Wed in Rome

In the beauty of Rome,‘It was enchanting’

PORT WASHINGTON NATIVE Sara Westerbeke and Ludovico Cecere got married in a villa in Italy on June 1, 2023. Westerbeke came home to find a wedding dress but lives in Rome and teaches English at the Ambrit International School. Photos by VD Image of Rome
By 
MITCH MAERSCH
Ozaukee Press staff

Sara Westerbeke was worried. It had rained in the afternoon and evening for 10 days straight as her outdoor wedding ceremony neared.

She, her fiance and their families spent a year and a half planning for the big day, and it had one more complication.

The nuptials were being held nearly 5,000 miles from Westerbeke’s hometown of Port Washington. She lives in Rome, and about 30 family members and close friends were flying in for the wedding.

The venue, Villa Piccolomini, dates to ancient Rome and features St. Peter’s Basilica as a backdrop. Westerbeke chose it because of its private, quiet setting where everything could be held in one place away from the rush of Rome. The venue’s officials asked the couple to make the call on moving everything no later than a week before the ceremony.

Westerbeke kept the outside setting.

After her family and friends arrived, they held a party for Westerbeke’s birthday. She turned 30 on May 30, making it her golden birthday. The wedding was to follow on June 1.

The weather on that morning was glorious, 75 degrees and sunny.

The ceremony was to start in the late afternoon, but uninvited guests began to gather nearby in the form of clouds.

“It looked like a storm was blowing in,” Westerbeke said. “I was so stressed.”

Mother Nature or a higher power then worked some magic. Rain stayed away.

“It blew out. We were so lucky,” Westerbeke said.

A justice of the peace married Westerbeke and Ludovico Cecere, a native of Naples. She is protestant and didn’t want to convert to Catholicism. Most of the ceremony was in Italian, but their vows — they each wrote their own — were in English.

A dinner under Tuscan lights surrounded by meticulously groomed shrubs followed, along with dancing and dessert.

“It was just enchanting,” Westerbeke’s mother Susan said. “That evening and the view of all of Rome and the basilica was quite the backdrop. We couldn’t have asked for a better evening.”

The wedding dinner featured a first course of fish and pasta or cacio e pepe (sharp cheese and pasta).

About 140 people attended. Westerbeke said she wanted a small ceremony “but when you’re talking about Italians that’s a non-option.”

For the bride, the most memorable element was not the setting or food but the company.

“What made it so special for me was sharing that place with my Wisconsin family. Truth is that no matter how many years I’ve been abroad, I will always be a girl from small-town Wisconsin,” she said.

Westerbeke’s family made the trip into a vacation.

“If someone is looking to take a trip abroad and has never traveled, I would definitely recommend Italy,” her mother said. “People do speak English. They’re very interested in making sure that tourists have a memorable experience.”

Westerbeke and Cecere plan to honeymoon in South America this summer.

The two met by accident several years ago. Westerbeke and her friends took a trip to Europe and were walking to the Vatican.

“I wasn’t paying attention to where I was walking and I physically ran into my husband,” she said.

She didn’t speak Italian at the time and tried to apologize. He chased the group down the street and invited everyone to join at a local spot.

The two stayed in touch for a year, and Westerbeke, who has bachelor’s degrees in education and special education from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, got a job at an international school in Rome. She contacted Cecere for help to find an apartment and move to a different country.

The two remained friends for a year before dating. About four years into their relationship, Cecere proposed at the same spot where they bumped into each other near Castel Sant’Angelo, a prominent rotunda also known as the Mausoleum of Hadrian next to the Tiber River.

Westerbeke was surprised. Cecere was studying to be a lawyer and had just passed his bar exam.

“I didn’t see it coming,” she said.

Then came the wedding planning.

Westerbeke flew home to pick out her dress with her mother.

“We appreciated that. She and her sister and I could be together to participate in that since most of the planning was overseas,” her mother said.

Sara said, “Italians are an interesting group of people. They are the friendliest people but they don’t listen. If you tell them you want this type of dress, they’ll say, ‘No, you want this one.’”

She and her husband now live in a fourth-floor apartment in the inner portion of Rome among a host of historic landmarks. Their bedroom has a view of Basilica di San Giovanni, the cathedral of Rome that has the seat of the Pope. It was built under Constantine in the fourth century. A 100-foot walk from their residence provides a view of the Coliseum.

Westerbeke teaches English at an international school, mostly to children whose parents work for the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. She has double-digit nationalities in her class with no majority, and she often designs lessons around current events. Westerbeke said a 10-year-old Pakistani student has discussed tax evasion and fraud. She has one student who is half Ukranian and half Russian and another from Syria.

“They’re very aware of the realities,” Westerbeke said. “It creates a good academic atmosphere.”

Eating is another story. She loves fresh vegetables and said tomatoes and lemons grown in volcanic soil taste different. Food comes from local markets and butchers, not a chain store.

But timing is an issue. Supper is consumed around 9 p.m., but she struck a deal with her new husband. She eats dinner when she gets home from work around 6:30 and makes him dinner for his arrival from work.

On weekends, they compromise. “It’s 8 p.m.” she said.

Her favorite dish is pasta amatriciana, a pasta with red sauce with pork cheek that tastes like bacon.

One of the drawbacks is the easygoing lifestyle that goes to the extreme. The couple has been waiting three weeks to get an appointment with a bank about a mortgage loan.

“Making an appointment here is rocket science. It’s a bureaucratic nightmare,” Westerbeke said. “Everybody who lives in Italy says you just have to let it go.”

Now as Westerbeke and Cecere’s first Valentine’s Day as a married couple approaches, she has an idea of what’s coming, unlike the unpredicted engagement.

“He said he’s going to surprise me. I’m sure we’re going to Tuscany,” she said.

Not that she has any complaints about a 90-minute drive to one of the world’s most scenic settings and wineries as far as the eye can see.

Westerbeke didn’t drink wine before moving to Italy but has since come to enjoy it.

“It’s like you can’t not,” she said.

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