Ramon Cugat: "My wedding ended with 300 people taking refuge inside a house under construction"

When Ramon Cugat thinks of a great summer night, he doesn't hesitate for a second. He goes straight to July 17th, fifty years ago, the day of his wedding to Montse, whom he met when they were only ten and fifteen years old. The ceremony was prepared at the family estate in Polinyà del Vallès: tables in the garden, a swimming pool, a tennis court, and hundreds of guests ready to extend the party well into the night. The sky, however, had other plans.

“Around seven in the evening it started to rain tremendously,” he recalls. It wasn't just any shower. So much water fell that the pool ended up overflowing. The tables were overturned, and the glasses and cutlery were scattered on the ground. “It was a real odyssey,” he says.

The house was still under construction, only the roof was done and the interior unfinished. But that half-built space ended up becoming an improvised shelter for about 300 people. “We organized tables inside with planks from the builders and ate as best we could,” he explains. The scene, he assures, was completely chaotic: wet dresses, ruined makeup, and cutlery that appeared the next day scattered on the lawn. “People had come with their hair done and makeup on, and you saw the makeup running down their faces. It was very funny,” he says, laughing.

Far from becoming a bad memory, that night ended up being one of the most celebrated by family and friends. "We took it with good humor," he assures. The rain stopped around nine in the evening and finally there was even dancing. Half a century later, Ramon Cugat continues to live in the same house in Polinyà with his wife. The tennis court is hardly used anymore and the fruit trees have given way to hundreds of palm trees. "We like them because you always see them green," he explains. This summer they will celebrate fifty years of marriage, and they will celebrate it by helping to train doctors and physiotherapists in Angola.

When he talks about the summer nights of his childhood, the doctor travels even further back, to l'Aldea, in the Ebro Delta, where he grew up until he was fifteen years old. He especially remembers the town's main festivals: the dances, the bulls, the vaquilles and the ice creams in the evening, a very different world, he assures, from the Barcelona where he later settled to study medicine.

Since then, he has barely taken any holidays. "One course ended and another began." Now, both he and his wife continue to travel around the world, linked to medicine and science. And if he had to summarize the ingredients of a good summer night? "That there are good people, kind, with a sense of humor and a little mental relaxation.