Wedding

It took me a few days to recover from the wedding. My age is starting to show me up (I need bifocals now too) because I cannot stay up late and bounce back easily.

Dagmar became my friend in the year 2000, I met her when I attended the German congregation in Kaiserslautern. She has a Ph.D and law degree from the prestigous Heidelberg University (all by the time she was 26). She speaks 5 languages fluently (German--of course, English, French, Italian and Dutch). As you will see she is petite and beautiful and humble and funny too. She focused on international law and worked in the Hague for the Tribunal, in Strassbourg at the European Court of Justice and the Hague again for a high judge that included her working with the Federal Chancelor of Germany. Then she (after much agony over leaving her profession) decided to serve a mission and went to SLC temple square and Kentucky and she served in the only place where she could be an AP (assisant to the president) in the SLC temple square mission. After she returned she began working for our church in Frankfurt as legal council for international affairs. Wow, it is a bit intimidating. I was very curious what type of person she would marry!

The wedding was a full day event for us. Günter and I got the kids off to their KiGa's and then finished packing up things and left. We drove to the Franfurt Temple (for non-LDS it is a special place not a regular building we have Sunday services). It was wonderful to see her married not just for this life but for eternity.

Afterwards they had a church service for all of her family and friends that are not LDS. It was lovely.

Afterwards the typical German tradition is to have some hord'vours and juice (normally non-LDS have champagne) and everyone greets and mingles.

The professional photographer took a lot of pictures (which I tried to stay out of the way of, but felt competitive since I wanted some nice pictures too) and Günter and I headed to the Golf Clubhouse. We had about 1.5 hours before the reception officially started but even still we felt nervous to get it together in time. I had already put together all Dagmar's & Björn's growing-up and adult pictures together with music (and titles and transitions etc). I took pictures of the wedding and got some from Björn's father from the day before where they went to the Standesadmt (townhall) to be married legally. They had a dinner afterwards. So I had to go through all the pictures (and a few videos I took) to add to the show.

In the meantime Günter was trying to hook up all the systems. He put up the video beamer but found the program on our laptop was not compatable and we didn't have the time to figure it out or download new programs etc. We were both quite stressed about that time. Luckily we found out the band had a DVD player and it worked with the video beamer so I had to finish the show so we could process it (1 hour 15 minutes) then burn it to a DVD to use.

People were coming in when I was on the computer and I had to tell them that I couldn't talk because I needed to concentrate. The band was working to get the sound system up so it was loud and I couldn't really hear the music on the show to match the photos or videos, and the time was short so I just did the best I could.

We had the computer processing while we had dinner. Speaking of which, they did this quite classy. The tables had white linen and all arrangements of cutlerly for every course. The first was riccolia leaves with flowers (some are edible!) with avacado and red mellon. The next course was sorbet to "cleanse your palet" (the dish was chilled and rim dipped in sugar).

After the fathers spoke, Dagmar and Björn spoke. Then we had the main course--buffet style. It was all Caribbean--red snapper, and side dishes (fresh corn/black beans/red peppers soaked in coconut milk), other main and side dishes that were delectable.

Once it was dark and everyone had finished eating we showed our montage. They both seemed to like it and were surprised to see videos in it. I was glad it worked out to even be shown!

Everyone mingled then there were gourmet desserts (including my favorite Creme Brulee) and just before we were to leave (at midnight) they brought out the wedding cake (called a 'piece montee' (traditional French wedding cake)with small round eclairs stacked into a pyramid with carmelized sugar dripped over it) with sparklers on the top.

Towards the end of the night the thunder finally produced it down-pour (after a muggy day) and it came down in torrents. We packed up our things and ran for the car.

We got home around 2 am. I was so grateful that my friend Angi watched our kids--she picked them up from KiGa and the ReHa bus and had them for dinner and came back to our house to get them to sleep. I can't even tell you what an angel she is--another benefit to going to our church--I make wonderful friends!

Back full circle, Friday Günter returned to work, I got the kids off to preschool and fell asleep (for what I thought would be an hour). At 12:05 I woke up disoriented and realized that I was to pick up Niki at 12. I threw on clothes and jumped in the car and got there about 12:10 so he was waiting and not panicked yet, nor had the teachers called me. However, that didn't prevent me from having a major shame attack. Even though I was still very tired I didn't dare allow myself to sit on the couch in fear I would fall asleep and not hear Jenna's bus at 2:30.

I was glad to be able to attend the wedding and to see my friend married (at 37--the same age I married Günter). I did feel mixed feelings though because I will miss the relationship as it was and know that she will be processing most things with her husband now--as it should be. I guess parents have mixed feelings too because with happy events usually means changes. Even though we wish for the changes they still make us all adjust and things are never the same. I wish the best life for them and hope they are able to have children (which I know my friend really would like but it doesn't always work out so easily, as I am an example). To a happy life together--Dagmar and Björn!

Posted by Krista at August 10, 2008 08:25 PM