Big News

Yes, a major news flash! Laura and I are getting married on October 9th.

We had talked about this since late winter and since I needed to go to the consulate in Firenze (Florence) in late April to have some documents notarized for the sale of my house in Oakland I decided to complete the document (“dichiarazione giurata” – sworn statement) that must be notarized at the consulate and had that done too. At the consulate they told me that there is a time limit of the validity of said document (from one to two months, depending on the city) and I decided to take the chance and paid the $50 to have it notarized. As it turned out it was still valid when we went to the marriage office just about 2 weeks ago. I still had to have it “legalized” at the Prefettura which translates to Prefecture and I have no idea what that is. Then I need an “atto notorio” (affidavit) in the presence of a “notario”, a kind of lawyer here (with fees to match) in which two people who know me swear that they know me and there is no obstacle to the marriage. So after all of this bureaucratic nonsense – some of which is because I’m not an Italian citizen, finally we went to the marriage bureau at the ” Comune” (city hall) and presented the documents for review. They approved the documents along with the usual signatures and seals and like many bureaucratic stuff a “marca da bollo” (tax stamp) of 16 euros. They then publish a wedding announcement on a bulletin board near the office so that if anyone has reason to object they can – I think that it stays there for 8 days or something like that and for all I know it is published somewhere else. So shortly thereafter they notified us that the date for the wedding is on October 9th in the “Sala Rossa” (red room) in the Comune where weddings are held. In Italy a civil ceremony is required to be legal and some people opt to have a duplicate ceremony in a church which is purely symbolic.

The wedding is officiated by someone from the city council or possibly even the mayor and in this period the attendees are limited to 16 including us, the officiant and the required two witnesses – in this case my, and by now our, friends Monica and Gianluca. I’ve also invited 3 others so that will be 8 total in the room.

The time is noon and there is no cost and they offer live streaming of the event. So we opted for that but I have yet to figure out exactly how to get the streaming to work. It requires Javascript and Adobe Flash Player and I’ll continue to work on it. Hopefully Laura’s daughters will be able to view it as well as her friends in Torino and perhaps other friends here and even in the U.S.

If you are interested leave a comment and I can give you some further details.

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