My Best Man Speech at my brother's wedding

Ladies and Gentlemen: First of all, please allow me to thank everybody who helped to make this wedding such a wonderful event. The lovely bridesmaids, Michaela and others who did the various readings so beautifully and movingly. I have it under good advisement that God understands both languages even though Italian is His first language – and he has blessed the lovely couple not least by arranging this lovely weather we have today. Also to all the guests and family who have come to join us in this happy occasion, Italian road and air traffic notwithstanding.

Luca has two best men. First one is Tom Gunson, the very handsome young man over there, and me who is currently standing up here and wondering what in the name of all the Gods is he doing up here? Well, I am supposed to be giving a best man’s speech.

The concept of a best man’s speech does not exist in Italy. For that matter, the concept of a best man does not exist either. So, on behalf of the Anglo-Saxon side of the world and Luca, apologises for not only having a best man, having two best men, and then having a speech and to top it all, having me to give the speech. You would notice that Tom and Luca are extremely handsome. I used to be like them, blonde, blue eyed, handsome and was called as Bjorn from Sweden. That was before Luca asked me to do a best man speech.

In the Anglo-Saxon world, a best man is supposed to give a bit of a background to the couple, ogle the absolutely beautiful bridesmaids, try not to be sick over the mother-in-law’s dress and end with toasting the couple.

Italians have the concept of two witnesses. They are supposed to keep quiet, witness the wedding and sign the wedding document; keep on passing strong glasses of drink to the groom to keep him calm and ogle the absolutely stunning bridesmaids. Tom and I split the duties. So he gets to ogle the bridesmaids, while I get to get drunk, give the speech and be sick over the steps of the church.

I met Luca in 1995 in London. He then moved to join SunGard where he used to sit in front of me. Luca taught me many things, and the most important was how to do these gestures (the whole hand one and the closed finger one). It was most useful in Russia, Malaysia, India, South Korea, Italy, Zimbabwe and Sweden. He also became my son’s godparent and my fratello. (happy to tell you the story over a beer later on!)

Let me also introduce another of Luca’s endearing traits here. His love for food, he loves food, he loves to cook, has spent more money on doing up his kitchen than his bathroom (which gives you an idea of his sense of priorities). He is also the only person I know who can manage to spend more time studying the menu rather than in the eating of the food. So he is what people call as an epicurean, a gastronome. Me? I call him a food fascist. Why? Bit of background

Well, Luca and I worked together in Saudi Arabia. For those you might not know, Saudi Arabia is a country where people’s heads are chopped off. In fact, the square in front of the Bank in Jeddah is called as the chop chop square. And the immigration card says that there is a death penalty for drug trafficking. And people are chucked into jail for sneezing in the direction of the King’s palace. And he has loads of palaces, and it’s very dusty and there are loads of people in jail. Needless to say, I was very very polite to everybody and no sneezing.

So why a food fascist? We go to have dinner at an Italian restaurant in Jeddah and we order some pasta dish. Luca does not like the dish and decides to get into a loud argument with the chef about the right way to cook pasta. You do NOT argue loudly with a 7 foot tall Russian chef about the right way to make pasta in Saudi Arabia who is the king’s favourite Italian chef. Well, you wouldn’t argue and I certainly wouldn’t. But Luca will, or at least, did till I dragged him out of the restaurant. See? A food fascist. He even scolded me yesterday about the right way to eat pasta as well.

Luca and I also shared a common love for KFC, many a lunch hour was spent munching on some wonderfully cooked KFC in London, Philadelphia, New York, Riyadh, Jeddah, Bangalore, etc. Didnt I say he was an epicurean?

Luca also liked his ladies. I personally think it is something to do with Italian genes. It is like we Brits talk about the weather, Italian men talk to and about ladies. Luca is smooth as silk, and with his great fashion sense, his brilliant and sexy BMW convertible, great hair, great big shining smile, his soulful deep brown eyes, his passion for life, food and KFC, no girl could resist him.

And he had definite ideas of what constituted the best attributes of a lady. I remember a conversation with him while he was trying to explain that the best shape of a lady’s anterior bits would resemble a champagne glass. This is where the difference between a Brit and an Italian shone through because Italians drink champagne out of a crystal shallow cup while the Brits drink champagne out of a long narrow flute. Needless to say, after some hysterical laughter, frantic waving of hand, accusations of being a barbarian Visigoth, we managed to get abreast of the confusion (if you pardon the pun!).

Other than a period of about 3-4 years where he apparently turned into a Lolly Man, we were together. Till about 2001, I was pretty sure that Luca will remain a rakish bachelor all his life, he will have my son as his adoring nephew and us as his family in London. He will age gracefully; have silvery wavy hair, a great antique convertible, suntanned with that huge booming smile, with a new girl every 2 months. They will have to lock him into his casket when he is finally pushing up daisies, but I was sure he would escape with his great DIY skills and find a way to charm the bony ladies next to him.

But guess what? Luca went to a party in 2001 when the thunderbolt hit him. He spotted this lovely tall slender blonde beautiful young lady from across the room and in his words, “their eyes crossed”. She admitted in hushed tones to me that the ground shook for her. Unfortunately, Luca was with another young lady at that time and nothing happened. You could almost hear Cupid hold his head and groan.

Fast forward 6 months, and they again met at a bar. Luca has another hidden talent, and that is that he knows his ladies makeup and fashion. So what was his chat-up line with Fiona? In his brilliant Italian English, he leans over to Fiona, looks deep in her eyes, and says, “You have lovely skin for a woman of your age”. Fiona thought that he was making a nasty crack about her age while Luca was talking about how flawless, beautiful and luminous her skin was. Needless to say, this meeting also went down like a lead balloon. Cupid was seen bashing his head against the wall at first and then at the Match Bar drinking grappa by the gallon.

Then it was Howard and Amanda’s wedding in Italy in June 2003. By this time, Cupid was sitting on Luca’s shoulder and kicking hard on his head, forget all that palaver about shooting arrows; to get Luca’s attention, you need to kick him. So Luca asked Howard about whether Fiona was attending the wedding and Fiona asked Amanda if Luca was attending.

Guess what? Everything lined up, the weather, the food, the wine, the country (Italy), the beautiful lady and the handsome Italian, and Cupid was determined not to muck this one up. Despite seating plan challenges and many other ladies making eyes at my handsome fratello, Fiona and Luca were glued together (literally and figuratively) since then.

Luca flew to meet her in Belfast and then swept her off her feet on a magic carpet to this luxurious dream world in Sardinia. And it has been all magic since then. It is just not a fair weather relationship. It was warm, cuddly and romantic in the grottiest part of England which is Plymouth where Dottoressa Fiona was starting to study medicine. It was big warm arms around Fiona when Luca would meet her at Paddington Train Station during the weekends. Luca admitted Fiona to the Luca Giuliani School of designer labels, tip top fashion, food, music, gadgets, passion, etc. while Fiona taught him right back about Belfast, Irish songs and history, medicine and the love of a great woman.

At around this time, I lost my brother who I knew and loved. He actually refused to eat KFC with me when I met him after many months and he wanted to give up smoking, drinking too much, too many late nights, reduce weight, give up girls and to top it all, he wanted to sing Irish songs!. I gaped at him, wondering if the halo around his head was making him speak funny. Then I met Fiona and all was clear.

But I do not think Fiona really knows what she is getting into. His first love is his Volkswagen Tuareg, followed by Collen his Sat Nav system, then his computers, then his eBay account, then his music, then his food. But given Fiona’s patience, love, sense of responsibility, passion, her beauty, her deep caring about other people and both of them will have a wonderful marriage. This wonderful mixture of Fiona and Luca, Ireland and Italy, their talents, emotions and interests will produce a huge amount of love and laughter, passion and bambini, Italian-Irish songs and fusion food.

Fratello, I would not wish luck to you as you already have got Fiona’s love which means you already have the best of luck in the world but I would very warmly welcome Fiona to the family.

I propose a toast to the happy couple, Fiona and Luca.

All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!