Auf deutsch bitte...

Hallo Ihr Lieben...
Nachdem John so viel Arbeit mit der Erstellung von unserem Blog hatte, werde ich mich nun auch mal zu Wort melden... es soll ja nicht so aussehen, als würde der Blog nur von ihm kommen und nicht von uns beiden ;-)

Seid heute gibts den Countdown bis zum 4. Juli 08 auf der Homepage zu sehen... Es dauert wirklich nicht mehr lang!!!
Heute haben wir auch mit dem Vermieter vom Schloss Burkheim telefoniert und Bescheid gesagt, dass wir am 12. Juli 08 das Schloss mieten wollen! Der Vertrag ist auf dem Weg zu uns!!! Die erste Hürde - die Suche nach einer passenden Location - haben wir somit geschafft! Wir glauben, dass wir das schwierigste und nervenaufreibendste überstanden haben... obwohl, bekanntermaßen soll einen ja die Gästeliste noch mal zur Weißglut bringen... :-) Mal sehen!!!

Ich glaube ich brauche nicht zu übersetzen was John in den letzten 2 Posts geschrieben hat, die meisten müssten englisch können... Viele anderen werden sich freuen, wenn sie ab und zu die heimische Sprache lesen werden... aber damit Johns Familie und Freunde in den USA regelmäßig den Stand der Dinge lesen können und unsere Planung mitkriegen, wird das meiste auf englisch sein.

Wir freuen uns wenn uns viele auf unserer Homepage besuchen und hoffen dass Ihr viel Spaß habt beim Lesen und Fotos anschauen (Fotos folgen noch...)

Bis bald!!!

The Big Plan

Okay, it's about time for a mini-update, and we've enough to report that it's deserving of a post for anyone who's read the last one a hundred times while waiting for news. At the moment we have a rough idea of what, when and where we are planning to celebrate, so we'll walk through the event schedule one day at a time. This isn't final, but it's starting to look like a proper plan.

July 2nd, 2008 Arrival from America of immediate family, witnesses for the Registrar's Office wedding. Last rainy day until further notice.
July 3rd, 2008 After closing time on Thursday, we will both officially be on holiday from work.
July 4th, 2008 Today will be the official Registrar's Office wedding. Immediate family and witnesses will be present, although everyone else will be waiting outside with rice, flowers, champagne, etc. This is the equivalent of going to City Hall to get your marriage license in America, although it's a much bigger deal here, so that some couples just make this the celebration and don't marry in a church. We'll still celebrate this one (why not???) and go out for a nice dinner afterwards. A good bit of Sekt is not uncalled for.
July 5th, 2008 Time to get rowdy! It's Polterabend, an event based on the tradition that "shards bring luck". Everybody will come to our apartment, where we'll have a party in our garden (or some other location, weather and people depending). Basically, the idea is to smash all the old dishes on the ground, and the new couple has to sweep it all up. Friends and family also make a bit of fun and games and tasks for the bride and groom, but we will assign a censor to decide what we can be forced to do and what crosses the line. Beer will be served. A good bit of Sekt is not uncalled for. P.S. We are not sweeping up shards more than once; if you try to re-spill the cleaned-up mess, you will be less than politely asked to leave.
July 6th-11th, 2008 Program week. We will try to come up with a list of the five most awesome things one can do while visiting us in our little corner of the world, including a nature hike on Feldberg, the tallest mountain in the Black Forest, multiple wine tastings, tours of Sekt cellars, bike rides in the Kaiserstuhl region, day trips to Basel, Baden-Baden, Staufen, Interlaken/Jungfrau Region, Titisee and Schluchsee, Colmar, Straßburg - sorry, Strasbourg, Breisach... you get the idea. There's plenty to do here.
July 12th, 2008 Church Wedding and Reception. This is the official big day. We originally wanted to do it on the 5th, but now that we've found our castle, we're willing to comprimise to get a date that's available, and we think this plan works quite well. The castle is in Burkheim in the Kaiserstuhl. Basically, Burkheim has a crazy Middle Ages-feel to it, female guests to the wedding will have to bring tennis shoes to get up to the castle before they can change into heels, the view is spectacular, the wine comes from the vines surrounding the castle, it is basically a guaranteed success. Okay, so it's actually castle ruins, not so much Neuschwanstein. But it really has something, we'll be posting pictures soon. The party will go as late as we can, if we're lucky we'll catch the sunrise over the Totenkopf... A good bit of Sekt will not be uncalled for.
July 13th, 2008 Breakfast and packing.
July 14th-27th, 2008 Everybody flies somewhere! Mareike and I will have two weeks for the honeymoon and America celebration. People who've come from America can travel on their own a bit before heading back, but we will probably already be in Greece or the Fjords or Hawai'i or on the North Sea or on the Mediterranean coast... We'll probably be seeing everybody in the week after that for the reception in West Allis. Details of that party are still to come.
July 28th or 29th or 30th, 2008 Back to work for all parties involved! It can rain again.

Our First Post

Welcome to our blog!

We passed the ten-month-to-go mark about a week ago, and just about simultaneously started our serious planning for everything. Ten months, I think, seems like a lot of time, but every week tends to go by so fast, since we're both working loads and my program starts in a few weeks. So I'm sitting here wondering about the couples that manage to put everything together inside of six months... Although in our defense (defence?), we've got the whole international aspect to deal with, so that adds a few more tasks to the list.

We'll try to keep you as up-to-date as possible with what's going on in both the wedding plans and our lives. It's safe to assume that posts in English have been done by me, and those in German are from Mareike. We'll try to make sure that everything gets said in both languages, but I'm not promising an exact translation of everything; could this also be a learning experience for anyone reading from America? There might be a tax rebate in that, I'll look into it.

So right now we're in the middle of finding the perfect venue for our wedding reception. I've set down my request that I'd like to have the party either a) in the mountains, b) on the waterside or c) in the forest. I suppose I'm a bit demanding, but consider this: If you travel from our home 30 minutes by car in any direction, you will find yourselves smack-dab in the middle of a) the mountains, b) water, AND c) the (Black, not just any) Forest. If you don't believe me, get Google Earth and look for us in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. The best way to describe our location is as a wine-and-mineral-bath haven at the foot of the Black Forest, slightly up the hill from the Rhine River. How could we not take advantage of that in our wedding plans???

Our first choice of location turned out to have a few too many costs attached to renting the hall, so we've started looking at a number of other places. Once we get serious about a few, I'll put up a link to their website, or some pictures of the places.

As far as a timeline, we'd like to have a venue chosen fairly soon, and a band and caterer before 2008 starts. We can formally register ourselves as an "engaged couple" with the city starting six months before our "Wunschdatum" of July 4th. This means we'll go to the City Hall on January 4th (or about then) and sign up for the date before 20 other couples do. This date is also important because starting then, I have six months to obtain all the necessary documents that certify I am a legitimate American citizen who is available for marraige, e.g. I don't already have a wife and two children back in the States who I've left behind for an Amazing German Woman. Six months is also, I suppose, a good time to get invitations sent out to America, since guests will need to book accomodation and travel to Europe if they want to celebrate with us. On that note, let us know if you're serious about wanting to come over. We won't be offended if you can't make it, and we're going to plan a less formal reception back home in the States a few weeks later as part of our honeymoon, so hopefully the American turnout will be great there! And we'll get to put on our wedding attire twice! That's getting our money's worth!

So, if you're reading along, I hope you'll enjoy our updates and stories along the way. We're both new to planning a wedding, and neither of us have lots of close friends with whose planning we've helped out (there's no way to avoid ending that clause with a preposition!), so hopefully this information will be useful to many of you in the future, or useful to us if you've been through this and have any suggestions! Thanks for reading!