Bavarian outfits

In Bavaria, the tradition costume consists of Lederhosen for men and, for women, a Dirndl. Most of you probably have a good idea of what this looks like – your standard, stereotyped St. Pauli Girl type outfit just about suits the picture. They are, of course, much more beautiful than that, and manage to be sexy and voluptuous without being as…er… bosomy… as what most people picture. Anyways, living in Munich, it's great to have one, because there are several occasions each year to wear them, such as the Strong Beer Festival or, most notably, Oktoberfest! Since the latter is fast approaching, I have been on a mission to find a suitable new Dirndl for myself, without much luck. I have even visited the more upper priced locales, but to no avail: I just couldn't find what I was looking for.

What luck that today, as I was strolling away my lunch hour, I walked past a Dirndl Warehouse sale. I decided, what the heck, and went in….within 20 minutes and only ONE Dirndl-try-on later, I had what I had been looking for all along! Plum Dirndl, beautiful poofy sleeved blouse and white apron to match the white piping and trim. Beautiful, and it fit perfectly, plus the price, zinging in at €99.70 for the entire set, just can't be beat (i had been looking at Dirndls that, without the accessories, cost upwards of €200…) To top the whole thing off, the sales people were lovely and even offered me a glass of prosecco, which I (unfortunately) declined, saying I had to get back to work…. (I hope the wedding dress buying experience is this pleasant!)

And then I got to thinking about the wedding. And how it's going to be in the alps. In the beautiful, cow inhabited, church spire poking, cheese eating alps, and how really, we should maybe try to incorporate some of this lovely traditional dress that I adore into

our wedding. And I also got thinking about how a few of my friends had expressed the wish to wear a Dirndl to the wedding, and about how we may have to change our date due to restrictions on the civil ceremony… anyways, I got this crazy idea that we could do the civil ceremony on Friday evening, in traditional dress! Since it will be the "official" German part anyways, and the Saturday ceremony is going to be more typical American and have a more emotional component, it would be quite fitting. I still haven't figured out how that could incorporate the bridal party and traditional dress…perhaps we could all go Dirndl shopping together and those who wished could buy something and wear it to the civil ceremony.. I dunno, those are all just ideas. All I know is, I look pretty smashing in my new Plum Dirndl, and Mr. Schnitzel is dashing in his Lederhosen…

Those hills… so alive…