Germany: Day 3

I planned my annual late summer trip to Germany around my friends’ wedding this past weekend. I knew Sara and Frank’s wedding would be amazing, especially with Sara’s eye for fashion and style and her unerring instinct for hospitality. Despite the external factors of cooperative weather and well-executed plans, the main focus was the couple. The probable summer deluge never came, but even had it flooded, this wedding will be one I remember for many years to come.

There were about twenty-five guests, so we easily fit into a vintage 1960s bus that carried us from our hotel, Schlossgut Oberambach in Münsing, to the church in a nearby village on Saturday morning. A majority of the ceremony breezed over me, although I understand more German than I can speak and I’ve been to my share of Catholic weddings. The church, Hofmarkskirche in the village of Bernried, had enough interesting decoration for me to make up stories in my head.

Is this holy dude trying to hitchhike?

My husband read a passage about the Little Prince and his beloved rose bush, but I only understood because he told me about it beforehand. During the exchange of vows I heard the sniffling start and I looked over and even my husband wiped away a few tears. Even though I didn’t catch the words verbatim, everyone understands promises made with authentic intent.

After the ceremony, we had champagne and snacks from the local bakery as we waited to take a boat tour around the famous lake, Starnberger See. The American equivalent of this popular vacation area would be Lake Tahoe meets the Hamptons. Back at the hotel, we sat on the gorgeous terrace and enjoyed the cake carted in from Munich.

Later on, we moved inside to have a leisurely dinner and the wine glasses were never empty.

Schlossgut Oberambach, where we spent the weekend, is an all-organic hotel situated in rolling hills with the Bavarian Alps in the distance. A “Schlossgut” is a “manor house.” The buildings and land were once a rural farm affiliated with a monastery and later on became a country house for a local duke. The views of the lake and surrounding fields was breathtaking. Although the scenery filled the eyes, a Bavarian summer day leaves no sense wanting.

The vegetables and fruit were intense in color and flavor.

The air felt slightly humid with the reproach of rain. It never did pour down, although dark clouds always threatened from a far corner.

It smelled like sun-drunk grass and the clean cottony waft of white hydrangea, the bride’s flower.

Though the morning started cool like the interior of the church with its high stone walls, eventually the afternoon warmed up.

It was quiet, far away from the sounds of traffic. Sometimes when the nearby cow herd came close, you could hear the tinkle of their bells.

After a long Sunday brunch, most of us happily tired and slightly hungover, we all parted for the next journeys, short and long. Who knows when I will next meet up with the acquaintances, old and new?

One thing I know for certain, which is reiterated with every wedding I attend with my husband: I would totally marry my guy all over again!