Just came back from Italian Stallion’s wedding over the weekend. It was a really enjoyable weekend – visited Bologna again, had fun with friends, and it was a really lovely wedding.

I’ve been to so many weddings in my life, although it’s been a long time since I’ve been to one, as most friends of my old friends are my age, and married in their late 20s or early 30s. In most weddings, the couple (one or both of the pair) look really stressed out. And there are only few weddings where the wedding couple look like they’re really enjoying themselves. This wedding was a bit of a multi-day affair, as many international weddings are, but the they have managed to keep it looking and feeling quite relaxed, and the wedding couple actually looked like they were enjoying themselves, which is the important thing.

I got quite emotional and touched, and started crying really early on – at the celebration of love, the hope and commitment, and the father of the bride’s lovely speech (although it also highlighted their very traditional mindset). One of our group asked me if I already reached ‘Stage 4’ of my tipsiness.

I got emotional again towards the end of the formal part of the night, after a bunch of the guests performed a surprise ‘Uzbek flash mob’ dance. The bride was very touched and overwhelmed with emotion by the surprise dance and teared up.

I found it very touching – the care, attention to detail, and effort that Italian Stallion put into planning the wedding to make his bride happy. He surprised his bride and her parents by getting a Lada as their wedding car, as a nod to her parents, who got also got married in a Lada. It was a bit of a mission, with one of our gym group flying to Albania to drive the rental Lada over to Italy. He also orchestrated a flash mob Uzbek dance, with a 1 minute choreography of a simplified Uzbek dance. And the wedding couple’s dance to the lovely song “Can’t Take my Eyes Off You” by Frank Valli, was also beautiful, and fun, although surprisingly long and complicated for someone who doesn’t look like a natural dancer. Overall I’m really super impressed by Italian Stallion – I’ve found him to be easy going, but also caring and considerate with friends, and he’s been putting in a lot of effort and training and made good improvements in his Hyrox time recently, and he has also managed to help plan and organise a wedding that brings together Italian / European and Uzbek communities, honor and respect his bride’s family and Uzbek traditions, and invest his time and effort into learning the wedding dance and the Uzbek dance.

Besides the wedding, I managed to get a long, easy run in, which was a lovely way to sight see and enjoy early morning Bologna. I encountered a few fellow runners. I also spent time with friends – we made a surprisingly long hike / ‘pilgrimage’ to the “Santuario della Beata Vergine di San Luca”, which I probably wouldn’t have done if AP hadn’t been set on visiting it.

Some things I’ve realised from the weekend: I’ve realised that there definitely benefits to not rooming with someone. And maybe the benefits of rooming alone outweigh the disadvantages. In particular I’ve realised that bossy people rub me the wrong way. Especially if I feel like they have a know it all / condescending attitude, who are then not even right, and / or are too conservative and inefficient. To keep the peace, I try to go along with things, and bite my tongue. But I do get quite irritated. And I’ve realised that my irritation and lack of sleep is really not a good combination.