Under the Blue of The Truglio Dome

My niece is getting married. Erica and Mike are getting married in my parents’ backyard. It will be the eighth wedding in the Truglio backyard. My wedding was first, exactly forty-four years ago. Backyard weddings are not unusual, but a Truglio backyard wedding is special.

My parent’s backyard faces the Great South Bay—our beautiful bay between the south shore of Long Island and Fire Island. I grew up with spectacular sunrise mornings, watched the moon travel across the sky glittering the bay, heard furious winds whip the water into a frenzy, and found peace in the tranquility. 

Forty-five years ago, Matt and I announced our engagement. My parents sprung into action. It was a well-stated fact that dad wanted his children’s weddings in the backyard. Here was his chance to make it happen. 

My parents had been practicing for such an event for over ten years. Each summer they hosted the Family Picnic /Clambake/Reunion. It went by several names. Eighty to hundred-plus relatives and friends who qualified as relatives, converged into the backyard carrying a day’s worth of bathing suits, towels, games, and food. People came from around the corner, Brooklyn, Staten Island, New Jersey, and Maryland. Sometimes uncles and aunts from Florida and cousins from California and Rome, Italy showed up.  

We’d swim in the bay, waterski (if conditions and a working motorboat were right), play rounds of bocci, and catch up on family news. The patio tables were filled with food, the dining room table ladened with tempting desserts, and the grill always had burgers, sausage, and clams fresh from the bay. To save the cesspool from the high volume of flushes, Dad set up the shed as a make-shift bathroom complete with a portable boat toilet and a water hose for clean up. 

As excited as we all were for a backyard wedding, a bit more decorum than a family picnic was in order. We needed tables, chairs, food service and servers, a bathroom and tent. Just as Matt and I went back to school to finish our senior years in college, my sister, Mary, announced her engagement and set a date ten weeks after mine. She wanted a backyard wedding, too.

Mom and my grandma planned the menus and started cooking. By Thanksgiving they packed the extra freezer in the garage with labeled trays of sausage and peppers, ziti, and pepper steak. I spent the semester break elbow deep in squid, prepping Grandma’s calamari. Dad had sketched a design for a tent. We borrowed tables from the fire department and chairs from the local funeral parlor. Mom bought and organized discounted plates, glassware, and utensils. I think Aunt Lily hemmed the table clothes. 

Looking back on this, I am amazed at the resourcefulness and energy. Remember, this is 1979, before Dollar Stores and the internet. Everyone had full-time jobs and/or school. 

Dad cleaned the shed, added a door, and made a dividing wall. He screwed in a tall mirror in each room and hooked up lights and two working boat toilets. TADa! His and Hers bathrooms.

Matt and I graduated college three weeks before our wedding day—June 16th. We dove into the final preparations. A day or two before the wedding, Dad and his volunteer crew of daughters, their boyfriends, soon to be son-in-laws and curious friends helped get the tent up. Men climbed to the top of the house to secure the first of the ropes. We banged stakes and posts into the lawn and dock and weaved a rope web across the yard. We hemmed ropes into three huge blue tarps, secured with duct tape. It was an amazing feat of design and engineering. The wind gave us a challenge taming the tarp to cover the ropes, but we got it done without injuries. A blue hue cast under the tarp. We dubbed the tent The Truglio Dome. 

The day was beautiful. On the morning of the wedding, we set the tables, turned the oven on to start warming the food and got dressed. Before leaving for church, Mom put the servers in charge.  

Matt and I married at noon. We arrived in the backyard as husband and wife under the blue of The Truglio Dome. It was a great day filled with music, food, and the people we loved wishing us a happily ever after. 

The Truglio Dome was re-pitch for Mary and Gary’s wedding ten weeks later. Mom used the same plates, glasses, and utensils. There was more weather to contend with, but happily, the skies cleared and the wind settled down in time for a fashionably late ceremony. It was another beautiful day under the blue of The Truglio Dome. 

Six years later, my next sister, Diana, married in the backyard under the blue of The Truglio Dome. By this time, we had an efficient and familiar routine down. The weather again challenged us, but we made it to the church on time, and again had a beautiful day. 

After the third wedding, The Truglio Dome looked too beaten up. It was cut and used as winter boat covers. Pieces were found in the garage and attic and repurposed for forty years. 

My youngest sister, nieces, cousin and daughter had their wedding in the backyard, minus the blue of The Truglio Dome and boat toilets in the shed. They hired professional tent companies, discovered lovely portable bathrooms on trailers, and contracted caterers that came with tables, chairs, linen, dinnerware, servers, and a cleanup crew. We didn’t have to cook (but we did a little anyway). It was hard not having Dad with us for my daughter’s wedding two months ago, but we felt his presence as I know we will for Erica and Mike’s wedding.

The Truglio backyard is a beautiful place for a couple to promise a lifetime together in front of the people who love them best. I will celebrate my 44th wedding anniversary with my good man and wish my young niece and new nephew a beautiful start to a beautiful life together in sight of the Great South Bay, remembering my dad’s energy and the blue of The Truglio Dome.  

Great BIG Thanks and appreciation go out to Natalie the Explorer who keeps the Weekend Coffee Share percolating.

Enjoy ❤️.   Like 👍.  Share 😊. 

Order Your Books

---