Good morning from New York City. What’s on my mind this morning in a big way is love, and in particular celebrating love. My dear friend Eric is marrying Diego out on the North Fork of Long Island today. I feel so much joy I know I’m going to cry.

It has me thinking about the beautiful memories I have of my own wedding. I married Marco Botton in 1988 in a tiny town outside of Milan. Back in those days, everybody was pretty much forced to go on vacation in August, so we chose September 2nd for our wedding because requiring them to take an extra day of vacation meant that they really wanted to be at our wedding. Now when we chose that date, I wasn’t thinking about my parents who at the time were running our family-owned stores in the Westgate entrance to Yellowstone Park.

That was high tourism season and they decided not to come, until one day I called home. I said, Dad, someone’s got to be here. He sent my mother. It was so beautiful because I was always much closer with my father and her coming to walk me down the aisle in a very traditional Italian wedding was a turning point in our relationship. It was very unusual for a woman to walk a woman down the aisle. My mother and I look very much alike, and the Italians just loved it. It was a very beautiful day. We got married in a tiny town. We had the horse and buggy picking us up at the restaurant and lodge we were staying at and they were taking us through the town to the chape, and all of the locals came outside of their doors and were clapping as we went by.

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