After much anticipation and planning from abroad, we finally made it to our wedding in early September. It was a bit of a logistical feat, but in the end everything came together and was even better than I'd hoped. 

Photo by Marni RothschildWe decided to get married near Charleston, SC, which is not only where my family lives, but also just a beautiful spot for a wedding or a vacation...or in the case of many guests, both!  While visiting my parents last Christmas, we were able to book the church and a reception venue, and then were able to book everything else through a combination of internet, telephone, and a quick trip last May. Thank goodness for the internet and major help from my parents! 

 

We had a pretty clear vision of what we wanted - something combining the natural beauty of the low country with some aspects from our life together in Munich. And above all, we wanted it to be fun for our guests and a chance to get together with family and friends who we unfortunately do not see often enough.

 

And so with that goal in mind, we set out to bring a little of Munich and Oktoberfest to Charleston. Which is why I spent much of my free time this summer in front of the sewing machine. Not just finishing the dirndl I'd started last year, but making trachten treat bags for wedding favors.  I'd started by making little pouches out of dirndl fabric (blue gingham with flowers, green gingham with hearts, and a fun red, white and black pattern), and Herr J gave me a brilliant idea to make lederhosen shaped ones as well. This took some trial and error, but eventually they came out looking like little lederhosen. It was a fun project and I'm now intimately acquainted with the contents of several stores' sewing departments, and I got in some good practice with my sewing machine's embroidery stitches!!

 

We stuffed the treat bags with an assortment of German candies, boxed them up, and mailed them to the US in a few different shipments 4-6 weeks before the wedding. We sourced what we could in the US (beer mugs, etc), but certain things could only come from Germany and we shipped quite an assortment of German food products, candies, and a lot of lebkuchenherzen for decoration. 


And after shipping it all off we carefully packed for a complex itinerary (Herr J was visiting friends, attending the wedding, and then flying back to Munich; I was visiting family, going to the beach with friends, going to NYC for a week-long business trip, and then meeting him and another friend at the airport in Frankfurt to attend a friend's wedding before finally heading back to Munich).  Herr J left a couple days earlier than I. While I was excited to get on with the getting married, I found that I really missed him and it was strange flying over alone. Fitting that feeling, it was a cold, rainy day leaving Munich. 

It was neither cold nor rainy in South Carolina! 

For the first time in many, many years, I was able to celebrate my birthday with family.  I had a nice dinner with my parents and uncle, and then met the Dallas girls Sunday morning to start our Myrtle Beach adventure.  I hadn't been on a road trip or a girls' trip in a long time. It was so much fun to see everyone. We packed up the rental minivan, stopped for a good lunch on the way and then headed up to the beach.  

One of our friends was kind enough to get a week in a family member's condo near Myrtle Beach and several of the girls came for some or all of the week before the wedding. Relaxing and catching up with girlfriends was the perfect start to the week.  But before starting the bachelorette festivities, they surprised me with an ice cream cake and birthday presents! 



It was a fun but kind of odd birthday this year... Since my main focus was on the wedding and travel, I kept forgetting about my birthday. Since we would be apart on the day, Herr J surprised me the previous Sunday with a table full of great birthday presents (lots of great hiking and diving gear and a fisheye lens for my OMD). And then I'd forgotten again and got to enjoy the surpise yet again. 

But, back to the relaxing on the beach with trashy magazines.... 

In between a lot of much-needed relaxing and talking, we fit in a little bachelorette fun 

And there were more suprises and presents...including some lingerie and a sparkly "bachelorette" tiara which I of course wore out to dinner. 

We went out for a nice seafood dinner overlooking the pier, where our sweet young waiter brought us some extra key lime pie and gave us a tip on where to find a nice but not overly crowded beach. (Basically, he told us where the older people go...which I guess is now my demographic group!)

And then we went up to the rooftop deck for after dinner drinks. Nothing too crazy, but we did try to stay young with a round of shots (Coke for the pregnant friend/designated driver!)

And we couldn't leave Myrtle Beach without watching this classic. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. 

While I was catching up with the girls and getting in some pre-wedding beach time, Herr J was also visiting friends and catching up on American culture. Yes, he went to Georgia's first game of the season! He also introduced his friends' sons to the joys of German candy. 

After our respective pre-wedding trips, we met back up in Charleston on Wednesday morning.  We spent a lovely day with his parents, taking in some of the sights around Charleston.  Their first stop was the Angel Oak on Johns Island


After a quick stop at Fiery Ron's Home Team BBQ for some of their great pulled pork and mac and cheese (subtly flavored with a hint of mustard), we headed down to Patriot's Point to catch our tour to Ft. Sumter. (Given all the things that we wanted and needed to do in a short time, Herr J had a very detailed timeline that allowed us to get it all done). 



I hadn't been to Ft. Sumter in many years, and it was a beautiful day for it. The great thing about this tour is that you also get a nice boat ride and views of the harbor and marshes. 


And the dolphins were swimming just off the fort. So much fun to watch, but they're frustratingly difficult to photograph! When we chose the venue for our rehearsal dinner, the dolphins frolicking (or feeding?) in the shallows of the river tipped the scales in favor of the place we chose.   



So, after a day of siteseeing, we and Herr J's parents went over to my parents' house for a nice relaxed, newly-extended family dinner.  

 

And on Thursday, before the festivities really began, we took a day to just relax and spend time together.  Of course, before we could do anything else, we had to deal with the favor situation. I'd been a little paranoid about mailing everything over, but figured a month would be plenty of time for them to arrive. And of course there was no way I could carry everything over with me. I did expect that perhaps a few chocolates would melt or be crushed, so I packed a couple extra bags of the more delicate chocolates in case we needed to replace a few.  But I wasn't prepared for the packages to go missing, for DHL to have no information about where they were (somewhere between having left Germany and having arrived in the US was the best they could do with the tracking numbers), or for the fact that in the one box which finally arrived Wednesday, the damage was so bad that the gummi bears had liquified!  The chocolate of course also was a disaster.  

While we were still holding out hope that they might arrive, we realized that with 48 hours to go before the wedding, we needed to find a backup plan. And thankfully Amazon US stocks a wide range of Haribo gummis and has 1 day shipping. We ordered enough bags of different gummis to give as favors, and were just hoping the boxes arrived. At that point I'd given up hope of any of the candy being edible, but was hoping my weeks of work on the bags wasn't wasted. (The ones that arrived were undamaged, but were only 1/3 of the bags). Sadly, we could find no solution to replace the lebkuchenherzen that we planned to use for decorations. 

With our Amazon order placed, and having just heard from my dad that the lebkuchenherz did arrive, we decided to try out Sticky Fingers, which was recommended as one of the better bbq restaurants in town. 

I'm not normally a big wing fan - mostly because there's often so little meat on there and it's not worth the trouble - but the manager sent us a few wings to try, and even I admit they are pretty great. First, they're pretty meaty and large wings, and so a lot less effort to eat. And the taste really makes it worth it....slightly smoky and tasty, not the fried stuff covered in artificial tasting sauce.  These actually remind me of the great wings at Newton Circus in Singapore, if you've had those. 



With the wings and the friendly service, we knew we were off to a good start, and the entrees did not disappoint.  We both got combos so that we could try them all out, and I think the beef brisket was my favorite. And I'm a sucker for any restaurant with hush puppies on the list of sides!



The sauce choices...yes, of course we tried them all. (My favorite combo was the Tennessee Whisky on the beef brisket)

So, with our happy and full bellies, we headed off to unwind and play at Frankies Fun Park. (And let me just say now how wonderful the fun park is on a Thursday during the 2nd week of school....we had the place almost to ourselves).  

 

Our main event was the go kart racing.  A pretty pink car for the bride...

...and blue for the groom!



We also rode the slides and couldn't resist some skee-ball and some of the other arcade games.  A great way to leave the stress behind! 

We had one final meeting at the church and then I had one last mini-bachelorette party - dinner at Husk with my two bridesmaids who couldn't make it to Myrtle Beach. They brought me a gorgeous vintage veil to wear and we enjoyed some delicious southern cooking. 


Unbeknownst to us, it was Restaurant Week in Charleston....lucky, because we get to sample some amazing food at good prices, and not so lucky because everything is booked.  However, Husk is well-equipped for waiting and has a lovely bar in an adjoining house with some snacks.  


The food was definitely worth the wait, and we three had a lot of catching up to do! 

SC Shrimp with Tomato Braised Okra and Sweet Peppers
Fried Green Tomato with TN Cheddar Pimento, Pickled Ramps and Surry Country Ham
Kurios Farms Bibb with Marinated Heirloom Tomatoes, Roasted Corn and Salami, NC FetaThe appetizers were so good we forgot to take pictures of the rest of the food. However, Husk archives all of its menus online so you can go back and drool over all of the possibilities. 

With so many great meals, activities, and time reconnecting with friends and family, it was the perfect way to start off the week. But come Friday morning, the real rush begins!

 

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