A Father'S Wish

Tuscany. I’ve long since wanted to visit. If the truth be told since I was about 13 – because of THAT kiss in ‘A Room with a View’ (and I know plenty of you know exactly what I mean). But for one reason and another it took a further 28 years to fulfil my dream. There were many reasons it took so long. All down in some way or another to it needing to be perfect – right man, right time, right…. But in the end it wasn’t my dream that that led me there, but that of some good friends. For their wedding.

This wedding however was tragically poignant. All fathers hope they’ll attend their daughters wedding. That was certainly Plan A. But heartbreakingly Cancer scuppered that plan. And suspecting this might be the case, my friend and her father came up with a Plan B – which was to set the wedding in Tuscany: her father’s most favourite of places. And specifically, Monteriggioni near Siena. So that there, amidst all its picture-perfect medieval beauty, the couple and their family would feel his love through the surroundings they chose. That they’d be happy. And how right he was. 100 family and friends gathered to celebrate in the land that typifies crepusculum in all its glory (granted it’s a rather ungainly word that describes that certain type of light at sunset where the world turns gold, but it’s a light that allows Tuscany to show off…. in it’s own unassumingly arresting way of course).

From the emotional ceremony at the crumblingly rustic (and all the more beautiful for it), San Cirino in Abbadia a Isola, to the wedding breakfast held in the understatedly stunning Borgo Stomennano (where I felt every inch as if I was in a movie, even if it wasn’t in a poppy field kissing Julian Sands). The food, the attention to detail, the hospitality, the setting and the occasion made everyone luxuriate in the wonder of life. And that’s Tuscany. La dolce vita. It’s the Italian cypress trees and the fireflies. It’s the ancient villages scattered carelessly around that draw you in and make you forget time. It’s the pasta (oh the pasta!), it’s the wine (oh the wine!) and the gelato (you know what I want to say here), it’s, it’s… quite simply, it’s everything. And, like my friend’s father whose wish it was that his daughter be married in a place where they all held such cherished memories – it’s ignited a newfound love in so many of us who were priveliged enough to attend. And like countless others, we can’t wait to return.