Die Braut To Be
When G asked me to marry him, the first decision we made that night was to not immediately set a date for the wedding. We wanted to figure out the best time for both of our immediate families to be in one country, at the same time. In the meantime, we've decided to have our wedding in Munich, with an intimate (pretty word for small) reception. Then later in the year, we will have another reception in America, which is for the rest of my family and our friends. We still haven't chosen a date yet. And without a date for the wedding in Munich, my Mother can't really start planning the reception in America. You know this is driving her insane.....I forgot to mention that she's a professional Wedding Coordinator. Yes, I'm letting her plan the entire reception in America. All we have to do is show up. But she can not understand why I am taking so long to make decisions. I think it's because the wedding industry in Germany is almost nonexistent compared to America, where a Bride To Be is bombarded with so much information in countless magazines on bridal boutiques, wedding cake designers, photographers, and so on. In Munich, I hardly see anything associated with weddings. Out of sight, out of mind. I need some inspiration! I have started looking at dresses and surprisingly, I have found a couple of European designers I like. I am extremely particular (nice word for manic) about this wedding dress so it is a major relief that I may be able to find my dress here, as opposed to ordering a dress from the US, which would have the potential to be a major headache. Every woman can relate. Anyway, last night I started searching online for a unique location for the reception in or around Munich and I've come across hotels - too typical and castles - not my style. I'm thinking if I find my dress and a location for the reception...maybe I can actually set a date. Totally backwards planning but at least it's planning, right?
6 comments:
I don't think it is backwards at all. I bought my dress before I was officially engaged. LOL! And our date was dictated by the availability of the reception location (my crazy husband got me to plan a wedding in six weeks...it's a long story), so to me your order is perfectly normal! ;-)
Vielen Dank Maria! Six weeks to plan your wedding...you must have amazing organizational skills. How many guests? Were you happy with everything? And where is your blog..I can't find you:+(
Important things first-- my primary blog is http://mariaandkevin.blogspot.com but I also write, er my son writes, at http://amarijohnson.blogspot.com .
Six weeks... avoiding the long story leading up to that... I had a lot of help from my step-mom. She is a professional photographer and amazing in so many ways. I was living in Oklahoma at the time, and the wedding was in Minnesota, so we had a few quick planning trips to get things done.
To make things easier, we were married on a Friday evening. There were about 100 people at the wedding and reception (fewer at the wedding, because of work, etc, but we encouraged people to come to the reception if possible). I think we invited closer to 200 people.
I was happy with everything. It wasn't the beach wedding I dreamed of, but we kept things relaxed, so it worked out great. If I make it to girls weekend (need a babysitter so I can go for the day), I will bring my laptop and I can show you the fun...like our homemade cakes! (Another fun thing my step-mom and I did!)
Yeah, that's not backwards- you need to have a place before you can pick a date! Good luck with the planning, I found it to be a bit of a headache matching what I wanted to what Berlin had to offer. I ended up hiring a photojournalist who'd never done a wedding before because the Berlin wedding photographers were all so appalling. There should be a Wedding Messe on occasion in Munich, we went to one in Berlin. Check the Messe schedule.
We picked the date (6 months in advance and a Saturday) before finding the location and it turned out to be a big mistake. We were working under a tighter budget - bringing an expensive dress to Germany is a customs nightmare, so it's fantastic you're finding things you like here. There are a few German bridal magazines out there, but they have a lot of American content. It can be really hard to get an "American" cake, etc. but you will probably have a lot more luck in Munich. Congratulations!!
Oh I think you're on the normal track. For me the dress decided a lot of other things. I knew I wanted a special dress from a designer in San Francisco and then realized it would be too dressy -in my opinion - for a standesamt ceremony and that decision caused a domino effect that led to our non-demoninational ceremony in Bremen's central park... and another ceremony in the US three months after.
Styles and expectations are really different over here, give yourself plenty of time to find and arrange for what you want. My advice is to stick to the nice boutiques in Munich and avoid those awful stores on Sonnenstrasse between Karlsplatz and Isartor. Awful, awful, awful.
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