After a fun week of visiting friends, luncheons and rehearsal dinners, and the wedding ceremony itself, we could take a deep breath, relax, and enjoy the festivities.
When we first talked about the wedding, we both immediately thought "wouldn't it be fun if we could bring Oktoberfest to Charleston?" Well, we couldn't do quite that, but we did bring some Bavaria to the festivities.
We held the reception back in Charleston, at the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon. Not only is a beautiful and historic venue, but we also thought it would be pretty cool to offer a dungeon tour at our wedding reception! So, during the cocktail our, the guests had a tour of the dungeon, where pirates and confiscated British tea were held and also where you can see the only remaining parts of Charleston's old city walls. I had no idea Charleston was a walled city, or that the water used to come up to the building.
One of our hopes was to figure out how to get hops and good German beer. Luckily our wonderful florist and caterer were able to come through for us! We decided to offer a selection of Munich beers - a Weihenstephaner helles, a Paulaner Weissbier, and a Franziskaner Dunkelweissbier.
And of course some mini pretzels to snack on before the reception began.
While our guests enjoyed beer and pretzels and a tour of the museum, Herr J and I stopped at our hotel to change into our Bavarian party clothes.
Our bartender gets into the spirit, thanks to some dirndl and lederhosen aprons Herr J found online.
However, my favorite party favor he found online was the Maβ coozy, lederhosen style. (Luckily he saved one for me, and it took a trip to Oktoberfest this year)
Again, Sara, our awesome florist somehow divined from my explanations and random Pinterest ideas exactly what I envisioned for simple centerpieces... of course in Maβ glasses.
Luckily the lebkuchenherzen we had shipped over arrived at the last minute and we were able to put them out on the table as decorations and more fun Bavarian things to take home.
The father of the bride and ushers.
Two of my favorite things about the room were the two fireplaces on each end, and the gorgeous caribbean blue ceiling that you can see in the mirror.
And one of the moment's we'd been eagerly awaiting....the cake. Again, another example of a wonderful vendor who was able to create exactly what we wanted from what I'm sure was a very poor description. If anyone in the Charleston area needs a cake (birthday, wedding, otherwise), I highly recommend our baker Tammy at Cakes by Kasarda... especially the "moist chocolate" flavor. If you're getting married in the area, it's worth a visit to sample her cakes. We were blown away by the taste and by the presentation. This was my first cake tasting ever, though Herr J had been with friends and to the wedding expo with his brother. So, when she brought out little slices of several types of cake, and then a plate of scoops of several frostings, and yet another plate of several fillings....well, I thought that was the normal way cake tasting went and was pretty excited for the next one. Though I did think it would be hard to top her cake - at least 3 flavors were the best example of that flavor cake I've ever tasted.
Herr J tried to warn me that we should probably just cancel the other appointment and book Tammy, but I thought cake tasting was fun. As usual, he was right. The next place just brought out different samples of pre-frosted and assembled cakes. And they all had pretty much the same frosting and taste and I was wishing we'd skipped it.
I will say that choosing the cake was really difficult, but we got exactly what we wanted thanks to Tammy's tasting where we could mix and match. And when I was having trouble deciding between the American buttercream that was just too sweet and the Swiss buttercream that could be a tiny bit sweeter, she suggested that she often just blends the two. So, we created a cake with perfect frosting and were able to alternate layers of cake - alternating vanilla and almond on the bottom tier, alternating vanilla and strawberry (and she blends fresh strawberries into the batter), and chocolate on top. I don't remember if the chocolate is mixed with vanilla or not....we'll see when we next visit my parents and take it out of the freezer!
A toast by the best man...
A toast by the best man...
... and the maid of honor. We realized with a laugh when they signed the marriage book as witnesses for us that we chose well...between the two of them, we have attorneys licensed to practice in at least 3 states.
And then it was time for the dances. First, father and daughter.
And then our first dance together.
And then, time to eat! When we started this process, I was a little worried we wouldn't find German food. I'd found what looked like a good German restaurant in town, but it had closed. And caterers mostly focused on Asian, Mexican, or Southern food. Had we gotten married 3 hours west in Spartanburg (home of the BMW plant), I think we would have had a plethora of options for Bavarian food. But, luckily my father found a local caterer who said "you want to do Oktoberfest for your reception? We've never done German before, but that sounds fun!" And when she came back with a proposed menu based on internet research, she said that the one dish that kept popping up as classic German food was this thing call currywurst.
In the end, we went with our favorite German dish (actually Schwabisch, not Bavarian), zwiebelrostbraten and käsespätzle. For those who haven't had the pleasure, it's basically steak with fried onions on top. It's often served with a beer sauce and with käsespätzle, which I like to call German artisanal mac and cheese. Yum!
And we did have a sausage and sauerkraut bar. They found some great bratwurst and served it on a bun with mustard or as currywurst. And did a realy good job with the sauerkraut. We also had some green asparagus, rice pilaf, and baked apples. We weren't sure how it would work, but Cru Catering did a fantastic job. They also managed to serve incredibly tender steak, which is always a big risk to cook for such a large party.
I think we should have practiced cutting the cake - I had no idea it would be so difficult to get the slice out of there!
One thing that was difficult to find in Germany for an American wedding was a cake cutter. I'm not well versed enough in German weddings to know if a ceremonial cake cutter isn't normally used, or if the cutting of the cake just isn't a big thing (or the cake itself). In any event, when we described to a sales lady at a big kitchen store what we were looking for, she said they didn't carry anything like that, but they did have a ceremonial knife for cutting stollen. Dresdner stollen, to be precise. We figured it was pretty cool and sword-looking and we could combine another German state into the mix, so why not?
Apparently this is a replica of the Giant Dresden Stollen Knife, which was 1.6 meters long. Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, was said to love holding festivals. In 1730, he held a magnificent baroque festival for which he commissioned an 1.8 ton (18 yards long by 8 yards wide) stollen (traditional Christmas cake). It took 8 horses to bring the stollen to the table and in order to cut such a cake, he had a 12 kg silver knife forged.
After going into the Saxon treasury and surviving the November Revolution, it was lost after being hidden away from the advancing Red Army at the end of World War II.
After much research, a replica was created and they market more manageable sized versions. Next Christmas, we'll be cutting our stollen in style and remembering our wedding day.
We had the chance to catch up with family and friends, some of whom we hadn't seen in too long. And to learn something new about some....for example that our cousins knew every song and every dance....we were impressed!
We had the chance to catch up with family and friends, some of whom we hadn't seen in too long. And to learn something new about some....for example that our cousins knew every song and every dance....we were impressed!
A little more dancing before the night ended.
And the last minute gummis we'd ordered to replace the favor bags that hadn't arrived....
....but luckily arrived the morning of the wedding!
After the reception ended, we went up to the rooftop of the Vendue Inn for a drink with friends.
We then returned to the hotel, just to add a little more laughter to the week. After we'd finally cleared off everything we'd left on the bed in our haste to get ready, we finally went to bed. I thought it was strange the duvet was wet, but it seemed to just be water, and it wouldn't surprise me if I left a wet towel or spilled water on it or something like that. Not 5 minutes later I jump up as something wet starts coming out of the ceiling. The mystery of the wet duvet is solved by the water leaking out of the vent in the ceiling. Luckily they had a vacant room across the hall and we just slept there - in a nice clean and uncluttered room.
The next morning we hurried to pack everything up and met some Dallas friends at High Cotton for breakfast before we all headed out of town.
I can't say enough about the food in the area. There are so many great restaurants around, and not only in downtown Charleston. Here's a sampling of the wonderful breakfast.
Johnny Cakes
Biscuits and Cornbread (with sweet butter)
Chicken and Waffles
Corned beef and hash
shrimp and grits
And one of the most thoughtful (and tasty) gifts we've ever seen. My oldest friend (we go back to 3rd grade) came to the wedding. She's a pretty excellent baker and cookie decorator and she left a box of homemade love heart cookies for us at the hotel. And she took the time to look up a bunch of different love sayings in German to write on the hearts. So cute! And they were really tasty, melt in your mouth shortbread kind of cookies.
With full bellies and a few hours before I had to fly out for business meetings (sad to leave my new hubby, but he was flying home the next day), we decided to go back to Frankie's Fun Park for some mini-golf. We didn't have time for golf the day we drove the go-karts.
This time, with wedding rings!
I've always been pretty terrible at air hockey, but I think getting married changed that. Best air hockey performance of my life!
We finished up the day with this crazy Speed of Light game they have. We took a video of some other people playing it. You compete against each other and earn points for hitting the lighted buttons. I think you get more points depending on how quickly you hit them in a row and may lose points for mistakes. And then there's a bonus round to hit as many as you can in a short time. It's out of control and addictive and fun.
And then Herr J dropped me at the airport and I spent the week in New York. We had a friend getting married the following weekend in another part of Germany, so I flew into Frankfurt. Coincidentally another friend from London was attending the wedding and flying in from New York, so Herr J picked us up in Frankfurt and we all went to the wedding.
And when we finally returned to Munich that Sunday, we dropped off the rental car and had our first meal in Munich as husband and wife and had our first Oktoberfest beer of the season. A lovely evening at Augustiner am Dom
dining on our favorite zwiebelrostbraten!
A huge thanks to all of our family and friends who travelled to celebrate with us, and to all of our amazing vendors who made this work for two crazy people trying to arrange a wedding by phone and internet. And to our wonderful pastor who was willing to work outside the box and did many of our pre-wedding counseling sessions by Skype. With everyone's help, we had our dream wedding!
