I took the train to Sweden and landed in Fallersleben (near to Wolfsburg) around midnight. My dear friend, Fiona (originally from Australia who I befriended in Germany), was getting married the next day!! Early Saturday morning, I met two friends from Mannheim, Rosa, from Italy, and Miriam, from Germany/Canada at the train station. We hadn't been together in a full 2.5 years (or more for some of us!) and there was a lot of waving and yelling and hugging.
Miriam, Rosa, me, outside the church!
The wedding was, without a doubt, the best one I have ever been to (no offense to anyone reading whose wedding I have previously attended...). It started at 1pm. No photos were allowed during the ceremony, but here's the church:
It was classy and simple. Although the ceremony was mostly in German, parts of it were also in English (for Fiona's family from Australia who mostly does not speak German). For example, they did their vows first in German and then in English. After the formal ceremony, they let off a basket of doves (has anyone heard of this tradition before? A bunch of white doves being released outside? I hadn't). We went to a park for some photos and then back to the hotel/reception for finger foods and mingling. Starting around 5, the guests were seated and the speeches started! Timo (the groom) gave a long speech about their history, and thanked everyone (by country) for coming. They had guests from Germany, Australia, France, USA, Italy, Canada, England and Ireland. Talk about an international wedding! Fiona's father gave a long speech telling stories about Timo and offering advice. Then we started eating and man did we eat. There were many courses and 2 hours of food that included traditional Saxony soup, salad, warm buffet (casseroles, meats, and the like), cold buffet (lots of fish and caprese salad), and a dessert buffet. Europeans really enjoy these long drawn out meals. And I certainly did too!
Later in the evening the dancing started and every hour or two was a game - either for Fiona and Timo or for the guests to play. One of the games (shown below), had Fiona and Timo sitting with their backs to each other, with one of their own shoes and one of their partners shoes. They had to answer questions by holding up the correct shoe. The questions were things like: Who is the better cook? Who is the better story teller? Who made the first move?
The answer to "Who made the first move?" They were both quite convinced that they were correct (Timo is holding up Fiona's shoe and Fiona is holding up Timo's shoe)
There were many more games, much more dancing. and then... Wedding cake AND A CAKE BUFFET. To remind you: we already had a dessert buffet 3 hours ago! WOW!
The dancing, eating drinking, celebrating all continued past my bedtime at 4am. In total, the celebration lasted almost 16 hours. Respect.
Miriam, Fiona, Rosa.
We were all so happy to be back together if for only one night.
Tune in next time for the last installation of the trip to Germany.
No comments:
Post a Comment