently there was also tiramisu for dessert, which I ate too quickly to photograph, and chocolate cake for one of Niusha’s friends whose birthday it was. There were also tiny Persian desserts (think the size of a square of baklava) that were cardamom-scented, filled with nuts or dates, saffron-infused or saturated with rose water syrup—ingredients that I have never used in my life but are aromatic and wonderful.***

***I did not photograph these, but we can assume I took one of everything.

It was the perfect kickoff to the weekend.

The following day, a Friday, as I wandered the streets of downtown Bassano, I ran into Niusha and some of her friends from the night before. I joined the crew, and—in true angelic fashion—her mom treated all of us to gelato from the best gelateria in the world. We all took sample spoonfuls of each other’s flavors to maximize the experience. Niusha ordered basil mint, which I would have never ordered for myself, and found it delightfully creamy and refreshing, not too overpowering for either flavor but a masterful blend of both. I still stand by my choice, however; panna semifreddo is the best of the best.

That evening we needed to transfer from Bassano del Grappa to Padova, where the wedding would take place, and just as I collected my luggage from the AirBnb, it started to rain.

Not just a light sprinkle, but a deluge. With no working cell phone to call a cab, no umbrella, and two rolling suitcases plus a backpack (keep in mind I spent a month in Europe, and also, I don’t know how to pack), I tried to wait it out.

I missed the first train.

In fear of missing the next train, I put on a rain coat and, as my husband would say, I “perdured” (persisted + endured). The rolling suitcases splashed through every puddle along the cobblestone streets, and I was certain all the contents would be completely soaked, but by some miracle of luggage technology—these were not hardshelled pieces, mind you—nothing inside was damaged.

Better still, all of the friends I had made at Niusha’s Henna Party also missed the first train, so we ended up together en route. It was a party. Fatemah sang operatically in the train car; the girls laughed and sang and squealed with abandon—the guys, too, albeit with less squealing. I shared my piece of bread with the group that I’d salvaged from my AirBnb before I left, which turned out to be the only sustenance we would have for hours.

Niusha’s cousin had an Italian friend named Antonio who met us at the train station and offered to direct us to our hotel via tram, as he said it would be faster than walking. “Five minutes,” he promised.

We encountered a drunken man on the tram, however, who was creating chaos and making our entire group feel uncomfortable, so we exited sooner than intended and set out on foot, with our luggage, to find the hotel.

Our now “ten-minute walk” turned into a tour of the city center and lasted nearly an hour. It would have been faster if we’d walked straight from the train station. All of the girls, particularly Zara, were emphatically wondering WHAT IS GOING ON? We are hungry, and you are lost!

Antonio, a true Italian, was kind and patient, a character who could have been in Eat, Pray, Love because he embodied the person who exists on Italian time, who finds the delivery of mail at the post office a true miracle, and whose idea of 200 meters is actually three miles.

In any event, after we finally found the hotel and unloaded our luggage, we went straight to dinner. Antonio suggested a restaurant whose owner was from Napoli and made “the best pizza.” I cannot say with certainty if this was true, unlike the gelateria, because I was so famished I inhaled the food with little analysis, but Fatemah and I shared pizza and pasta, and we all acquired much better moods after we had something in our stomachs. The group shared a couple of bottles of wine, toasting in Italian (“Cin cin” and “Salute”) and Farsi (“Salaamati!”) and English, for my benefit.

The following day was the wedding itself. It was a beautiful sunny day in August. The ceremony took place in a garden estate, with white chairs lined up on the grass on either side of a flower and vine adorned arch. On each chair were our party favors, custom sunglasses with “Niusha ❤ Alessandro” along the side of the frame (I still have these glasses, by the way), and rice to throw on the bride and groom wrapped in a flower printed paper cone.

There was a beautiful arrangement of items where I would expect the bride and groom to stand, but instead they sat facing us, and facing the items: a large decorative mirror, tall and short candlesticks, an array of fruits (like grapes) and nuts (like almonds) on silver stands, beads and colorful pashminas and intricate lace atop a white cloth. At one point, the bridesmaids held a lacy veil over the couple. I was not familiar with the ceremony itself, nor could I hear what was being said, but every now and then the couple next to me would explain something. (The wife was Iranian, and her husband, I believe, was German. They were living in Italy.)

Alessandro gave the sweetest speech, saying that Niusha was the best person he’s ever met in his life, and he hopes that everyone can find someone who changes their lives the way she changed his. I remember being moved by how sincere and full of love it was. At the close of the ceremony, we threw our rice on the happy couple, and began to eat.

Now, I had attended weddings before. I was familiar with the concept of a “sit down” dinner, but given the sheer amount of food available—hard cheese, soft cheese, fried cheese, cheese omelets, salami and prosciutto and sliced ham from an entire glazed pig on a table (I could be making that part up, but I seem to remember a whole pig), wooden cones filled with fried whitebait fish and roasted peppers, and the Iranian sweets I loved so much—I almost thought this would be the dinner.

In between plates of appetizers, I would run off to take photos with my new friends, in that perfect hour of the day when the lighting is just right. I had almost forgotten that a four-course meal awaited us, and when the rounds of spinach risotto, ravioli with roasted pine nuts, and beef with potatoes and vegetables (plus several tables full of desserts), I was quite unsure how I was going to endure.

But I did, in fact, perdure.

As the sun settled over the horizon and darkness descended, the newly married couple cut their three-tiered wedding cake, which tasted like a layered cream pastry, and the groom’s chocolate cake with strawberry garnish, plus chocolate mousse, whipped cream with raspberries and blackberries, cups of sliced fruit surrounding a watermelon that was carved to look like a hydrangea, various cakes in shot glasses, and actual cream covered pastries.

When Niusha and Ale took their first dance in the estate, hundreds of sparklers went off, like something out of a Disney movie. I asked Zara if all Persian weddings were like this, and she replied, “Not exactly like this, but yes.”

Around midnight, they wheeled out a gelato cart, and despite swearing I wouldn’t eat again for a week, I of course had some. There was a hookah station in one area and a photography set in another, complete with couches and props. With gelato cones in hand, Laleh, Helma, and I sat on the couch for our photo and wrote on a chalkboard sign: “We love you more than gelato!”

And then there was the dancing. Dancing, dancing, dancing. Before the gelato cart, after the gelato cart, and while Ale and Niusha emerged from the estate balcony as two silhouettes. We danced the night away. The girls told me I danced like I was Persian, which was the best compliment. The one thing I definitively could not do was snap like a Persian. When certain songs played, the crowd erupted into snaps that were louder than clapping, called Iranian “beshkan,” and it was the most intriguing, mindblowing thing I’d ever seen. I asked multiple people to show me how to do it—they each had a slightly different technique—and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get more than one good snap. I was fascinated.

I danced until my legs gave out, and finally went back to my hotel at 3:00am. I would go to a hundred weddings if they were all like that (at least in my younger, pre-kid days, when staying awake past 9pm seemed possible). It was such a joyful occasion, but moreover, I felt like I was one of the group, that I had known these friends for years instead of the hours (or at most, days) since I’d met them.

I have been thinking a lot about this wedding and the people I met so long ago because of what has been happening in Iran. (Heads up: this blog is about to take a turn.)

I didn’t intend to post this blog on such a timely day—when the world is suddenly looking at Iran because bombs have been dropped—but for the past two months, the people of Iran have been coming together in with unfathomable bravery to oppose an oppressive regime, risking their lives for the sake of freedom. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost, the specifics of which were hidden from the world in a weeks-long internet blackout, and the only people I’ve seen talking about it are the friends I met 12 years ago at Niusha’s wedding.

The silence has been deafening, and I felt compelled to say something. I was introduced to the beauty of the Iranian people, their zest for life, their love, and their humanity, which I hope I accurately portrayed in this blog. My hope is that you will listen to Iranian voices (examples here, here, and here) before drawing any conclusions about the current events. While silence allows evil to prevail, spreading propaganda harms the Iranian people and diminishes all they have been fighting for. If sharing Iranian stories is out of your wheelhouse, feel free to at least share this blog.

Thank you for taking the journey back in time with me. I hope that the Iranians who’ve lost their lives did not do so in vain, and that there can be true freedom for my friends, their families, and their loved ones.