A Second Wedding on a Perfect Summer Day

Remember how a while ago, Micha and I headed to Nico and Claudi's secret wedding in the countryside near the ridiculously named German city, Worms (hehehehe, gets me every time)? Well, this past weekend, we celebrated their wedding once again! That's right, one wasn't enough for those crazy kids, so they threw another, this time much bigger, wedding celebration for all their friends and family to attend this summer. (I no longer question such decisions, as I've slowly learned that people be crazy when it comes to weddings.)

So this weekend, we and a few other Berliner friends packed up our cars and headed down to a little tiny flower-filled town in the countryside of Bavaria for a lovely summer wedding fête.

The weather was perfect (and you know we don't get to say that often here in Germany) and the setting was absolutely idyllic. A sprawling farm covered in colorful flowers, ridiculously loud sheep (who seriously yelled like people! I'll upload proof in video form :), the tiniest of medieval churches for the "ceremony," and the perfectly snow-topped Alps in the background (which I sadly did not manage to photograph). Not shabby for a quick, festive weekend getaway.

The (surprisingly awesome) catch to this wedding: the dress code was hats required! And you'd think that some people would be party poopers and not play along, but man oh man did everybody come through! And it looked oh-so fantastically dapper...

Marie and Katrin

Betti and Dreschi

Hanna and Kerstin

The Brits are really onto something with their tradition of fascinators and hats. 

The groom and co-ceremony Meisterin, Sandra | No-longer-so-wee buddies Mia and Aron

The lovely bride (with neon pink shoes!) and her jolly dad

Naturally, I wasn't about to let a hats-required occasion go by just wearing a normal old hat. (I mean really...) So I told Kerstin I'd DIY something for the two of us, already knowing that I without a doubt wanted to try my hand at these fabulous party hats (this one) (and this one) from A Subtle Revelry.

And the result? 1) Easiest things to make ever! Though you do need significantly more tulle than you think, as the directions aren't specific on that; and 2) I solidified my status as crazy American and heard from the bride's father at least three times throughout the course of the night, "you should never take that hat off!" Mission accomplished.

More photos of the ceremony and dancing to come, there are too many cute ones for one post!

My Weekend in Pictures {A Secret Wedding}

(not ours :)

We headed to the teeny town of Osthofen (semi-near Frankfurt) last Thursday to attend the small, somewhat secret wedding of Micha's best friend, Nico and his awesome ladyfriend of 14 years, Claudi. (Secret's out now!)

The primary appeal of this wedding - not that weddings need one for me, I love other peoples' weddings, provided I never have to go to six in one year again - was that it took place in the wine region of Germany and the program included a wine tasting directly following the ceremony. Why didn't anyone thing of this genius idea sooner?!

Micha was sad to see that, although the winery was called Karl May, they did not have a wine named Winnetou (don't worry if you don't get that reference; pretty sure only Germans will).

I like to match the mother of the groom (and when the mother of the groom is a former Olympic swimming medalist, I cannot complain).

The groom's electrician brother-in-law, helped make sure the ceremony would not take place in complete darkness.

The ceremony was short and sweet, just the way I like 'em, and included a whole lot of giggling, primarily from Nico and Claudi themselves (because they're awesome like that). It took about five minutes for them to finally complete their first kiss because Claudi kept breaking out in laughter!

Classy first kiss

Sweetest picture of the day (Nico and dad)

I loved that Claudi rocked pink shoes | Wee half-Swedish Teo (the bride's best friend's baby) was resistant to the elements

After plenty of picture taking (made extremely convenient by the fact that Claudi's best friend, Doro, is a photographer), it was on to the wine tasting. Of EIGHT wines, to be exact. Eight. 

Nico's precious (and adorably sassy) niece, Kimmy, smelled all the wines with them

You can probably imagine our state when we left the tasting however many hours later (I have zero idea how long we were actually there but I do know that my nap right afterwards was a lovely hour and a half :). Most hilarious moment of the walk to the hotel? When Doro and her husband, Eric, jumped in one of the cars and casually left baby with the rest of us to meander home with! Thankfully, Kimmy was all over playing stroller-pusher (little girls are so cute).

We did not see any of the turkeys on the farm, but we did make some horse friends

Dinner that night was at the hotel restaurant (that boasted a semi-famous and definitely very good chef) and was not only extremely delicious, but also ridiculously adorable thanks to cute little big-eared, blue-eyed Teo (and yes, Liz, he has the same name as your cat!)

I may have had three of those creme brulées over the course of two days...

One of Micha's happy places includes holding a wee baby in one arm and a beer in the other

When little guy got a bit grumpy, it was Kimmy to the rescue with a wondrous foot massage!

We woke up to a bit of snow and a lot of frost on Sunday and our whole troop - which included Nico and Claudi, their parents, each of their sisters plus partner and Kimmy, and then a best friend with partner  (and one baby) on each side as well - headed to Worms for a city tour. Can we just stop right there and reflect on the fact that there is a town in Germany called Worms? This delighted me to no end pretty much the entire weekend.

The Wormser Dom

It'd be very easy to play Where's Waldo with pictures of me...

My favorite part of the cathedral - and the whole tour - was the wiener dog statue hanging out near the entrance with all the gargoyles. The story goes, that he belonged to the architect that led the rebuilding of the cathedral and was always on site and always a good little guy until one day, when he started acting a little nuts and then went to bite his master's leg. The architect jumped back as the dog lunged at him and right at that moment, a huge piece of stone fell from the top right on to where he had just been standing, just barely missing both of them. For saving his life, the architect put this adorable memento of his trusty companion on the cathedral. 

Stained glass reflections | The Dackel!!

The oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe (where men are supposed to wear hats). Apparently, Prague says they have the oldest, but Worms (hehehe) says that is a big fat lie.

After the tour, the bride and groom headed home, where they then spend the rest of the day with massive stomach issues that Germans love to tell way to many details about but which I will spare you here. Suffice it to say, our second wine tasting was canceled. Which certainly didn't hinder Micha and me from trying three different kinds of glühwein at the Worms (hehehe) Christmas markets.

Then we had one of those classic moments where I had to yell-whisper to Micha to "pretend to take a picture of me but actually take a picture of that evil little boy pointing a pretend gun at the baby Jesus!!!" (in the manger scene). By the time I had explained to Micha what a manger scene is and that I actually meant gun when I said gun, boy had moved on, but was still wielding his weapon! If you're ever in Worms (hehehe), don't mess with that kid.

We all went to dinner at an adorable restaurant with a Christmas market on the second floor without Nico and Claudi that night (poor things) and those of us who did not lose our lunch were rewarded with a lovely sunset over the vineyard followed by some moon and stars viewing with Claudi's dad's massive telescope. That he keeps in the car, just in case.

And on Sunday, it was time to head back home on a snowy, snowy Autobahn. Needless to say, Micha did all the driving. I'm still Californian enough to know I do not even want to attempt to drive in the snow (like all Los Angelenos, I can barely drive in the rain).

(One day I'll get back to a more regular bloggy schedule, really!)

My Weekend in Pictures

Ahhh, wedding weekends. I both love and dread weekends where we head to weddings. Love because we get to get all dressed up, hang out with a bunch of friends we often haven't seen in a while, and drink more than is socially acceptable on most other days of the years. Dread because Micha and I stress out at entirely different moments while preparing - him when we get started, me about 5 minutes before we need to be in our seats and I'm still not ready - and it drives me batty. But luckily, as soon as we're seated with friends and the music starts, the fun wins over and all is good again.

The picturesque ceremony setting

This weekend we headed to somewhere in Brandenburg nearish Frankfurt Oder (close to the Polish border), for a wedding for two of the craziest friends we have, Inett (my birthday twin; well, the non-biological one) and Andreas (who Micha met in his mandatory year of army service many moons ago).

My new dress | Dapper father and son | Axel and Inga, always the best smilers

We were a bit frightened for this wedding, to be honest. A result of the fact that those two can party. In the sense that they put pretty much any of my four years of college long nights to shame. And they don't take well to people leaving their partying early, which leads to loooooooong nights and painful mornings.

The lovely bride and her dad

I still find it weird that the couple has to sit with their back to you throughout the ceremony in Germany...

It was fabulous, though. All 12+ hours of it. (Yeah, Germans mean business when they get married and make sure that the party lasts all day and all night long.) The weather cooperated - which is quite a shock this summer - for the outdoor ceremony, the wee munchkins played and giggled merrily around us, I bonded more with baby Hanna (further solidifying my favorite auntie status :), and we woke up on Sunday without a hangover! Wedding success!

They are being taught well

Hanna's favorite position - how adorable is the little diaper butt?

Inga would hate me for this picture but it's the only good one of the pretty sky! | Again, dapper Aron

A hilarious turn of events came about when Micha convinced Dreschi to drink just one beer during Kaffee and Kuchen time (we detest that sugar- and caffeine- filled tradition and opt for hoppier beverages every time), which meant that he probably wouldn't be able to drive back home later than night with little Aron.

See? Coffee and beer hour is a much better alternative...

Man, I wish I could make my hair look like that every day...

Micha looks like a weirdo out of a Vin Diesel movie holding that cute little nugget

Which is how we ended up with four of us snoozing in our room that night. Funny how the times change and instead of packing as many tipsy girlfriends together in a room as you can fit (and not pay extra for), you end up packing in a toddler in a travel bed instead one day... The little guy proved once again why he is so awesome and slept in just as long as we did the next morning. Can't say I wasn't fretting about being woken up at 7am by a cheerful munchkin, so sweet valley high, was that a relief.

Best picture of the day? I think so!

Can't you just see the love on little Hanna's face? ;)

As is also typical of German weddings, there were plenty of ridiculous and fun games and activities for the guests and the couple throughout, including a somewhat spontaneous strip show that I honestly can't remember the reason for... Probably better that way, no?

Oh yes, there's photographic evidence of the groom's flash dance

The rest of the night, well, let's just say you had to be there. Fun was had! And after a leisurely breakfast the next morning, we took a walk around the lovely lake with Inga, Axel, Kerstin, Hendryk, and Hanna to walk off some of the booze and enjoy the scenery and sunshine. And weird scenery it was, check out the crazy Entengrütze! (Funny story, Entengrütze, which is basically pond scum, was one of my and Natalie's first German words. And one we will never forget...)

Wow, I stand attractively...

Random side note: I finally finished A Clash of Kings, the second book after A Game of Thrones, and aaaagh! I can't believe I have to wait two more days until my colleague lends me the next one. Have you read them yet? So good. I'm trying to get Natalie hooked too.

And how was your weekend?