07/27/2003

Rebekah Aramini and Robert Lupo

St. Mary's Church, Cranston

5.25.03

In the Cranston house in which she grew up, Rebekah Aramini today prepares for her wedding. She flits from the kitchen, where hair and makeup products fill the table, to the living room, where her flower girls are dressing (above, Nicole Lezon, left, and Ivy Ruhle), to the second floor bedroom, where her father needs help with his tie and cufflinks.

The florist arrives, an aunt comes through the back door, all while Rebekah's mother, Barbara, still in bathrobe, is being made-up, and sister Rachel's hair is being coiffed.

A bridesmaid chats with the makeup artist: "It seems like just yesterday you were doing makeup for my wedding." "Yeah, was that two years ago?" "Three years ago, on Memorial Day weekend -- my anniversary is Tuesday."

Rachel calls Rebekah "Junebug." "She's my little sister, so I used to call her Junior, then it became June, then Junebug." Rachel is older --"two years and twenty-two days older!"

The two sisters exchange the kind of banter that, well, that only sisters can exchange. Says Rachel: "I really thought Rebekah would have two wedding dresses, and decide today which one she would wear! She's the type that changes clothes three times before she goes out. She has three veils, because she couldn't decide which length she wanted."

Lovingly, Rebekah gives Rachel a hard time for being picky about her hair, taking too much time with the hairdresser, who Rebekah now needs to do her own hair. After all, who is the bride here?

The house becomes ever more crowded. The photographer and her assistant have arrived, and a videographer. Two limousines and their drivers wait out front, while kids sit on the curb across the street, waiting for the bride to appear.

Occasionally, Rebekah stops to pick up her cat, Jenny. Her fiancé, Robert Lupo, is allergic to cats. "Rob's so sweet -- he's already taking allergy shots so that I can keep her."

Rebekah met Robert in January 1998, when both were working at GTECH. "He stopped me in the hallway and said 'Hi, I'm Rob Lupo.' I taught a gym class there, and suddenly he started taking my abs class. Several co-workers commented on how cute he was, but was he available?"

He asked her to lunch, not once, but several times. "I wondered though: Is this just to eat, or is this a date? He was always very quiet, and there were always other GTECH people at the deli we went to. Finally he asked, 'so are you dating anyone now?' "

Their first real date was November 1999, almost two years after they first met. "When I told Mom I met this guy named Rob Lupo, she said, 'his father gave you cheese when you were a little girl. He worked at the Stop and Shop.' "

Robert proposed to Rebekah in June 2001; they were in Washington D.C. for a fun weekend. Running by the reflecting pool, he told her to stop for a minute -- she was all sweaty and in her running clothes -- and he asked her to marry him. She was shocked -- they had never even talked about marriage. "When I was surprised, he laughed and said 'Did you think we were just going to date forever?' "