The wedding bonbonniere trinkets in Nanna Francesca’s ‘good’ cabinet were out-of-bounds when I was a kid. Though I’d look at them through the glass, some still with the teeth-cracking sugared almonds – confetti, as they’re called in Italy – that represent ‘health, happiness, wealth, luck and fertility’.
This tradition for each wedding guest to receive a bonbonniere as thanks goes back to Roman times incredibly. I’d not known this as I sat in front of the tv after work at night tying sugared almonds into their net packages for my own wedding guests back 25 years ago now… 👀 To think, I’d written in Mezza Italiana of the bonbonniere Nanna Francesca still had from the weddings of couples now celebrating milestone anniversaries!
When the time came, after she’d gone, to sort through things and I got to open the ‘good’ cabinet, I don’t know what it was that made me save some of Nanna’s bonbonniere. (Turns out, they would’ve been lost in the flood if I hadn’t.)
Some are quite fancy – from weddings back in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, an era when Italian weddings were huge. I mean, sometimes 600 people. When there were champagne fountains, doves, dry ice, glass tinkling to make the couple kiss, wrapping them in streamers as they waltzed, glitter balls and kids (including me) skidding on the parquetry dance floor. It was an event and a half, and I just loved them.
Perhaps that’s why Nanna Francesca kept these bonbonniere all those years and why I still have them. (The sugared almonds are more recent ones though!) As gawky and kitsch as the figurines now might appear, they’re a reminder of happy times. When love and celebrating was in the air, everyone was together and seemed to be smiling, happily eating too much and all ages crowded the dance floor. A time that signified success after years of hard work and doing without, of being reunited and creating bonds in a new place. 🤍
Zoë Boccabella 