Vintage family wedding photos

 I'd really like to set up a table of old wedding photos of our parents and grandparents somewhere in the attached barn at the winery.
My grandparents on both sides were so excited about the prospect of my wedding and I think it's only right to honor them in some way. First up, my only living grandparent: Nonna Enza.
Wasn't she beautiful?

After they were married in Calabria, my grandparents honeymooned in Venice and Florence for a week before my grandfather had to leave for America. My grandmother joined him several months later, desperately counting down the days until she'd see him again. Throughout their time apart, he sent her a love letter a week. She kept them all, stored them away and won't let anyone see them to this day. I'm really curious, but I kind of like that she won't let me.

This woman who, throughout her 80 years has not been known to keep anything to herself, is holding on to this one box of secrets between her and the love of her life. It's just theirs, and she wants to keep it that way. 

But the wedding photos were always a source of contention. 

Just for some background, my grandfather was a partisan in World War II. He fought against Mussolini's army, hiding in the Appenines of Emiglia-Romagna. He escaped a concentration camp and there were flyers across the south seeking his capture. He was amazing. But he deserves his own post, or novel, or documentary, really. 

My grandparents were wed around the same time as Nonna Enza's older sister, whose wedding photos turned out beautifully. Naturally, Nonna Enza wanted to use the same photographer. 

Nonno Gianni refused. The photographer was a fascist, he said. 

But who cares what his political leanings are? He's really good, said Nonna Enza. 

I can't hire a fascist to take my wedding photos - end of story, said Nonno Gianni. 

And so my grandfather hired an old socialist, anti-Mussolini friend to take his pictures. 

Not one came out. No memories from their wedding day, and not one photo of my grandparents together in her gown and his suit, because Nonno Gianni was already gone by the time the photographer shared the sad news. 

Shortly thereafter, my grandmother's youngest sister was ready to receive her first Holy Communion. Being that her family didn't have much money at the time, she offered up her wedding dress, to be cut short and turned into a communion dress. 

Luckily, she took the photo above alone in a small vineyard behind her house a month after the wedding.

P.S. Three days left to enter my giveaway!