We got seperated from part of the crowd but we had to keep moving. As we are walking the beautiful cobbble streets our friend Brian comes running up to tell us that we all parked in residential parking and we had to move so we threw him the keys and kept going. As we are looking for our wedding planner to take us to our appointment we found our friend and photographer Shannon in the square! We connect her with our family and leave them all to grab some breakfast while we go meet our wedding planner and head to our appointment. She takes us down a side street into what looks like a seedy office past a waiting room full of people and back to a desk covered in booklets of paper. The nice lady at the desk starts rifling through all the paperwork looking for ours muttering to herself and throwing out a bunch of "Allora". We found in Italy that this is quite the used word. It stand for "then" or "so" and they use it like we use "um". Anyway, she starts to ask us questions to make sure we are qualified to be married. Our favorite question was "Have either of you ever been convicted of attempted murder of each other?" I thought it was a joke at first but they are serious! You can not marry each other if one or both of you have ever been CONVICTED of trying to murder the other. Good job Italy. Also, we had to state that we weren't sister and brother and I had to prove that I'd been divorced for at least 300 days. If Dan had been divorced he would only have to prove that its been at least 3 days. Yay, we passed the test, we can get married!
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We left the offices and met our family and friends in the Piazza and grab some PIZZA! It was totally yummers and afterward my cousin Helena and her hubby Don take us down a side road for some of the best cannolis ever to be eaten. But then Dan and I had to break off to check into the hotel and everyone else went to see the Duomo. Dan's brother saw a torture museum that he wanted to see so he and our friend Brian broke off and we told him to meet us later at the Duomo becasue that was were everyone else was going and we had to go check into our hotel. So check into the hotel we did and it was adorable and had an incredible view of the other side of the horseshoe of the Siena hillside. Now, back out and back through the square to the Duomo to meet up with our peeps. I can't remember how we came across Dan's brother and Brian but we happened across them and it turns out they had been looking for us at the Hotel Duomo, which we didn't even know existed. Oh Mark. Now that we found them we got back on course and found the Duomo. Talk about intricate! I've never seen so much stuff on the outside of a building in my entire life. You could stand there and look at that church all day and find a million new things. They even had little statues attached like they were sitting on the side of the building defying gravity. One of the primary artists was Giovanni Pisano! Maybe a distant relative? There is also a very tall tower that you can climb up and walk out on bridgeways that Dan and the rest of our family went up. Shannon and I headed back to the hotel though becasue I had a trial hair and make up run scheduled at 3pm.
As we were waiting for the stylist to show up I got a call from the wedding planner stating that now the owners of the villa were coming over to the villa that night and wanted a $500 deposit but I told her that Dan and I were staying the night in Siena and not going back to the villa that night. It was horrible timing but fortunately Shannon is a woman of action so she took all the cash that I had and went to find everyone else to gather up the rest and take it back with her back that night. What a life saver she was this trip! She and Dan came back to the hotel with my wedding dress, grabbed her luggage for Dan to take to the car and then Dan hauled back our luggage from the parking garage that was all the way across town...what a champion! When he got back he wasn't allowed to see me all done up and I think he was pretty stressed out so he threw the luggage in the door and announced that he was going to get a beer and left. Ok. At this point I also have no idea where my parents, who are also supposed to be staying the night in Siena, are and I have no way of getting in contact with them.
Once Daniella and I had decided on a makeup and hairstyle, which wasn't easy considering she didn't speak any English and my Italian is super limited, she fixed up my make up, gave me a chinon, picked out a dress of mine and put earrings on me and set me up to have a nice dinner with my sweetie, who was at a random bar in town also incommunicado. Doing the makeup and hair with her was a lot of fun. What girl doesn't like to be dolled up? Especially by a gorgeous woman who works for Gucci in Milan!!! She left and I sat in the hotel room all by myself for a while wondering if I'd ever find anyone. So instead I left a note for Dan and headed out to the square to see if I could find anyone. As I was walking by the restaurants I was really hoping to find my parents. I started to wonder if they just left town and went back with everyone else to the villa. Just then I see my very tall father walk out of a restaurant looking around...Yay fate! Once I hooked up with them we went back to the hotel and Dan showed up. We decide to go find a nice quiet place to have dinner and wander through town until we happen upon someplace that seems promising. And it is! We had a hysterical waiter named Reynaldo and the food was sensational. Are you surprised? After that we called it a night and went back to the hotel to rest up for the big day.
All day 10 pictures can be seen here: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjzQ4oMy
Tomorrow... the end of the single life!
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