Mittwoch, 18. November 2009

German Traditions- a Bavarian "farmer's" wedding

I wrote about the meeting with our venue director last weekend and mentioned how funny and animated Michael was. He told us all kinds of stories about other weddings they've hosted: Hungarian ones, Russian ones, "modern" ones, and of course, the traditional Bavarian "open" weddings.

As Michael explained, traditionally, when one farmer's son marries another farmer's daughter from the same region, there are no fancy invitations. In fact, all the happy couple needs to do is tack up a poster in the town square. These kind of weddings are "open" - anyone and everyone is invited, there are no formal invitations. Generally, the ceremony takes place at the town church - which, in Bavaria, is almost always catholic. Then, the whole wedding group parades through town with music and celebration, until reaching the party location.

Michael has hosted many such weddings. He described them as being "a lot of fun" - all guests don traditional outfits and the festivities start with coffee and cake. That's right, cake BEFORE dinner.

The festivities then continue with the traditional speeches and dancing, and at some point during the evening, the bride is "stolen" by her friends, who take her to a neighboring bar. When the groom and best man notice (which we hope they do rather quickly!) they have to go find her, and when they do, the groom must pay the bill for the drinks they consumed at the bar. Sometimes, he must also perform "tasks" like naming the ten reasons that he loves her, or kneeling in front of her, etc... 

Here are some pictures from various Bavarian weddings for your enjoyment. Source



the traditional Bavarian band

a couple in traditional dress


traditional Bavarian wedding soup - we will probably have this too (yum yum)

this is a video of the beginning of a "Brautstehlen" (bride stealing) - you can see how she is accompanied by a Bavarian band and is being lead away. The job of the groom is to find her and reclaim her.

We are still deciding which traditions (american/polish/german/bavarian) we want to incorperate, but in the mean time we are "investigating" what different traditions are out there - what regional and cultural traditions did you incorperate into your wedding?

3 Kommentare:

Sara hat gesagt…

Hmmm...What is in that soup?

Wedding Diplomat hat gesagt…

different things - noodles, little dumplings filled with things etc... (not vegetarian, unfortunately, but we will have a vegetarian option..) :)

ceryl hat gesagt…

I know this may sound crazy...but I came across your blog when helping my daughter research her report on Germany. I google tradtional Bavarian Dress and you darling wedding phot popped up. It is perfect for what we need, do you mind if we copy & paste it for her assignment?? YOu can comment back on our family blog, kyleandceryl.blogspot.com. Thanks...Ceryl

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