Honeymoon Recap: Germany - Polterabend

Polter-what?

Polterabend.  I don't really know what it stands for, but it's basically a big party in honor of the bride and groom.  Not us, the ones we went to visit in Germany, Uwe (pronounced Uva) and Claudia.  Apparently there are no formal invites that go out for this party, it's just a word of mouth kind of thing.  Even people that aren't invited to the wedding are welcome to come and wish the bride and groom well.  There was too much footage to make a long video, so I just did a clip montage (okay, flipshare did a clip montage, whatever).

Let me give you a quick rundown before you watch the video...

When we arrived, guests were walking up to a stone propped against a tree outside of the pub with baskets of dishes throwing and breaking them.  Apparently breaking the dishes means well wishes for the bride and groom.  The more dishes, the more luck you are wishing them.  This was going on while people were arriving and cocktails were being had, so I would assume it was cocktail hour.  The groom said a little something and then we all went inside to grab a seat and get in line for food.

Dinner was goulash (think beef stew in a thinner broth) and bread.  It was so amazing we all went back for seconds.  After dinner the bride and groom gave a speech in German so I can't really tell you what they said, but Uwe did mention that JB and I were there and we had just been married two weeks before and he called us up to the front of the room to basically stand there with another couple who I am guessing had also recently wed.  After that they shared a dance together and then others joined in for the next song.  German, okay European music in general, is pretty interesting to say the least.  Luckily the DJ had some US top hits to get down to as well (see video #2 below).

There are a few traditions that take place at the Polterabend.  The breaking of the dishes is one, and a part of another.  Apparently the best man takes all the dishes that were broken (someone also showed up with a porcelain toilet and shattered it as well) and spreads them all out in a big mess outside and only the bride and groom are allowed to clean it up.  They have to clean until the best man says it's good.  During this time, they burn the groom's pants to symbolize that he is no longer wearing the pants in the relationship and they nail the bride's shoes to a tree so she can't run away.  Very entertaining.

The party was on the 9th and Uwe's birthday is on the 10th, so at midnight, they lit off fireworks.  Legit, illegal in the US without a permit, fireworks.  Right.In.The.Street.  I was a little stressed out about this to say the least, but it was pretty cool.  After the fireworks, the best man gave his approval of the clean up and we headed back inside for dessert.  Little did Uwe know that they had gotten him a birthday cake and the bride wheeled it out lit with sparkling candles.  Apparently birthdays are a pretty big deal in Germany and everyone at the party (which was a LOT of people) lined up to hug Uwe and wish him a happy birthday while the DJ played every birthday song in his arsenal over and over until we were all finished.

At midnight more food was brought out and we were all eating and drinking and dancing and having a merry time.  JB, our friend and I were sitting at a table talking and one of the servers came up with a tray of beer asking if we wanted any.  When we said "No, thank you." and he turned to go, he lost control of the tray and all of the beer came down on the right side of me.  It was awesome.  The best part was that Uwe's Uncle Heinz told me I won the wet t-shirt contest.  Duh.  WINNING!!!

We went home around 1:30 or so, but I think the party was going pretty late.  Now that you have the rundown, check out the video below.



And because I know you want to see my sweet moves on the dance floor (and hear my awesome singing), here is the rest of the party rock vid:



I know, I keep telling JB I need a record deal.

Honeymoon Recap - Germany Accomodations

In case you missed the earlier posts on why we went to Germany as part of our honeymoon, we were going to celebrate our friends getting married.  Uwe was a German exchange student when JB was in high school and he has kept in touch with all the guys over the years.  They have gone on trips to visit him and he has come to the states for visits as well as most of the weddings that have taken place.  They tried to make it out to ours, but with it being only two weeks before theirs, it made it pretty tough.  In order to "make up for it", Uwe and Claudia were kind enough to get us an apartment all to ourselves right next door to his mom's house where everyone else was staying. 

Once again JB's amazing cameraman skills are employed below for a tour of our "wedding apartment" and Uwe's mom's house in Kothel.  My apologies for the shaky and long walk next door.



Did you notice:

• How loud the birds are chirping?  This happens 24 hours a day.
• How GREEN and lush the yards are?  People's yards in this village are ah-mazing!
• I got on camera for all of our future years that I am "the best wife ever"

Coming your way in the Germany vlog series are day trips, pre-wedding parties, life in Kothel, and the wedding!

Honeymoon Recap - Getting There

So, I bought this notepad while I was in Germany so I could start journaling at bedtime so I could share all of our lovely adventures with my lovely readers, but the fail in this plan was that I didn't get it until halfway through our week in Germany and then I couldn't catch up with everything or find time to write about it.  Boo!  So now you get run-on sentences instead...

The win in all of this is that my MIL got us a Flip cam right before we left so you get to see some lovely VIDEOS!!!  This will be my first hybrid vlog.  JB thinks he is this amazing camera man/commentator all of the sudden, so please bear with me on these.

A little preface for you before we dig in to the "awesome" video.  Since we were ending our trip in Rome, we flew round trip to Rome and then 3 hours later got on a flight to Hamburg, Germany.  I am pretty sure the last two flights are missing because we were actually sleeping, but the end result is the same.

ENJOY!



Did you notice:

• My husband likes to film very close up and yell at the camera
• I make the Snookie noise
• I am easily distracted by Starbucks
• I'm whiny
• I was not happy in Rome because we still had 2 more flights to go
• My Fran Drescher-esque laugh

Sorry for the headache you have just incurred from the shaking camera.  There's more where that came from.  Stay tuned...

Guess Who's Baaaaaaack?

It's me! I have finally returned from my two-week romp through Germany and Italy with the husband and it was AMAZING!! I can't wait to catch everyone up on our trip with pics and videos, but it is going to take some time so please be patient.

I wanted to send out a HUGE "Thank You!" to the ladies who took over while I was away.  Carolyn, Kristin, Mrs. Monologues, Ashley, Monica, and Melissa, you ladies are the bestest!!!

To keep everyone occupied until I can get some honeymoon posts going, you can check out the teaser blog my wedding photog posted here.  I cannot wait to see the rest of the pics!

I hope you didn't miss me too terribly.  Okay, maybe I do :)

Honeymoon = BOOKED!

I can't believe it, it's finally booked! We have been struggling to find decent flight prices and itineraries for months and as of last night, we are officially going to Europe!

Our initial plan was to fly to Germany a week and a half after the wedding and stay for a week or so to attend our friend's wedding in Hamburg. The day after their wedding we planned to fly to Rome and spend the remainder of our honeymoon there.

We started our search around November when our friends had mentioned that they purchased theirs. They were around $1300/person then to fly from SFO to Dusseldorf and everyone kept telling me we could probably do better and to wait for the beginning of the year. I signed up for a few alerts for the itinerary we were planning and waited. Every time I got an alert email, the prices were going up instead of down and I kept getting more and more stressed out. Finally JB and I made February 20th our drop dead date of purchase no matter what the prices were because according to the trends, we couldn't afford to wait much longer.

In the meantime, I contacted my aunt to help us find a hotel room for our stay in Rome. I thought it might be nice to fly into Germany and then home from Rome, but a one way ticket from Rome to SFO was like $1700 back in November and that didn't seem very promising. With that in mind, we had this initial plan:

Jul 7 - San Fran to Dusseldorf (please note this requires is a 3 hour drive to Hamburg)

Jul 17 - Dusseldorf to Rome

Jul 21 - Rome to Dusseldorf

Jul 22 - Dusseldorf to San Fran

We had learned that the European domestic flights were quite inexpensive, but then also learned that there is usually only one flight in and out each day, so there's that. It was all very overwhelming and frustrating, especially not knowing anything about the geography and different available modes of transportation. We finally decided that it might be a better plan to just fly round trip from SF to Rome and then have the domestic flight be from Rome to Germany. Yesterday I thought to text one of our friends that will also be going to Germany, and has been before, and run my plan by her. It just so happened that her husband is off work this week and made it into a little project for himself to find us the best itinerary for the best deal.

We went over there last night so he could review his findings and we found one that worked out great and was all together (our international + european domestic flights) less expensive than just the round trip flight to Germany would have been for us! So now, this is the plan:

Jul 7 - San Fran to Rome (arrive the morning of the 8th at 9:40am)

Jul 8 - Rome to Hamburg (That's right, we're flying right into Hamburg!)

Jul 17 - Hamburg to Rome

July 22 - Rome to San Fran

On the way there we have a layover in Houston and one in Montreal, but both are relatively short and the flights between them are about 3.5 hours. Then the long leg to Rome is overnight so we can sleep. We also have a short layover from Rome to Hamburg, but will be in Hamburg by 4pm. We have the same layovers on the way back and will get to SF at 10:30pm. The only thing we weren't able to avoid is leaving SF at 6am the first day, but we'll survive.

You have no idea how happy I am to check this off of my to-do list. This has been stressing me out way more than anything related to the wedding. A huge thank you to our friends (who also gave us our wedding gift early!) and my aunt who helped us get our accomodations figured out. I can't explain what it means. We are so fortunate to have such wonderful people in our lives.

Who Needs Tradition? (The Reason Behind The Plan)

As some (okay, most) of you know, JB and I have actually been planning this wedding since July. The following paragraphs will explain why.

Earlier this year we started talking about getting married next year. Me, knowing how long it takes to plan a wedding and wanting to have a date with some kind of significance, suggested we look at dates and start figuring out a budget. I mean, we bought a house together and had already talked about marriage, so why not start planning? Who needs a ring?

We decided on July 23rd. It happened to be a Saturday (bonus!!) and since July was the month of our first kiss (awwww) and 23 has been a highly significant number in our lives, it was a great choice. We started looking at venues and figured with the bit of help we would get from my parents, and our tax return, we could make something happen.

Anyone who knows us knows that I am the planner in this relationship. JB is just along for the ride and doesn't make a big deal out of a whole lot. He will definitely say something if he is not on board, which is great, but luckily my ideas aren't that crazy and we have similar tastes. Needless to say I was not surprised at his response when after a day of me watching Platinum Weddings I suggested we do a destination wedding instead. He was totally on board. We figured that since we couldn't afford a wedding and a honeymoon, we would just throw it all together and invite those that wanted to join us, provided they paid for their stay. Not only were we having a wedding, but we were giving our guests (who most likely wouldn't take one otherwise) an opportunity for a couples vacation.

Most of our friends loved the idea, but of course my step-dad thought it was selfish of us to make people pay to come to our wedding (we weren't requiring people to attend, what's the big deal?). After looking into it more and getting pretty set on the idea, a wrench was thrown into our plans. One of JB's good friends, Uwe (they met when he was a German exchange student at their HS), sent us an email on Father's Day. He had proposed to his girlfriend and they were planning to be married on July 16th, 2011.

In Germany.

Since this friend has been to the states for all of the other weddings, JB's friends decided that when the day came that Uwe finally tied the knot, they would all be traveling to Germany for it. Obviously we couldn't afford to go to Germany and have our wedding the next weekend in St. Lucia, nor could any of his other friends that had originally planned to go. We figured we had a couple of options. We could wait until 2012, which I don't think either of us wanted to do, or we could figure out a way to afford a wedding before we left for Germany and use that as our honeymoon.

We decided that the only way could even consider affording it, was to cut the guest list. Our initial guest list for the wedding was 160 people. Any bride knows that the most effective way to cut the cost of the wedding is to reduce the number of people you invite. The issue that caused me the most anxiety was upsetting the people we didn't invite. I have friends from all different areas of my life and most of them have significant others, not to mention a large family, so the numbers add up quickly. I wanted to have a guest list that anyone could look at and say "Okay, it makes sense why those people were there." and avoid the whole "I can't believe so and so got invited and I didn't." issue. Of course that will probably still happen, but now I am at a point where I just don't care. So, by inviting immediate family (parents, siblings, grandparents) and closest friends (aka those that know more about my life than what I post on Facebook) we were able to cut the list down to 65 people.

Am I sad that I won't have my aunts/uncles/cousins/other good friends there with me? Of course. But my financial sense takes a hold of me in this situation. Hopefully if they are as good of a friend as I think they are, they will completely understand. Especially if they have had a wedding themselves. And those that don't get it, will figure it out when they finally do get married. More power to you if money is no object, but that's not the case for us and we have to make sacrifices in order to keep ourselves out of debt and save our future marriage.

So, with our newly chopped guest list, we (read I) started researching venues around the Sacramento, Placer, and Tahoe areas back in June. It was pretty discouraging since the price triples for everything once you mention the word "wedding", but I was finally able to find a venue that fit our needs and our budget. Not to mention it's less than two miles from our house. JB and I went and met with the coordinator and we loved the space and the price, and over an early dinner in their restaurant we decided to go ahead and book it.

We need to leave for Germany on July 6-7, and the holiday weekend was already booked, so we went with June 26, 2011. So much for sentimental value, we need convenience (Although it turns out that June 26th is the day my mom and dad started "going steady". Not sure what to make of that since they have been divorced for 27 years). Since we have such a small number of people, we only need half of the ballroom, so she only charged us half the facility fee. The ceremony and reception will be just steps from one another, which is another bonus as we will avoid transportation costs. We have also booked the photographer, selected most of the other vendors, and I ordered my dress last weekend. It was actually the day before JB officially proposed. Nice timing :)

So, as you can see if you made it all the way through this post, we are saying to hell with tradition...for the most part. We signed the purchase agreement for our house before ever having lived together, let alone being engaged or married, and we planned the wedding before the proposal. Big deal. We are still going to end up in the same place, maybe better.