So I like weddings. Mainly for the cake, but also for some other things. Like the food, the (bad) dancing, the free-flowing alcohol that I rarely drink but am super-entertained by when other people do. You know, the guy who’s had so many Whiskey Sours that he talks super loud and tells really bad jokes only three inches from your face. The woman on her fifth margarita who struggles to balance on her high heels like a newly hired circus clown walking around on five-foot stilts. The grandpa that asks you to dance and holds you a little closer than is physically necessary or appropriate (has this only happened to me?). And then there’s the love. Like almost every other romance writer I know, I like love. Especially wedding love. It gets me thinking back on my own wedding that took place a whole lot of years ago. It makes me remember the look of terror on my now-husband’s face that he was actually going through with marrying me…that he would be shackled to me forever. It makes me remember the two-piece bridesmaid dresses that all got switched around at the dry cleaners, so the afternoon of the wedding all…

George Clooney’s film “The Monuments Men” tells the story of an unlikely “Band of Brothers”– art historians, artists, architects–who raced against time to save Europe’s art from destruction during World War II. But when peace was declared, the Monuments Men’s work had just begun. On August 20 1945, a shipment arrived at the Monuments Men Wiesbaden Collecting Point that was possibly the most valuable single shipment of art in history. Fifty-seven fully loaded trucks, accompanied by tanks, arrived one-by-one on the bumpy road from Frankfurt. Hundreds of pieces of priceless art and cultural objects were unloaded, catalogued, and stored. A browse through the Monuments Men property cards blandly identifies this amazing shipment as Inshipment One. It included paintings by old masters, sculptures, tapestries, and most famously, the centuries-old bust of Egyptian Queen Nefertiti. Now that the war was at an end, the Monuments Men were faced with the enormous task of not only safeguarding, but also restituting, the art that was now under their control. The contrast between the war-ravaged landscape outside the walls of the Collecting Point and the treasures stacked floor-to-ceiling inside, was striking. Outside, there was very little food, shelter or security. Inside were many of the…