Muttering that he was going to have to speak to the mayor, the secretario disappeared into an inner office. When he returned moments later, it was in the company of a large man in a jogging suit, who was eating a somewhat messy salami and onion sandwich. This gentleman, it appeared, held the office of mayor of Diano San Pietro. He took one look at our paperwork and inquired, with a sigh, “Why can’t you just get married in Las Vegas like normal Americans?”

Non-Fabrication Number Two: He really did say that, just like in the book.

I’ll admit it: I’m wedding-phobic. I have nothing against marriage . It’s the shower-gown-registerbouquet-cake stuff that gives me the heebie-jeebies. I’m often beseeched by readers to write sequels to my contemporary novels that feature the wedding of such-and-such a character. The fact is, I can’t do it because I’ve never actually planned a wedding myself, and have no idea how one goes about doing so.

Eleven years ago—when our trip to the Comune di Diano San Pietro took place—I was twenty-six, and my husband-tobe, Benjamin, was the ripe old age of thirty-two: certainly old enough to know what we wanted—which was not a big wedding. And certainly not one in Vegas, the wedding capital of the world.

Non-Fabrication Number Three: Like the bride and groom in my book Every Boy’s Got One , Benjamin and I had decided to elope in Italy—only not because our parents disapproved of our relationship (like Holly and Mark), but because:

a) The idea of looking for a wedding gown actually gave me hives (Benjamin was the one who found the dress I eventually wore, a Bill Blass cocktail gown in white lace with black stripes and polka-dots that hit me just above the knee).

b) While both our families got along, the idea of all of them in one room together was daunting. We both come from very large broods, and, both of us being of Irish/Italian or Irish/Hungarian descent, there was always the possibility of a fistfight breaking out, and

c) Benjamin, like Cal, the hero of Every Boy’s Got One (Non-fabrication Number Four) had some pretty negative opinions on the subject of marriage, and had often vowed never to marry at all. Since I’m all for marriage—just not weddings—this created an impasse in our relationship…for about a day. We were able to reach detente on the subject when our German friend Ingo suggested that if he were to get married, it would be in Italy, because it’s the most beautiful country in the world. Something about that appealed to Benjamin. And next thing I knew, we were filling out paperwork at the Italian consulate in Manhattan.

Eloping in Italy, back then, seemed the ideal solution to all of our problems… providing the Italian bureaucracy didn’t get in the way.

The mayor’s question about Las Vegas caused us to laugh nervously… until we realized he wasn’t kidding. Marrying Americans was apparently something the Comune di Diana San Pietro did not do often—in fact, they’d NEVER done it before.

And they weren’t very enthusiastic about making an exception for us.

I tried not to take it personally. It probably didn’t have anything to do with the fact that they were worried this was going to cut into their lunch hour. Right?

While we stood behind the railing that separated us from the secretario’s typewriter, our friend Ingo attempted to explain, in his excellent Italian, that the reason Benjamin and I couldn’t get married in Las Vegas like normal Americans was that we were not normal Americans. That both the groom and the bride were terrible romantics—that I, in fact, was a fan (though at that time, not yet an author) of romance novels, while Benjamin was a published poet—and that we had long ago decided that if we were ever going to get married, it would only be in the most romantic country in the world, Italy.

I stood there holding my breath, waiting to see if Ingo’s argument worked. It wouldn’t, of course, be the WORST thing if we didn’t end up coming home from Europe married. Neither Benjamin nor I had revealed our marriage plans to anyone except our four unrelated witnesses back in New York. Our plan was to return to the U.S. as a married couple, our wedding a fait accompli with which our doting families were going to have to cope… and which would relieve us of all responsibility of having to pick out china patterns or choose bridesmaid dresses. We could always, I figured, try again some other time….

But it wouldn’t be in Italy. As a poor graduate student (Benjamin) and administrative assistant (me), we’d blown all of our savings on this trip. We wouldn’t be able to make it back to Europe for some time.

To my relief, I could see first the secretario, and then the mayor, melting under Ingo’s eloquent argument (a miracle, considering how hungover he was after all the prosecco we’d consumed in our rented villa the night before—Non-Fabrication Number Five). Finally, with a frustrated sigh, the mayor laid down his sandwich and explained that he would marry us if:

a) We supplied a translator, approved by the Comune, who could tell us exactly what we were agreeing to when we said “si.”

b) We provided a “donation” to the “Children’s Fund.”

c)That we obtained additional paperwork, in the form ofcertificatos di cittadinanza from the Consulate General of the United States in Milan.

Since this last condition entailed a drive of approximately four hours each way, Milano being five hundred kilometers from Diano San Pietro—we argued strenuously against it, insisting that the Italian consulate in New York had said nothing of this additional form.

But the mayor remained firm. It was clear he thought we would bail on the whole thing if it meant an entire day’s drive. Because who in their right mind would give up a day of their vacation in Italy to drive back and forth to Milan? This would leave the Comune di Diana San Pietro free to do whatever it was they did all day when they were not marrying Americans… which appeared, to my eyes, to be very little.

When, defeated, we finally agreed to do all that they re quired of us, thesecretario, looking very official, rolled a sheet of paper into his typewriter and began filling out our request for acertificato di matrimonio .

“And when,” he asked, “do you want to be married?”

We replied promptly, “April first.”

The secretario began typing, then suddenly stopped, looked at us over the rim of his glasses, and asked, “This is a joke. You are—who you say?—kidding us,si? ”

I shook my head. It had been Benjamin’s idea to get married in Italy. It was my idea to do it on April Fool’s Day, playing on Benjamin’s belief that only fools get married in the first place.

I will admit that there was a delicious irony to the fact that, when we sent telegrams to our families afterward, they wouldn’t know until we returned from Europe whether we’d actually been married, or if it was all a prank.

Hey, at twenty-six, that seemed excruciatingly funny to me.

“You are not kidding,” the secretario said. He looked back down at his typewriter keys, trying not to smile.

The mayor eyed us suspiciously, then gave us another lecture on how in Italy, marriage is taken very seriously, unlike in America.

Then he picked up his sandwich and announced he could only marry us at nine o’clock in the morning on April first, since he was refereeing the Diano San Pietro boy’s football (soccer) game at ten (Non-Fabrication Number Six).

We assured him we’d be at the city hall promptly at nine. He looked as if he was thinking,Yeah. Right. The secretario, typing steadily, continued to smile to himself. It was clear neither man believed he would be seeing us on April first.

But the Comune di Diano San Pietro was sadly underestimating how tenacious a pair of young Americans in love can be.

We received only two speeding tickets on our way to Milano at five the next morning.

Non-Fabrication Number Seven:The wait in the Consulate General’s office turned out to be almost longer than the drive itself.

Non-Fabrication Number Eight: While we sat waiting for our certificatos, we listened to a young American woman as she tried to convince her older brother that marrying Paolo, an Italian auto mechanic whom she had met the week before, and who sat broodingly beside her, clearly not understanding a word of English, was a good idea. She was still arguing persuasively as we left, four hours later.

Non-Fabrication Number Nine: We really did eat at the Amici Amore restaurant, and the toilet really was just a hole with two footprints around it.

Fortunately, we received only one speeding ticket on our way back to Diano San Pietro.

Non-Fabrication Number Ten: The only CD in the car during this eight-hour drive was a collection of songs by Queen. “Fat-Bottomed Girls” really WAS our wedding’s theme song.

The translator was much easier to come by than our certificatos . Word of the impending marriage of two crazy Americans spread like wildfire throughout the village.

Non-Fabrication Number Eleven: The eighty-year-old woman from whom we were renting our charming, two-storied house in the hills overlooking the sea, insisted upon going down to the Comune and yelling at the mayor for us, to assure him that we were very serious about being married, and that he had better not wear his referee uniform to the ceremony.

Touched by this gesture, I asked her to be my maid of honor.

Meanwhile, a German tourist staying in apensione a few houses away introduced himself and said he would be happy to translate for us—his Italian was flawless, and he was a translator for a living.

The mother of another young neighbor boy—who regularly volunteered to ride his motorino into town each morning to fetch us breakfast rolls (Non-Fabrication Number Twelve)—insisted upon acting as official wedding photographer, claiming that our parents would be furious if we didn’t at least photograph the big event.

And the night before our wedding, some of the village children came to our house and decorated our front gate with flowers and hung two pairs of bedroom slippers from the wrought iron spikes, an old Italian tradition promising connubial bliss (Non-Fabrication Number Thirteen). They also presented me with a beautiful wreath of flowers to wear in my hair on the Big Day… garlic blossoms, I found out after I put it on (Non-Fabrication Number Fourteen). But it was the thought that counted.

These same children were the ones who, at seven in the morning of the Big Day, tapped on our door. Since I was further dressed than Benjamin, I answered. Two little cherubs looked up at me and explained in broken English, their big eyes soulful, that they were very sorry, but the mayor had telephoned and the soccer game had been moved up an hour, and so there could be no wedding that day.

Gasping in horror, I clutched the front of my wedding gown, my eyes filling with tears.

Then both children burst into giggles and shrieked, “April Fool’s!”

I brought my hands down from my heart and asked them to pull the same prank on Benjamin, whose reaction was far more satisfactory to them than mine, since he said a lot of American swear words, to the kids’ endless delight.

An hour and a half later, our wedding procession, consisting of our landlady, the translator, his wife and daughter, our self-appointed photographer, her husband and their son, Ingo and two of his friends from Bonn, Benjamin, myself, and assorted village children and their dogs arrived at the Sala Consiliare of the Comune di Diano San Pietro.

Clearly surprised that we had actually shown up, the mayor quickly stripped off his referee uniform and donned jacket, tie, and mayoral surplice (Non-Fabrication Number Fifteen).

Our marriage took place with much more solemnity and pageantry than either of us was expecting. Ingo, the best man, presented me with a bridal bouquet and my maid of honor with a matching corsage before the ceremony. Then Frau Schumacher and Ingo witnessed our signing of the Diano San Pietroregistro degli atti di matrimoni.

According to the translator, Benjamin and I promised, among other things, to live always together and see that our children attended decent schools. No wedding ceremony I have attended since has seemed quite as sweet—and to the point—as our Italian one.