Blue Star Chronicles

I’m still preparing for our Christmas trip to Germany to attend my son’s wedding to his Deutsche Fraulein. She and I have had a couple of miscommunications over understanding the different traditions. Each of us thinking the other was talking about one thing when we were talking about another. For instance, when I asked her about what the grooms parents were supposed to be doing she told me her mother had already bought the porcelain. I had no idea what porcelain had to do with a rehearsal dinner. She had no idea what I meant by a rehearsal dinner.

We got it all figured out, but I have been reading about traditional German weddings on the internet so I won’t be quite so ignorant when I get there. I thought I might share a few of the ones I’ve learned about here. There are so many interesting traditions that are different than ours that I may do another post on them.

1. Polterabend - this is an informal (informal dress and food) party the evening before the wedding where plates and dishes are smashed (the broken pieces are thought to bring good luck to the bride). The bride and groom have to clean up everything. Now I understand why she was talking about porcelain!! She told me they broke the porcelain, but I didn’t understand her explanation about why and the circumstances around breaking porcelain. Sounds like fun!
2. Wedding in a special place - It is a rule to choose a “special” place for the wedding, rather than the general rule in America of always having the wedding at the bride’s family church. Now I understand why she was so stressed out when his deployment was extended several times and she ended up having to plan a winter wedding. She had a place picked out that was only available in the summer.



3. The Bridal Cup is a tradition that dates back to 1450. It represents a the start of a life long union between man and woman and is a symbol of faithfulness and good luck.
4. The bride carries salt and bread, the groom carries grain - Bride should carry salt and bread as an omen for good harvest, and the groom - grain for good luck and wealth
5. Flowers - besides the flowers for the bride and in church, the hood of the wedding car is decorated with lots of flowers.
6. White Ribbon - the bride carries lengths of white ribbon with her bouquet, and after the church ceremony is over and the guests are leaving the church, she hands each driver a ribbon that they tie to the radio antenna.
7. Car Procession - after the wedding a car procession is formed and drives through town honking their horns - others honk back wishing the couple good luck.
8. Wedding Cake - the wedding cake, mostly a large cake with lots of ornaments, has to be cut by the bride and the groom together.



9. Wedding Shoes - another tradition is to collect pennies for years and buy wedding shoes for the bride with this money.
10. Dance - the first dance is danced by the bride and the groom, it is traditionally a waltz. The next dance is only for bride with her father and groom with mother, while bride’s mother dances with groom’s father.
11. Veil Dance - this is a popular game for a wedding evening. Every woman or man who wants to dance with the groom or bride, has to pay for it. This could get expensive!
12. Wedding Evening - at the wedding evening a lot of games are played, speeches are held (the first normally from the father of the bride), sometimes a wedding newspaper is handed out. Songs are sung, and so on.
13. First Night - to make the first night as difficult as possible, friends of the couple do lots of funny or sometimes cruel things. They fill up the rooms with balloons, hide lots of alarm clocks in the bedroom, take apart the bed, and so on. My son tells me that he and his fiance covered the floor of a friends room with over 200 dixie cups half full of water among other things on the friend’s wedding night.

Bonus: Kidnapping of the bride - in some areas (mostly in small villages) friends kidnap the bride and the groom has to find her. Normally, he has to search in a lot of pubs and invite all people in there (or pay the whole bill). I’ve read this ritual can end badly, although I don’t know what ‘badly’ means in this instance! My son tells me he has participated in kidnapping the bride before and that the search for her can go on for hours. They mean it when they say that the groom has to search for her!