twinga:

6:00 a.m. The alarm clock rings – I’ve already been half awake for quite some time though. Today is the day … our wedding. And my first challenge is to apply photo-proof make-up. It works out quite well and I step out of the bathroom at 7:00 a.m., eat a quick bite and am ready to go to the hairdresser. Why on earth are city hall appointments at 10 a.m. in the morning?

7:30 a.m. My husband-to-be drops me off at the hairdresser and I get a nice hair do, courtesy hairdresser Steffi, who got up at a crazy early hour to be there in time. Here's a very nice pic of my, he he

8:15 a.m. I send Tobse a text message that it will be a little while longer until the hair dresser is done. For some bizarre reason he gets this message too late, when he’s already sitting in the car, so he decides to do what we had forgotten the day before: To go wash our car!! That’s the noise I hear when he calls. He’d be there in 10 min to pick me up, he said. Funny enough my parents are driving by the hair dresser at that very moment and I jump in the car at the red light, making great time for the next step: getting into the dress with the help of my mum.

9:00 a.m. I manage to do no harm to my hair when pulling the dress over my head. Yeayyy!! Last touch-ups to the make-up, Tobse gets into his suit and off we go (in my next life I'm going to be born as a guy!). My mum is a little upset with the florist. These idiots managed to use pink flowers instead of violet ones … despite a sample they had the week before. But who cares – if this is the only thing that’s supposed to go wrong, so be it.

9:30 a.m. We are leaving … and are even a little early. Awesome, because now our photographer has a bit of time to take first pics of friends and family arriving at the Goldene Saal at City Hall Augsburg.

10:00 a.m. Herr Krömer, the new registrar for Augsburg (the former one, for many decades, was Herr Hornauer, the dad of a friend of mine who sent his regards. I wonder how he knew we were getting married?) held a wonderful speech at the Fürstenzimmer. This is where we sat.

We signed the papers, exchanged rings, then the kiss :-) and then our friends sang “Viel Glück und viel Segen” , canon-version (sounds funny :-) ) by Werner Gneist for us.

Each of them had a rose for the bride, many hugs followed and then, back at the Goldene Saal, Tobse and I had to cut out a huge heart out of a big cloth. I got some proper little scissors, Tobse a really tiny one from a swiss knife. Whoever cut his half first was pronounced the one that “wears the trousers” in the relationship. I won :-) (of course).

We got out of city hall and the group walked to the Augsburger Dom where we took many many pictures in the garden outside. We let balloons fly (Gerhard and Julia, our witnesses, filled them with gas the night before, so they were kind of lazy) and Tobse and my heart balloons got stuck in a big tree. I guess it means that our hearts are supposed to stay in Augsburg. Imagine they had flown to Siberia or something! ;-)

Oh, have I already mentioned that it was a wonderful spring day here in Augsburg? We’ve had a really long winter this year and just a week before we had -10 degrees Celsius here!!! And now it had 18 degrees plus and the sun was shining. Yippiehhh!

Then the celebration kicked off at a wonderful wedding brunch at Elements am Dom. The owner had done a really great job with the buffet. Just saying.

We drank, we ate, and had great entertainment. Thanks to all of you for the special ideas, the beautifully written cards, the gifts, and simply for being there with us.

Gerhard, Tobse’s best friend, and Julia, my sister, did a great personation of Tobse and I (Gerhard wore a funny black wig, my sister let her hair down, which she hardly ever does), telling the story of how we met and what happened since then. It was awesome. I laughed so much!!!!

Our dads held a wonderful speech and delivered a really funny poem

My brother Bastian, who is the lead singer of his band Estrella Drive, delivered a beautiful a cappella song (Time of your life by Green Day) together with his guitarist.

Our mums took care of cakes, decoration and mental support :-)

Christina took the pictures

The wedding brunch ended at around 4 p.m. … to be continued next year with a big celebration that we will hopefully be able to plan so that we can also accommodate my overseas friends who are just as special as the ones in my new-old life here. I missed you yesterday!!! (You know who you are)

Tobse and I ended the day by enjoying a walk in the sun to Augsburger Kahnfahrt where we sat down on a bench and enjoyed the last rays of spring sun. A young family asked us if they could congratulate us, and we also had some beer-drinking-dudes at the next bench. I almost asked them if we could also have a beer, but…

We then went back to the apartment, Tobse cooked a nice dinner which we ate at our new dinner table, decorated with tons of roses, and then we got a phone call. Someone said we should switch off the lights in our living room and look outside the window. Fireworks for us!!! (illegal in Germany except for Dec 31^st) :-) So fun!!!

And thus starts the life of Mr and Mrs Schülein …