Wedding at Bastion, a Menton Tradition

If you were to walk past Bastion on Tuesday the 7th of September at around 9pm, you would notice a large group of people suddenly go quiet and arrange themselves in two neat rows.

At this odd time of the night, the formally dressed rows lined with students and wine bottles appeared eager and impatient. It was not until the arrival of Jessica Cheng and Stavriana Delipetrou that “Dancing Queen” began to play, initiating an upheaval of excitement. Confused, Jessica and Stavriana were led down the aisle and placed in front of Ada Başer, the officiant for the night. It was then that the ceremony began with the traditional words, “we are gathered here today... ” but it wasn’t before long that a telenovela unfolded on the steps at Bastion.

Lilinaz Hakimi and Barbara Kuza Tarkowska were the first to interrupt the ceremony. Yelling at the top of their lungs, they declared their love for each other in front of the whole crowd. This was followed by the intervention of Nikola Avramovic and Frida Hellen, who played the roles of parents deeply opposed to the marriage.

Luckily for the reader, the story would not end there. The plot later thickened. First, it was revealed that Stavriana and Jessica had a hidden child. This news was met with a great deal of shocky by the crowd, but by no means did it receive the loudest reaction from the crowd.

The interruptions continued with an astrologist objecting to the match, and Jessica’s mother revealing her affair with Stavriana.

Regardless of all the scandals that unfolded, the night came to an end with a newly-wed couple: Stavriana Delipetrou and Jessica Cheng, along with some empty bottles of wine and a group of drunk students screaming and moving to the rhythm of the music.

The night not only marked the wedding as a Mentonnaise tradition, but also the final opportunity for many to say goodbye to an important member of the Menton family: Stavriana, or “the queen of Menton.”

Jessica only stayed in Menton for a short amount of time last year, and she was Stavriana’s iDaughter. She was married to Stavriana because of the stark contrast in their Mentonnaise experiences, with Stavriana being one of the longest student-residents of Menton as a 3A, and their completely incompatible star signs.

While this wedding was a new tradition for the 1As, those who were in Menton last year will remember the two weddings organized by Ysabella Titi, a current 3A student. After contracting COVID-19 and quarantining with her two roommates, Audrey Kost and Olivia Jenkins, Ysabella decided to bring an American university tradition to Menton with some added Mentonnaise drama in order to celebrate the end of isolation.

So nearly a year before this year’s wedding, on the 21st of September 2020, a group of people, unsure of what to expect, gathered together at Bastion and surprised Audrey and Olivia into a marriage. At the wedding, Ysabella explained that although in reality the American tradition isn’t quite as chaotic as that which she set in Menton, since the Menton campus never has a quiet week, it just didn’t seem right to have a standard wedding without any drama.

The wedding was therefore nothing short of chaotic, with shouting and arguing between groomsmen and bridesmaids, familial disputes, clothing and spouse choice disapproval. There were even drinks thrown in people’s faces. Because the wedding took place on the 21st night of September, the night couldn’t end in any other way than with Lilinaz, Lena, Moira and Zain singing “September” by Earth, Wind, and Fire.

Ysabella organized a second wedding after this one, uniting Nour Aljowaily and Joseph Moussa. Combining cultures in creating the Mentonnaise wedding tradition, this wedding was conducted in the Arab tradition. Due to their brother-like relationship, described by Ysabella as a love/hate relationship, the wedding was “chaotic and amazing.”

The way I see it, this Mentonnaise tradition stands as a representation of our community — one big dysfunctional family that, through thick and thin, will always choose each other.

- Viola Luraschi