Romano Wedding Ceremony

The other people in the photograph: the mayor of Edirne and his wife. They are congratulating us. My father Yuda Romano, was born in Edirne in 1905. My father first started to work as a secretary in the Edirne Jewish community. Later on he became a rabbi. But you cannot call that being a rabbi exactly. He worked as a philosophy teacher in Alliance ?sraélite Universelle2 in Edirne which was a foreign school. He was teaching philosophy classes in French. He raised a lot of students. The students he raised constantly came to visit him. He had another job also. My father started commerce, but he continued with the community work. He was serving as Grand Rabbi also. He worked as a cantor too. He was a very social person in Edirne. They would meet every Saturday at 10.00 a.m. in a wine store. But the wine seller was an important Jewish philosopher named Israel Reytan. He would open his store only when the mayor pasha came on Saturdays. He would have philosophical talks with the mayor, pasha and head of municipality of Edirne. Sometimes they took me too. I remember this very well. Sometimes they would meet in a library, open the books, and do their own interpretations. He died in 1988. He is still remembered in Edirne. Some of the students he raised in Alliance school became mayors or ministers. Unfortunately I do not remember the names. He would help the poor, everyone. He helped the government of Israel a lot too. I was born on August 6th, 1938. I did not go to preschool. My mother took care of me. My first education was in the Ismet Pasha elementary school where I was president for 30 years. The name of the school was later changed to Shehit Asim school. I finished junior high and highschool in Edirne highschool. All were public schools. I loved social studies, history and geography most. I hated physics. My wife Luna Romano was born in Edirne on August 25th, 1944. She studied in Shehit Asim school. She went to junior high and highschool in Edirne. They went out with the same group of friends for years. They would get together at homes on weekends, hold parties. My wife's family are people who are loved and respected in Edirne. Today we still continue our friendship with some of her friends in Istanbul. Our wedding was a little sad. My wife's father had passed away before the wedding. We were in mourning because of that. In our family, mothers and fathers are above everything. We were raised in formality, but attachment was more prevalent in my wife's family. In a family where everyone is so close, our wedding took place in an atmosphere of melancholy due to the absence of the father. Normally one would organize an evening for a wedding. We could not have the wedding even though we were wealthy. We were going to have fun but there would be sorrow in us. We married on September 9th, 1962 in Edirne Synagogue, we went to Istanbul by train that night, we stayed at the Hilton hotel. My older daughter Ines was born in 1964, and in 1973, my younger daughter Sima.