Venezia
If you type 'wedding venice goth' into Google Images, a couple of my wedding photos spring up on the first page. This is equally amusing and unsurprising to me - if you merely type in 'venice wedding' you are met with a sea of traditional-looking weddings that took place in the Fairy City. The Regency Weddings staff seemed rather intrigued by Kris and I, being that we only met them once we were in Venice - however they complimented us on being different. And our photographer had a field day with his journalistic view of our style - telling Kris to scowl at me from a distance like a spoiled prince and telling me to look out of the window - 'As though, you are sad. You are being taken away from your family!'
My wedding was featured on Offbeat Bride a long while ago, but the blog is still on my feed despite the fact I'm not planning a wedding. I often scroll past, but other times certain photos catch my eye, of a particular gown or wedding theme. It's quite rare that I get jealous of someone else's 'offbeat' wedding, or wish that I had done things differently with mine. More likely, I just wish that I could do it again. If only as yet another excuse to go back to Venice.
Venice is one of those places that really, I should not feel much affiliation with at all, other than finding it enchanting. It's very much a home I have adopted (whether Venice has chosen to adopt me in turn, I'm not sure). I do not have Italian blood, I did not have a long obsession with it before going there, unlike Chateau Versailles which I visited this year. I had simply heard about the masquerade balls for Carnevale and dreamed of attending, but never had anyone to take with me. Kris was definitely the right person - we had dated for a few months before deciding to go away together, and I just threw the idea of Venice out there.
It was magical, both then and the following year when we were married but moreso the first time. Because it was new and exciting and still perfectly familiar, and this coincided with how I felt about my young relationship with Kris, innocent and filled with romance yet comfortable and 'right.' Despite this, I don't see Venice as a necessarily 'romantic' city, like many others believe. If anything, it is like Paris - its perceived romance lies in its past (and present) debauchery and decadence, and the decay on the streets signifies a glorious existence of destructive excess. It's rotting away, but it feels like it has been doing so forever.
It breaks my heart that money constraints are going to prevent us from returning yet again this spring. If I could only travel to one place for the rest of my life, Venice would be it. I find it especially jarring when I'm sat with a coffee at Corleone (our local Italian cafe, the closest we'll get for now) in the winter, lamenting the damp chill of outside. In Venice, the cold is bracing and dry, and doesn't leave you feeling like you have the flu.
I'm re-reading Casanova's The Story of My Life, and it's making me ache in ways I didn't think possible. For some reason, I've come across countless online and paper magazines recently that have featured Venice in their travel guides for next year, or described it as a hot place to go. This causes me to itch with envy and yearning; and I keep telling myself that maybe, soon...
For now, I just have memories. And photographs.
See and download the full gallery on posterous