01:00 AM EST on Sunday, December 28, 2003

Melissa DelFarno and Jeremy Pistacchio

St. Rocco Church, Johnston

9.13.03

"It's 'My Big Fat Italian Wedding' -- with 300 guests, 12 groomsmen, 10 bridesmaids, a ring bearer and two flower girls," says Melissa DelFarno of the upcoming event. She and Jeremy Pistacchio have rented a stretch Excursion and a stretch Navigator to accommodate their immense wedding party.

Jeremy, 25, is a barber at Guido's Men's Salon in Providence, and Melissa, 26, is an x-ray technician at Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket.

Melissa was 16 when a cousin introduced her to Jeremy -- at Almacs, where the cousin and Jeremy both worked. "There was this immediate attraction," Melissa recalls, "but hey, he went to Johnston High School, I went to Lincoln High School, and we were 16."

They became friends in spite of that, occasionally bumping into each other at parties. But, at any given time, she usually had a boyfriend, and he usually had a girlfriend. "We were always very flirty with each other anyway!"

At about age 20, they were at a party, and she was sitting on his lap, "as a good friend." This time, neither of them was attached. "We were playing cards, and Jeremy said, 'I want to be with you,' and I said, 'Yeah, I want to be with you too,' and he said, 'No, I mean I want to be with just you.' 'Oh. . .,' I said -- I finally got it."

They never really had a first date, but she does remember the first kiss: on a trampoline. "We were jumping, fell, wrestled a bit, then we kissed. And we were together from that moment on."

About a year later, they talked about getting married. But both wanted to finish school. She was studying at Community College of Rhode Island; he was attending barber school in Worcester.

At the end of summer 2001, Melissa visited Block Island, came back and was sick. For months she was sick. It was finally diagnosed as Lyme disease. "Jeremy wanted to get engaged but I was so sick. We never went out or anything."

But one night, at his house, he told her to cover her eyes, he wanted to show her something in his room. "Jeremy is always trying to make people laugh," Melissa said, so she assumed a joke was coming, and did as she was told. "When we got to his room, there was an overpowering floral scent, and when I opened my eyes he was down on one knee, with candles burning all over the room, and he asked me to marry him and gave me a ring. I cried, then told him we better extinguish the candles before we burned the house down."

Today, Melissa and the bridesmaids are having their hair done at Avanti Dezigns in North Providence, and then returning to her house for makeup, breakfast, and mimosas.

"I'll try to keep the flower girls clean." She knew they would be visiting Oreo, her brown and white Shetland pony, in the back yard. "I promised them they could take a picture on him before we leave." Melissa has been around horses her entire life. "Our neighbors used to say they never saw me walk because I was always on the back of a pony or horse!"

For today, she will be using another mode of transportation: Shortly after the flower girls get that promised photograph on Oreo, the stretch SUV crawls into the circular drive.