The German Wedding - Part 2

Last Saturday, we woke up around 9 am and walked the 2 km into Illertissen to get Jace some hay fever medicine and to check the little town out. However, Illertissen was surprisingly bigger and nicer than we had imagined. It has a lovely little main street that we walked down and got some essentials that we had forgotten to bring with us. There is also a market on Saturdays and Wednesdays that was in full swing. Knowing we had a full day ahead of us, we picked up some lunch and then walked back to the Hotel to get ready for the wedding. Here we are in our wedding finest before the bride's father came to pick us up:


The bride's father picked us up right on time, in punctual German fashion. It was lovely to see him again. Jace and I actually had shown him around Perth a few years ago when he was on a 6 week (or more?) Australian tour. The bride and groom are also quite well traveled - I met the groom when he did an exchange at the University of Akron and his (now!) wife when she was studying tourism in Sydney! There were so many friends from their travels at the wedding that there was an entire international table!

The ceremony and reception were actually in a nearby Au, Illertissen, Germany. The ceremony was in the most darling church and we walked down the street to the beautifully decorated reception hall. Being a tourism major, the bride really used her skills to plan an amazing reception - excellent food, beautiful decorations, and the couple's friends chipped in to entertain us throughout the night with quizzes, games for the couple, poems, and dancing.

A heart napkin. Such a simple touch, but really lovely.

Jace trying to avoid another photo.

Here we are at the international table. Guests in this picture are from Norway, Sweden, South Africa,
Mozambique and naturally Australia and the US!

I can't recall what this was, but it had a peppery cheese crust that was just divine.
And who doesn't want Spaetzli (small potato dumplings) with gravy day or night?

The bride made the centerpieces. I loved the orange, red and green color scheme.

Having the guests as entertainment was something new to us and we really enjoyed it - it gave the reception a lot of personality and enabled you to learn a lot about the couple through their friends and family. We loved one game in particular. The friends of the bride and groom prepared a list of about 15 questions - eg. Who are the parent's of the groom? Who met the couple while overseas? Who has changed the groom's diapers? Who is responsible for the couple meeting? etc.

And instead of the guests answering the questions, the questions were read aloud and the guests stood up if the question applied to them. So for example, we stood up when the question 'Who met the couple while overseas?' was read aloud. Then the bride and groom had to guess what the question was based on who was standing! It was genius. It's a great idea to introduce everyone and have some laughs.

The menu was excellent. Schwaebische Hochzeitsuppe or wedding soup of the Schwaebisch region, how fitting, for starters, followed by a fresh salad and the peppery pork (above) with Spaetzli or Spaetzle as a main. Then for dessert you could choose between vanilla ice cream with berry sauce or Schnapps. Later in the evening the couple cut the cake and a huge dessert buffet and coffee were on offer. Delicious... and the wine and spirits and good spirits, naturally, flowed through the night.

Ps. I'm awaiting the ok from the bride and groom to post some pictures of them... so perhaps there will be a Part 3! If not, I'll just say they looked beautiful and classic and leave it to your imagination. ;)

If you missed Part 1 of the wedding adventure you can read it here.