American reacts to Weddings in Germany are a bit strange
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- čas přidán 7. 05. 2024
- Thank you for watching me, a humble American, react to German wedding traditions
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I am german and attended a wedding in the USA once. I thought it was the strangest thing to have a rehearsal of the wedding the day before. Like practicing for a theater show or so. It all seemed more like a show to please the guests.
We were mostly taken aback by waiting for ages in the hot sun while the couple took pictures after church service ... just to be served a few drinks & snacks, then be sent home 🙈
Polterabend is true. And you HAVE to go to the Standesamt (public office). Church is optional.
But neither of those have to take place at a public office or a church. You can do it anywhere you want. Most public offices even have lists of alternative locations like palaces or at the park or something, depending on where you are
Lets put it like this: Only the civil union is legally a marriage in Germany. Everything else is not recognized by law. Thus churches require a civil union certificate first before they celebrate a "Trauung", a wedding ceremony, not a "Hochzeit", a marriage.
@@SiqueScarfaceababababab! ☝️Eheähnliche Gemeinschaft
@@uztre6789
"You can do it anywhere you want."
No, only at the places the public office has listed. They won't come to any location.
My sister got married in a church. Not a "real" church like being a part of the church in Germany but the building is a real church.
It is one of tre places the public office has here.
When they do weddings, they will do several at one day.
They won't come out for just one wedding to any place.
@@prunabluepepperWhich literally means that legally, you are not married.
Toilets at the Polterabend mostly happen when a friend is a plumber and needs to recycle on old toilet ;-)
Or a friend has been renovation their house and needs to get rid of the old toilet.
I think most people would not do it even than becouse guys its a used toilet ew 😅
My father bought a new toilet just for polterabend of a friend. The cheapest ones were just 5€ at that time.
If this is the case most of my friends have plumbers as friends. Which is something I don‘t believe.
Either way, on most Polterabenden I have been to at least one toilet was smashed.
Or when you just have to many toilets... I have like 10 for some reason... I have no idea why.
The idea of the Polterabend as I learned it, is because of the cliche that if a couple argues, they start throwing dishes. So if you break all the dishes before the wedding, you "get it out of your system", and your marriage will be happy and harmonious, with no arguments
That's not true, the idea is the typical "chase away evil spirits" thing, as many traditions and circumstitions. Sorry, more boring reason, but also more plausible for the time the tradition origins ;)
I always thought it was based on the old saying that "Scherben bringen Glück"?
Ich mag beide Erklärungen ! ❤
@@mellavonsinnen8656 Got a third one xD
I always thought that back then you smashed your parents' old dishes (those were the only dishes you had) because you now have your own household with your new spouse and it's time for your own dishes. Symbolically, it's simply "leave your old dependency behind".
@@MollyMalone1983 I'd guess the "lucky" connotation of shards might have the same origin: If you chase away bad spirits with noise, you will have a good time. I just googled it and it seems to be a possible explanation.
(Another explanation is that "Scherbe" once ment "storage vessel" and full storages also meant that the owner was lucky)
German weddings can be so fun. We saw wood. We throw money. We cut big hearts out of sheets and climb through them. And we play terrible games that only the guests find funny but not the bride and groom.
These are our traditions.
Polterabend 😂. I work at the recycling center ( people can give us almost everything, different systems in every Bundesland) and we especially collect porcelain for those events, for our village communities around us❤. So yes it is still trending here in the south. 😂
In a lot of second hand stores in the Sauerland sell boxes of porcelain for that.
@@jalifritz8033 interesting and also a good idea 😀. Maybe those hand shops here have something similar...
@@jalifritz8033 Well... We take our stuff mostly from a yardsale...
I know, me and my wife did not follow tradition much, but I didn't realize there were so many things to follow - that we all ignored.
I'm glad, we only had the "standesamtliche" wedding and a big, casual, heavy-metal-festival-like barbeque afterwards. We even had festival flyers and festival wristbands. Brütal Marriage Festival 2016 - a night to remember. Or not, depending on the amount of alcohol you had.
Sound like a perfect wedding to me!
That's so awesome! Ours was a lil bit tamer, without flyers and wristbands but with bbq and metal =D
This sounds wonderful! 😍
Sounds so much better than our wedding.
Absolutely awesome. If my bf and I ever decide to marry, I think it will be something like this
No, glass does not go with a Polterabend. It stands for bad fortune. Broken porcelain stands for good fortune.
Most people don't have spare toilets to discard and this is not so common.
Most people bring spare plates, saucers coffee cans etc., perhaps chipped ones.
The more pieces the plate breaks into, the more luck for the couple.
Broken MIRRORS are bad luck. Never heard of broken GLASS, per se, being bad luck.
The white wedding dress was invented by Queen Victoria of England in 1840. She wanted to show her virginhood and innocence, hence she decided for the white dress.
Which is a bit ironical thinking of her following enthusiasm making children, even though she hated the birth part.
And it looked good on photographs.
Yes, and because the royals were the trendsetters back then, everyone started copying her and it stuck.
Have you seen the TV series Victoria? It really made visiting London personal. Check it out. I didn't know she instituted the white dress!
@@LythaWausW I watched the first season, but I've been a life long fan of Queen Vic so when I lived in London I loved visiting KP.
There's a saying "Scherben bringen Glück" ("broken pieces bring good fortune"), doesn't matter if those pieces are of toilets or glasses!
No, glass brings bad luck. Only porcellan works,even toilets 😉
Only broken mirrors are supposed to bring bad luck.
I think the fsctor why glass is not used as offten is thst u will miss pieces whe sweeping all the shit together
@@YukiTheOkamilove the practicality 😂❤
Only porcelain.
Do the women in the US wear the rings on a daily basis like us. I would be soo afraid of loosing it or that it is stolen, when it has big diamonds included. And it's not practical, if it is a big one. Always in the way. So, I guess here, we germans are just practical as always. Putting a personal engraving into it is much more common.😉
Missing the Brautstraußwerfen and the "Wer beim Anschneiden der Torte die Hand oben hat, hat das Sagen".
Genau!
During the kidnapping of the bride at my parents wedding, friends of the family took her to the local pub and just started getting smashed with the most expensive stuff they had. The longer you spend searching, the bigger your bill is going to get. So you BETTER keep a close eye on your wife.
Here it is the male witness who will have to pay. And yes, there have already been problems because the kidnapping group was so big and they exploited the bill so much that he simply could not afford to pay. In the old times only the unmarried men on the wedding party were allowed to go with the kidnapping party. Today the groom sits alone with his parents and parents in law, sometimes for hours.
I told my people if they dare to kidnap on our wedding I would ruin their lives forever 😂 I always thought it's the weirdest thing to be invited to a wedding and not be thankful but want us to spend even more money on them. Our wedding cost us 20k and we where just out of university 2 and 3 yrs. There was just no momey left for any more fun ideas... Also we had many activities like bow shooting and a polo tournament on the same location so it was enough to do.
May I ask where in Germany you live? I was raised in the Niederrhein region in NRW and never before heard of the kidnapping thing :D...?
@andreapeh2270 I was born and raised near Bonn in NRW. That's also where my parents had their wedding in the 80s. Now I moved away, but my family still lives there to this day.
in Germany
Married: Ring at the right hand
Fiance: Ring at the left hand, because the left hand is the site of the hart!
Ok. That's interesting. In USA, he had it a bit wrong. The engagement ring comes off the bride and is replaced with the wedding band and then the engagement ring goes on after it on the left hand.
@@CabinFever52There are engagement rings, but traditional your wedding ring is the engagement ring and both are wearing them until they change the finger for the wedding.
We wear our rings on the left hand. It’s comfortable and practical 🤷🏻♀️
@@VanCrane Well... If you are honest, most marriages are not comfortable, nor practical...
I don't understand that logic, shouldn't the wedding ring be at the left hand, because it's closer to the heart? Why is the wedding ring further away from the heart than the fiance ring?
In our region in the west of germany it is usual that groom and bride have to saw together a trunk of wood in halfes after church - using a two-man-saw or at least an big, two-man-operation suitable, bow-saw. this schould show that the pair knows to work together and that in the future they will always work as a team to overcome all obstacles. Many grooms and brides do quiet some sawing training before their wedding day to avoid humiliation at their "finest day". The friends of the groom, are traditionally responsible for organising the saw, the trunk and all necessary stuff - and to guard saw and trunk! Because other, non marrried men from the village traditionally try to steal the trunk and change it againt one that is especially hard to cut, or to even "sabotage" the saw... and the friends of the groom have to stop such trials - mostly by offering free beer or wine and some hard drinks...
My daughter and son in law did this at their civil wedding plus a lot of other silly games!
Funny how the same tradition can vary in the details sometimes within the same region. I am also from Western Germany. The sawing is one of my favourite wedding traditions, but I got to know it without the guarding. Instead the alcohol comes into play during the sawing: until the trunk is through the parents of the couple walk the crowd with bottles of liquour and refill the glasses: Invited or not, guests, neighbours or passerbys, everybody gets free drinks until the couple is done.
You have to remember that all of the mentioned parts are optional (apart from the actual marriage at the office). My husband and I actually had none of the other stuff: no church, no polterabend, no rings, no white dress, no vail... But: we are still happily married ❤
In Germany there is traditionally no separate engagement ring. The later wedding ring is also the engagement ring. Of course you can do it differently, but that is not the norm. The astronomical prices that are spent on engagement rings in the USA are also not the norm here. Wedding rings are simple rings made of white gold, yellow gold or rose gold, occasionally also made of platinum. Cain silver, and a maximum of one or more small, inserted brilliants or diamonds.
And as always there are differences between rural and urban areas as well as between different regions 😊
The witness is optional.
You can appoint up to two people but you don't have to.
The registration office worker is the witness anyway.
yes, since 1998 it is optional, before that it was mandatory. My witness was late because she overslept and that was a big problem at that time. I had to name another person of the people of our guests, so she coud do the job instead of my Bestie, wo arrived just at the moment we left the Standesamt :)
In der Schweiz darfst du ohne Trauzeugen gar nicht heiraten, wir haben es versucht, weil wir gerne alleine und ich Ruhe sein wollten. Ging leider nicht.
"I feel like I'm being misled. Every once in a while they tell foreigners total bullcrap"
I remember many years ago, I fooled reddit into accepting a german tradition I totally made up. Went something like "old german men and young men get together for a traditional symbolic transfer of power. The young man brushed the beard of the old man while singing the traditional hymn for the occasion, 'Ich bin jung und du bist alt, Ich bin noch warm, du bist bald kalt. Während ich durchs Leben turne, wartet auf dich schon die Urne und musst du im Jenseits schmoren, fühl ich mich wie neugeboren'"
it was a song from kleines arschloch :D
I have no idea how many I fooled but I enjoy the thought that maybe there may still be someone out there that thinks that was real.
And then there was that one renegade Free Masons group that actually did this.
hahahaha xD
Und in 20 Jahren kann man in einem amerikanischen "deutschen" Souvenirladen "traditional, pretzel shaped beard brush" kaufen...
Wow that got dark.
I wonder how many people saw that and then subsequently did it.
Toilets are not the standard thing on Polterabend to throw but mainly plates and cups 😂
One big difference is that in Germany the bride is not "given away" by the father into the custody of the husband to be. The bride and groom meet outside the church and walk up the aisle together.
Nope, not true.....the groom is waiting inside the church and the bride walks in
But you change the woman's surname for the male one. In Spain we maintain our own surname. For me changing the surname is one form of "giving custody" at the husband.
@@brigitterohr6927 You can do it either way.... I got married in Germany and we both walked in, together.
You can do this if you want to
@@vanesag.9863 You can do whatever you like in Germany. Both can keep their name, they can change to the wife's or the husband's name or they can create a new one out of both surnames.
05:46 dude, it's your marriage too. Like both need to want this, so including the groom seems to be like obvious?? Why would you not include 50% of the married couple???
Like you matry the person you love, you should know what flowers your partner likes, you talk with them. Ask them what type of flowers they like and bring it occasionally bc as sign of love
A Polterabend in the US would be a sad event. Imagine people throwing their paper plates on the ground. 😜
Or their plastic plates😂
Or the paper boxes from the chinese takeaway...😂
Yes we do have the polterabend - but we mostly break old plates and such! No idea where she got the Toilet from, but i guess if youre renovating your house anyways, that would be an option...?
Since it's the guests who bring along the porcelaine, it usually depends on you friends and neighbours. If one of them is doing renovation work or has a background in plumbing or garbage disposal, you might get surprised with an old toilet bowl. I've only heard of it though, never witnessed it first hand.
Everything that is made of porcellan counts. Yes, it is supposed to be dishes, but a toilet bowl or a bathroom sink does work too (if made of porcellan, obviously). One of my friends did this at a wedding first and everybody returned the favor during his wedding. I went to a demolition site of multiple old apartment complexes with a friend and collected dozens and dozens of old toilet bowls and bathroom sinks for his wedding (we did coordinate this with the company involved beforehand). This was pretty cool. His rubble container was not enough to deal with our porcellan shards. It worked - he is still married and he is a guy that needs all the help he could get with this.
I just went to a Polterabend about a week ago and threw a toilet bowl and an old sink. Other friends of the couple also organized a dump truck full of toilet bowls and sinks. Maybe it's a tradition from Eastern Germany. 🤷🏻♀️
Nowadays, most couples also have their Polterabend a week in advance and not the day before the actual wedding. Where I live, you also never officially (aka. formally) "invite" people to it, but just let people know the date. Your friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, etc. just show up.
There were also a few traditions in the video I wasn't familiar with. Interesting watch, for sure.
Our neighbours daughter was getting married in 1966 in Germany. The front door was covered with wood to prevent damage. The groom and his friends backed a truck up and proceeded to smash a lot of plates, cups, and saucers against the door. When they were finished, they drove away, and the bride to be and her friends came out and started to clear the mess up. Strange, but tradition. I was an 18 year old newlywed, my husband was in the British Army, so we had just arrived in Germany. Boy, oh boy, I sure missed my mother that day.😀
We brought our old sink one time. We got a new one in the bathroom, so taking it to a Polterabend was a lot cheaper than calling a garbage pick-up or take it to a recycling place.
The white wedding dress: Queen Victoria of England started the tradition in 1840.
She was born from a German father (who also happened to be King of England) and a German mother. So, she was quite German.
@@franhunne8929 as well as the current UK monarch
@@franhunne8929 Up until Diana there was only 1 British person in the Royal family for 6 generations and that was Elizabeth II's mother. Everybody else was German including Elizabeth's husband Philip.
Yeah, it spread among the aristocracy throughout the 19th century, and then among common people in the early 20th century.
@@franhunne8929 Married to a German, too...
Church weddings are optional and you have to be a member of the church to have one.. so about 40% of the population who are not a member of the church cant marry in a church anyway..
This applies to christians only of course..
other religions have their own traditions..
but as a general rule..
ONLY the weddings you take at the official governmant office are legally recognized..
and yes, there are tons of wedding venues
During the last years the American way of engagement tradition swaps over to Germany (Buying an absurd expensive ring with a fat stone of questionabke beauty, kneeling down and so on and on.). Traditionally there is no engagement ring. After the bride's YES the wedding rings are chosen together and are worn on the left hand to signal engagement. At the wedding the ring just changes hand. Also asking the bride's dad for allowance or the dad (or any replacement guy) leading the bride through the church is a nogo. The couple usually enters the church together. The anglo-american tradition of leading the bride is seen like a bit of handing over property. Also here, TV an Cinema did their thing and there are couples who think that has to be done.
Correction:
Engagement rings ARE indeed traditional in Germany.
The reason why it wasnt in the past 100 years/20th century and why the ring wasnt exchanged for a new one but just swapped hand should be pretty obvious.
The first well know case of an engagement ring (including diamond) being gifted in Europe - particularly its german speaking parts - as that of Maximillian I. of Habsburg and Maria of Burgund in 1477.
The thing that has actually changed is going from Iron to Gold. Not to gift an "additional" ring or that there are jewels on it.
I recognise op's view about engagement rings. I lived in Germany for over 17 years and when looking in jewell.ry shop windows never saw engagement rings like you would see in UK for example. Most of the rings were like those shown in the video, a his n hers matching wedding rings. Engaged = worn on the left hand, married= worn on the right.
But I think that in Germany, there is not this big pressure to have a really expensive ring that must be worth 2 or 3 months of the man's income. Mine did cost about 70 € (and looked more like a silver wedding ring, I don't like those big diamonds).
Not right at all. My grandparents married that way and their grandparents also. And I'm pretty sure that they knew nothing about any american tradition.
Um, fathers giving away their daughters is quite normal. I've just witnessed it again last month. My own wedding was just a courthouse wedding and my dad passed away 12 years ago so a close male friend and father figure led me from the car to the entrance where my husband was waiting. That's not unusual at least in south/west Germany.
At many weddings in Germany there is a warm menu in the evening, preceded by wedding soup, a main course and then a dessert. Afterwards the party starts with a lots of music and dancing. Of course there German beer is a must.😅🍺🍷🍾 At midnight there is the wedding cake and usually a cold buffet.👩❤👨
As far as I know, cake at midnight is a quite new thing and I think it's a bad idea: At that time, some people have already left the reception and others don't want cake anymore at that time. Many people I know (including me and my sister) had their wedding cake in the afternoon and I think that makes much more sense :)
@nriamond8010 we got married at 4pm... Reception at 6pm... 7:30 first course... 8pm some speeches... the buffet... dancing... wedding cake at midnight
oh believe me we complain about the sound of cars honking for weddings😂
really? who does that? xD
@@voyance4elle me, i do that. i hate the honkers!
Sometimes the police want to stop it, and a riot starts.
@@voyance4elle Everybody honks - you know a wedding party is coming from kilometers away... at least in Switzerland and Austria we do that...
I think the honking and ribbon on car are relatively new. I don't think they had that, like, in the 60s
I think one of the biggest differences between german and american weddings is:
In Germany the couple is NOT leaving the party to go to honeymoon at one point. They spend their time to stay with family and friends on the party and usually leave when everybody else is gone. So maybe at 6am? 😂
I think the way american couples leave the party is so unkind. Poor guests…
I mean: What do they do when the most important people are gone???
It seems that a few decades ago, the couples in Germany DID leave the party early. I've read some old wedding advice books or so from that time and there it was definitely said that after a short time (maybe only 2 hours), the couple leaves for honeymoon. No one here does this today.
Actually I am German and I imagine it horrible not to be able to leave your wedding before the last guest leaves. I mean, I don't want to hate my wedding in the end because I'm tired after a long day and wanting to have a bit of romantic time together with my husband and some guests just want to dance till sunrise. I'm going to leave my wedding whenever I wish, telling everybody to stay as long as they wish and enjoy the rest of the party without me. I really believe that is much less stressful and you actually get the chance to have a bit of the wedding night together.
But everybody can of course do as they wish 😊
It was custom still in the 70s to leave the party even before dinner to head to the "Honeymoon"...
In Germany and Austria you are required to go to the City Hall to the Registry Office and get married there, otherwise the marriage isn't legal, a lot of people still decide to have a church wedding which doesn't count and isn't legal just to have a Church wedding, it's just something formal you do, for the family, and beautiful wedding pics or if you are christian, but it doesn't count.
Your wording is a bit misleading. A church wedding doesn't have legal consequences, but it's obviously legal to have a church wedding. Most churches will require you to get legally married before getting married in church though, and in terms of the churches' own laws, getting married in church without a valid marriage license may indeed be illegal. As to what does and doesn't "count": that is a matter of personal conviction. Back in the 50s and 60s, a lot of couples had to get legally married to apply for shared apartments. Legal marriage often was a very prosaic thing for them, basically signing a piece of paper in some stuffy office, often even without special wedding garments. As a result, many older couples consider the day of their church wedding as their main wedding anniversary. Nowadays, as the number of church weddings is on decline, many public officers are upping their game, attending special training to hold celebratory speeches, and many municipalities are building or designating more representative wedding bureaus, either at the public office itself or in special locations. And this in turn has elevated the image of legal marriage from mere formality to festive event in its own right.
@@haukenot3345 But then, in the protestant church, you can't get married without being legally married first.
In Germany church weddings were down to 18% in 2018, that's not "a lot of people"
@@nriamond8010 That's what I wrote. Except that, to my knowledge, that is not a rule unique to Protestant churches. The Catholic church has the same principle, except for very specific exceptions that generally require the approval of a bishop.
@@nriamond8010 Same for Catholics, although exceptions can be made.
From someone who’s 30yo:
Many weddings don’t even incorporate big ceremonies anymore.
It’s just the civil office wedding, then some dinner for a selected small group of guests and that’s it.
There are wedding venues outside the registry (Standesamt), but to be legal, it must be held by a state official.
Since church weddings don't count at all other than for the church itsself, you can have one anytime.
Diamond industry been really good at scamming people into thinking that if you don't get your fiancée one huge-ass rock of a diamond that means you don't love her ...
It's a good way of sorting out potential marriage candidates. If she's materialistic enough that the size of the ring and the amount of expense laid out for the reception is a bigger deal to her than the fact she's getting married to you, abort the mission.
I am german, but i never saw someone smash a toilet at a Polterabend.
yeh me, too. and for the past 50 yrs never have seen anybody smashing a toilet at Polterabend. LOL
2:09 and 2:15 : When Ryan said 'Mhmm...' this makes me laughing LOUD out about the relationship between smashed toilets and good luck... 😂🤣.
Greetings from northern Germany ♥️🇩🇪
It's so weird. I'm from Bonn and I recognize these stores and people and locations because they are basically in my neighborhood
Some people believe that the change of hands in Germany has something to do with the Reformation: Protestants are said to have deliberately worn their wedding rings on the ring finger of their right hand as a symbol of separation from Catholicism. On the other hand, the left hand was already considered indelicate in Catholicism, and our very Catholic Polish neighbors also wear their wedding rings on the right.
Another theory therefore invokes the ancient Germanic tribes. They, in turn, are said to have believed that their love vein was on the right side of their body. But perhaps the German language also gives us a clue: rechts engl right “rechtens”, “rechtschaffen”, “aufrichtig” or “Gerechtigkeit” engl. righteous", ‘upright’, ‘honest’ or ”justice versus links engl. left “link” or “gelinkt” engl. “link” or “linked”. The right hand is the good, the right hand; the hand we shake in greeting. This cultural idea may also have played a role. However, there is no precise, verifiable explanation for the choice of the right hand.
In Germany and Austria, as well as in Poland, Bulgaria, Norway and Russia, the wedding ring is traditionally worn on the ring finger of the right hand. However, this custom is not universal and there are also couples who wear the wedding ring on their left hand.
3:40 I had my wedding at a venue (10 year anniversary coming up, karma-farm). I live in Austria and when you go to register a date for your weeding at your municipal Standesamt (registry office) you can choose if you want to be wed at the offices (which mostly can be done inside the same day if you arrive there early enough) or if you want to do it somewhere else.
Performing the ceremony / legal act at Standesamt directly only costs a few bucks, i think it was around 30€ to 50€. Booking a registrar to come to your venue and perform the act there did cost north of 500€ (including taxes) back then in 2014.
Do you have completely free choice of the place in Austria? Because in Germany, we have other places, too, but you can only choose from a few certain locations, not just anywhere you want.
@@nriamond8010 Details are to be negotiated with the clerk officiating, but yes, for a fee you can choose pretty much any venue, within reason. The important part (in the eyes of the law) is only that the act is performed by the official; location does not matter. This is a voluntary service and usually incurs an additional fee of about 300 € (weekdays including Saturday outside of normal office hours) to 350 € (Sundays and public holidays). Details and availability may vary.
@@nriamond8010 I think it depends on the municipality. Here in Vienna you have a list of pre-approved locations (which was very extensive when my wife and I got married) but ultimately it is up to the registrar if your desired custom location can be used or not. We had two meetings with our registrar before the wedding where we could discuss those topics with them.
Their reasoning behind the pre-approved locations was that they could be sure that those locations were big enough
a) to host the ceremony and state-rooms for preparations beforehand,
b) to provide a suitable backuplocation on-site in case something went wrong (e.g. event hall if a thunderstorm threatened your open-air ceremony) and
c) be reasonably quiet in order for those attending not to need to shout
as far as I know you could hold your weeding at your own house if you had the facilities mentioned above.
😂😂😂lol,Ryan after making the video,screwing around the toilet,lifting and try to smash it,his wife:WHAAAAAAAT ARE YOU DOING?
I 'm celebrating our Wedding😜😜😜
2:50 Back in my day it was mostly just old plates, mugs and glas that was destroyed most of the time in front of the garage of the newly weds. But there was also always that one guy who tooks the fun part much too far. That’s when the toilet came into play. But now there is often a dedicated party on Polterabend and not just a keg full of beer and some snacks for neighbors and friends who came by to wish good luck to the couple. Now there are also often so called „Polterhochzeiten“ especially when the couple is only doing a legal marriage at the Standesamt. Those celebrations are often with more people than normal but also less formal than normal.
FUN STORY OF MY PARENTS WEDDING
nov 29 court wedding
nov 30 church wedding
dec 1 my father birthday
and in 14 years of being married my father managed to forget the weddingday 10 times
I feel like some typical wedding stuff was missing. Like throwing the bouquet, the kids that throw petals in front of the bride, midnight snacks at the party (like Currywurst), the first dance and the stupid games at the party. And I still know the tradition that the engagement has to be one year and one day ahead of the wedding itself (but that's not very common).
That „A year and a day“ is probably linked to a legal construct from medieval times, when peasants / serfs who had successfully fled from their lord to a Free City were officially recognized as no longer being the property of the lord after living in the City for „Jahr und Tag“. („Stadtluft macht frei“, „Breathing the City‘s air liberates you“)
I think wearing white for your wedding dress started with Queen Victoria, who wore a white dress at her wedding to prince Albert. Before that wedding dresses could have any colour, the bride usually wore her best dress.
Not so long ago (around 50 years) in some rural/ religious areas it was "tradition" (more punishment) a remarried bride or a woman who was no virgin anymore had to wear a black dress. 🤮
true :)
@@ClaudiaErnst That was no real punishment. It was just more practical. Especially in rural areas most people couldn't afford to buy a white dress just for one day in their life. And to marry in just any other color as black, white or a traditional costume wasn't appropriate. So the brides normally wear a black dress with a white veil. This had nothing to do with virginity.
This tradition changed in the 30th and was completely skipped after WWII.
@@red.aries1444 It's okay if you know your facts but I know for sure that it was of course a punishment to wear a black wedding(!) dress in the 1970/80s in Germany. Show to the whole village/church that you're a shameful woman.
Basic german wedding: Two people go to the Standesamt (public office), sign their mariage documents and have it officialized by the officer. Most commonly you each bring a witness and exchange rings.
Whatever else you do depends solely on what stupid wedding TV / internet shows you (or most often the bride and her friends...) choose to watch before...
Born 1965, first wedding i visited in early 1970s, was much simpler than today. Much cheaper ( i am swabian) and without any unnecessary modern nonsens.
Personally I have nothing to do with any church so we don't went there.
The "Polterabend" can be a very expensive thing because it's not as "privet" as you think where you invite people who you want to be there. No it's normally a thing where everybody can came by to make party with you. Depending on the size of the vilage where you live it could be that you have aroud 300 to 500 people sitting at your home. All has to be paid by bride and groom. Of course it could be that you will get some money from people or the spend something to drink...
And they to be wed couples sweep the shards together,proving they are a good Team. They also have to guard the brooms and what they have swept Up ,so they don't get them traded for ones with very short handles or almost No bristles left. If the guests get to what they have swept Up,they will dump IT Out,and they couple hast to sweep it again....
At the Polterabend, porcelain dishes get smashed, not "toilets" (OK, if your friend is a plumber, maybe, but otherwise not)! People save up old mismatched plates, cups etc. for this purpose or buy some from a flea market. Glass is bad luck and is not included in the pile of "Scherben".
But those were just the basics, there's a lot more, walking through a heart together, throwing rice, carrying the bride over the doorstep... and there's also an engagement ring.
I would say, about 50% of people do proposals and engagement rings, the other half is more informal. I even know several couples that don't have wedding rings. I think the engagement rings and proposals got more in the last decade or so, because we all watch American movies and popculture and people want a movie like wedding...
@@gaedingar9791
I’ve been married for 46 years.
We married only at the „Standesamt“ (Registry office) and we do not have wedding rings. When registering for the marriage („Aufgebot“) we were asked if we wanted a ceremony with or without rings. We were also asked which last name(s) should be our „married name“ („Ehename“), his last name, my last name, double-name (that was possible in 1978) or would we each keep our own last name.
Reasons for no rings:
I’m German and insisted a wedding ring must be worn on the right hand, hubby is US American and insisted wedding ring must be worn on the left hand.
We didn’t have the money for good rings.
In the decades which followed we considered every once in a while if we should get rings … but either we couldn’t find any we both liked or it was impractical for him to wear any rings, because working as a carpenter he risked getting caught on a nail or such and ripping his finger off … who needs that.
So to this date, I have plenty of pretty rings, even some expensive ones, but no wedding rings.
My hubby has 1 turquoise ring which he bought during a vacation to the USA in 2018, he only wears it on special occasions.
My parents on the other hand always had and wore wedding rings. They got married at the Standesamt (Registry office) in 1954.
25 years later they celebrated their silver wedding anniversary in the church they meantime had joined, and it was like a short wedding ceremony officiated by a priest, with a party afterwards for family and friends.
And they bought themselves a new set of wedding rings.
Now they’re deceased and both sets of rings are in my possession, but I don’t wear them.
I think especially the diamond engagement rings is something that swapped over to us from the USA, and maybe UK, as shown in the movies …
When either of the to-be-wed is a Navy soldier you can have an addtional task of cutting the rope. The rope is usually prepared by deckman of the ship he/she serves on. It is a piece of the mooring rope with added obstacles such as a pipe or screw added to it to make the task of cutting harder. The best man/woman usually orders these and tells the decksman how tough the challenge is supposed to be.
yep, but not the american engagement ring madness where you'd have to buy a stone way too big to be considererd beautiful.
in Germany we too have two rings, engagement ring and wedding ring. They only talked about the weddign ring. Some couples in germany also renew their vows with a second small wedding 10-40 years after the original wedding.
A few years ago the couples only have their wedding bands for engagement. When you are engaged it was on the left hand and during the wedding it moved to the right hand. men wear the engagement ring too.
My mother and grandmothers didn't have an extra engagement ring. Also there was no kneeling down of the men. The men would ask, when the women said yes they'd go together to buy rings and both wear them on their left hand til the wedding where they'd switch to the right hand.
My mother got earrings for the engagement from my father.
Breaking glass brings bad luck. But breaking porcellan brings good luck.
So, bigger porcellan stuff just brings more luck? No, it's meant as a joke. 😂
You even can say "I'm visiting the porcellan department" if you want to say "I go to the bathroom" in a funny way here 😉
A variation of that is "I'm visiting the porcelain exhibition.", which I find quite funny. xD
Breaking mirrors brings "bad sex life" for the next 7 years.
🤣🤣🤣
We smash old porcelain in front of the couple's house & since toilets are made of porselain, occasionally an old one gets smashed 🙈
not actually toilets, or if so, just in some rare cases. Usually you just bring old table ware, tea sets, cups, vases etc.
To your question: I've actually rarely heard of married couples celebrating their weddings again, but almost every year that they stay together has a special meaning and wedding anniversary.
And it's a good idea to give each other something made from the material after which this special wedding year is named.... This often varies depending on the region, which is why there are sometimes several names for the respective wedding day.
So, here we go:
Green (because of the myrtle) or
White wedding: the day of the wedding ceremony
1 year: paper wedding
2 years: Cotton Wedding
3 years: leather,
Fruit or
Wheat Wedding
4 years: silk,
Amber-,
Linen or
Wax wedding
5 years: wooden wedding
6 years: Sugar wedding (A good partnership makes life sweet ☺).
6 ½ years: tin wedding.
7 years: copper wedding
8 years: bronze,
Sheet-,
Nickel or
Salt wedding
9 years: ceramics,
Glass-,
water or
Willow Wedding
10 years: the rose wedding (larger celebration with relatives and friends)
11 years: steel,
Carnival (I have no idea what that means) - or
Coral wedding
12 years: linen,
Earth-,
Nickel -, or
Silk wedding
12 ½ years: parsley,
Copper-,
sheet metal or
Nickel wedding
13 years: lace,
Lily of the valley or
Salt wedding
14 years: ivory,
agate or
Blue wedding
15 years: glass,
Crystal or
Bottle wedding
20 years: porcelain,
Copper-,
Chrysanthemum or
Wedding of thorns
at here big fat celebraitions like the white weddingday :
25 years: Silver Wedding
30 years: pearl wedding
35 years: linen wedding
37 ½ years: aluminum wedding
40 years: Ruby,
Garnet or
Emerald wedding (The wedding ring gets a ruby or emerald)
50 years: Golden Wedding (some couples exchange new rings)
60 years: Diamond Wedding
65 years: Iron Wedding
67 ½ years: Stone wedding
70 years: mercy or
Platinum wedding
72 ½ years: jewel wedding
75 years: Crown Jewels or
Radium wedding (I would rather not give that as a gift because of the radioactivity... well... that probably doesn't matter at this age😂)
Germany has currently a couple of centarians having thier "oak wedding" of 80 years! Its really something special. The wife is 98 years old and the groom is 102 years old! They married still druing the war. Google it, its really awesome!
Germany has currently a couple of centarians having thier "oak wedding" of 80 years! Its really something special. The wife is 98 years old and the groom is 102 years old! They married still druing the war. Google it, its really awesome!
Germany has currently a couple of centarians having thier "oak wedding" of 80 years! Its really something special. The wife is 98 years old and the groom is 102 years old! Google it, its really awesome!
Germany has currently a couple of centarians having thier "oak wedding" of 80 years! Its really something special. The wife is 98 years old and the groom is 102 years old! Google it, its really awesome!.
Germany has currently a couple of centarians having thier "oak wedding" of 80 years! Its really something special. The wife is 98 years old and the groom is 102 years old! Google it, its really awesome!
Ryan, remember: Two rings are a good start for a chain
Some people in Germany also renew their wedding vows, it all depends on personal preferences though.
The bride kidnapping thing is shown on the Office, too
🤔my Granny said,do only marrie when you have the money for the divorce....
The church part is optional and really depends on your religion (or no religion as in my case).
There are couples who get two rings engagement ring and wedding ring, but it's also common to wear the ring on the left hand before and then switch it to the right hand, after the ceremony
Yup. Polterabend is a thing here. Also the toilet smashing since they’re made out of porcelain. But usually it’s mostly old china that is put to good use (for good luck). But no glass !
I remember being on a Polterabend as a child, when friends of my parents married. There were a lot of children having fun smashing some porcelain, so naturally the unavoidable happens and kids get cuts from stepping on or handling broken pieces.
At one point we were 3 bleeding children standing at the improvised first aid station. It was great! At this wedding I even randomly found an unbroken pot - the exact one my parents missed in their 6 piece porcelain set at home.
The engagement ring you wear on the left hand. Often it has a stone but that's not required. When you're married the wedding ring goes on the right hand. Sometimes women wear both rings right after the wedding, sometimes they let them build together (2=1) but sometimes they leave it be, engagement left and wedding right. The right side means, that the woman is now legally part of the man's family. Because right (rechts) has a double meaning, it means right side or legal (Recht).
8:17 yup my parents did that. Its like a funny little thing lol
The white wedding dress wasn't a thing before queen Victoria decided to wear one. After she did, others wanting to copy her followed suit. Here in the Netherlands, you can only get married at certain registered places, and outside of city/town hall there are very few of them so most get married there. Also many here aren't married at all. I personally am not, it really doesn't hold any extra value to me and I'm not a big fan of being centerstage at a big way too expensive party (I know, I'm such a romantic....)
My husband almost forgot the bouquet (I had a blue dress for my wedding - he wanted blue flowers for me). The only blue flowers the flowerstore had (February in Germany) were blue dyed chrysanthemums. They lost their color during the party, so we had some kind of funeral bouquet. We happily threw it in the trash after the party 😂
The white wedding dress goes back to Queen Victoria of England. Prior, brides used to just wear their best/a new, fancy dress, but after pictures of the royal wedding spread, brides took a liking to it.
Yeah I remember my uncle bringing an old toilet to the Polterabend of his best friend in 1995. It was hilarious
Yes everthing what is out of Porzelan xD But mostly plates and Cubs. We also have two rings. We wear an engagement ring on the left ring finger. And when we get married, the wedding ring will be on the right. And the rings also have diamonds (usually the wedding ring). But that's individual for each one, the main thing is that it's somehow unique. And the clothes aren't always white either. And they all look individual. So the length is often not down to the ground. I didn't know that the man would choose the bouquet of flowers either. XD is also individual here. But we also traditionally have 4 things that the bride gets. A borrowed piece of clothing or jewelry or something that the bride wears to the wedding, something blue, something new and something old.
Do americans have the "new, old, blue and borrowed" tradition? I'm Gernan and my mother told me that at the wedding it brings luck when the bride wears something new, something old, something blue and something borrowed. My mother wore her new wedding dress, old ear rings she inherited, a blue flower in her hair and she borrowed something from a friend (I don't remember what it was, tho.
No, in Germany engagement rings might include a diamant but it isn't nessessary. And both of them might wear a ring or none of them. That is pretty much up to your personal preference
The church wedding is considered a private party (by law).
So you can celebrate whatever you want as a wedding ritual.
After or before the official wedding at the office.
We invited the officer to join our party at the hotel, and she came and held the procedure already in the place where we celebrated later.
Again, like many traditions in Germany the Polterabend/the 'rumble evening' goes back to times when virtually everyone held some kind of superstition. Breaking porcelain was to do with the marital spats and fights that might occur during their married life. Instead of them fighting and throwing around the dishes at each other, the guests BEFORE the actual ceremony did that for them. At least in my region it was the duty of the engaged couple to clean it up themselves. Either to demonstrate what an aweful mess this creates (like a bad example showing them not to do it), or like warding off evil spirits or even the devil who was believed to cause such fights between spouses. I've heard of rumors that this tradition went back to times when ceramic plates were the fanciest dinnerware available, thus very highly valued. Which again was to sacrifice something valuable BEFORE an actual fight occurred to placate evil spirits or the devil instead of the marriage.
I'm German and I can tell you, Polterabend is no joke! Some families collect porcelain for years and yes, old toilets are often thrown as well. Nowadays it's mostly a rural tradition, it doesn't happen as often in bigger cities.
As a german I never thought an Irina is a original german woman. Irina is of greek origin and almost all Irinas I know are from Poland, Czech, Ukraine or Russia.
i dont know about Germany but in Greece we wear the engagment rings in the left hand ( its a tradition from the ancient times, i think i read somewhere it comes from Egypt symbolizing the ring connecting to the vein of the heart or something like that) but at the wedding we swich the rings to right hand because its the hand we use to do the cross when we pray.. many women like me we have wedding ring in right hand and the ring ( they one we gotten proposed , if there is one) on the left
Ryan, the Polterabend (where they break porcelain) is true! I've participated in a few when friends got married, and it was always fun.
After watching the video I am even more aware than before that my husband and I had quite the non-traditional wedding.
And I'm happy about it!
---
Engagement rings (with huge diamonds) are also very common in Germany. However, most women wear it on the left hand (like in America) instead of at the same finger as the wedding band.
There are many more customs on a wedding. For example, the couple saws a piece off a tree trunk, or the bride wears a band around her upper leg, she sits on a chair and the groom has to kneel in front of her and has to remove the band underneath her dress from her leg with his teeth.
Since the "Courthouse" wedding (Standesamtliche Trauung) is mandatory for a marriage to be legally recognized, for a long time the only reason to have a second *ceremony* was if you wanted to have a religious one (Kirchliche Trauung). If you opted out of a religious ceremony, you would just have your party at a venue after the legal wedding. However, couples have started to go for personalized casual ceremonies (Freie Trauung). That practice is relatively new, but many Standesämter have also been offering legal weddings at special locations for an extra fee (local castles often offer themselves as venues, for example). So these are two ways to have a more fancy wedding without involving religion.
Polterabend with us mean smashing plates and cups. Not toilets.
You can get only the courthouse wedding, but not only the church wedding. Of course we have like many other countries different kinds of weddings, meals, dresses, bouquets, .... aso. But the US movies influenced our weddings and in special the whole bachelorette bridemates things. The wedding cake can also be a Mett cake, just googel it in the picture search.😂
Raw meat cake? Why? 😮
@@aury3633 Because we can in Germany.😁 Not everybody likes sweet stuff and it's yummy.
You can get only a church wedding (Catholic; NOT possible for protestants) but then, you are not legally married but only married for the Catholic church.
At Polterabend, people throw old porcellain (mostly dishes - toilets are more a thing if friends think they are oh-so-funny ...) on the ground and the couple has to sweep the shards together. This tradition was done to chase evil spirits away from the wedding (I guess the spirits should flee from the loud noises - "poltern" means "making loud noise"), and traditionally it is done the night before the wedding. Today, it is mostly planned one week or longer before the wedding and just a fun tradition where friends mock the couple by bringing very much porcellain (or toilets).
Registry wedding second: The state would not care, but the protestant church insists on "You have to be married officially first" (because the protestant wedding is just the blessing of an existing marriage), the catholic church _could_ do a wedding without, but mostly they insist on "registry wedding first" for reasons I don't know :D
Weddings in a wedding venue are complicated in Germany. The registry wedding is only allowed in either a room of that office or an "Außenstelle", a place the registry office owns. You cannot do that anywhere. Most churches only allow weddings in sactified places. In most German weddings, the ceremony is at one location, then everybody goes or drives to the celebration to a second location. Both in the same place is quite rare. The only way for a wedding in a wedding venue in Germany is a "Freie Trauung", a "free wedding" - a private ceremony without any official meaning.
Luckily, I think not many couples here do the "the groom has to get the bouquet" tradition anymore - because you are totally right: It is stupid, the day is stressful enough for the groom and it does not matter who gets the bouquet. It is pre-ordered anyway ... I don't think ANY groom in Germany chooses the flowers (if he don't happen to be a florist ;) ). That is NOT a thing anymore.
The (diamond) engagement ring is also a thing in Germany, but I think the diamont is not such a big thing there as in the US - it CAN have diamonds, but it does not need them. Also, some wedding rings have (mostly small!) diamonds, some don't. Oh, and the engagement ring is worn left, the wedding ring right, but some people wear their rings just where they like. Not such a big thing here ... some people also wear them hanging on a necklace after the wedding because they can't wear rings at work for safety reasons.
We also have weddings at venues with an registrar usually the courthouse offers some places for exzra money like a nearby castle
It's not just specifically porcelain shards that are thought to bring luck in Germany but shards in general, we have an old saying that goes "Scherben bringen Glück" (shards bring luck) which is most often used to make someone feel better (or also tease them) after breaking something.
Wedding Ring, right hand... I am guessing many, many, many studies about this have been made. Why the right hand? Well, I go for occam razor, the easiest and simple one. The right hand is the first thing that you see, "approaches" you, shaking hands, saying "hello". Right from the go..you can see...married.
While modern internet "wisdom" tells you that it was Queen Victoria who came up with the white wedding dress in 1840, the symbol of white = pure = virgin is much much older, several thousand years actually, and the first whitish wedding dress in Europe was worn by Maria de Medici in 1620. Since then it was a tradition for European aristocracy to have white wedding dresses, which couldn't be afforded by the poor. It took until the 1920s in Germay until white wedding dresses became more common.
Broken porcellain & glass means luck, which is said when You accidentially break a plate or drinking glass. Breaking a mirror causes 7 years of bad luck in contrast. Heaps of broken old plates and yes, sometimes even (new) toilets, is really a thing on a "Polterabend" in Germany.
The courthouse wedding is the secular one, and it is the only secular one in Germany. No silly "wedding chapels" etc. like in Las Vegas. A church wedding is optional, but both have to be true religious belivers, or the priest won't marry them. It is nothing impromptu, though. For a true and meaninful church wedding, both partners have to meet the priest in advance, discuss the ways of a christian family life etc. At least that's how it is done in the Catholic church. The modern TV "show"-weddings are nothing but that - a show. Hollow and meaningless...only superficially related to a true wedding.
I‘m from Germany and I wear my Wedding ring on the left hand. All my family and many friends do so as well.
We do not freeze the cake. I tried to rebake a smaller version for hubby and me at our anniversary, though. I think I succeded mostly in copying.
/Edit: I think these large wedding rings are tacky. We chose a plain band without diamonds (these stones are just a huge scam, google it, there are so many documentaries on the topic). But we could not resist to make them speciulll by choosing a different material. Tantalum. When hubby and I learned about it, we looked at each other and both knew, we were hooked.
We did not have a Polterabned btw. We live in a rental appartment and our parents live too far away to celebrate there.
I am a German when I got married all the planning like flowers dress cakes etc was done by my wife and her mother my mother and our sisters. They were really interested in this stuff. The Polterabend was arranged by our friends we don’t destroy anything it was a big party and is not as formal as the wedding party with mostly people in our age.
You CAN get married in church before having the legal civil wedding service. I know someone who did that so as not to lose her orphan's pension, which she was entitled to until a certain date (I think her 25th birthday) but getting married before that date would have cut it short. She had a church wedding half a year before and the civil ceremony on her birthday.
Also, in some areas it's customary to have the civil service and the church service on the same day or the same weekend.
Venue weddings are a thing as well, but they're either in addition to a small courthouse wedding or you can get a civil registrar to officiate your ceremony at your wedding venue.
Engagement ring on the left hand, the wedding ring on the right hand. And the thing with the cake slice do not work in Germany. Our traditions are much older than the fridges..
This is for the countryside, not in big cities: On the day of the official wedding ceremony at the town hall (mostly on a thursday or friday) the party at that very same night is very casual. Means it is in the countryside very often. Open air at a fireplace or small sports area you rent. With BBQ, loud music. Everyone can come. No invitations, open ending - so a lot of friends and neighbours or members from the same club are coming. This is called "Polterabend". Polter as in "Poltergeist" which means "making rumbling noise". And how do you make roubling noise? Right - with throwing your dishes on the floor in front of the couples main door. It's a custom that might bring luck. Or is it only done to lure them out so the party can finally start? Who knows... :-) The thing about toilets is an escalation level :-). The very next day instead is very formal. Wedding in the church begins at about two a clock in the afternoon. Everyone is shitfaced from sitting at the fireplace until 6am and whishes to let the church pass to get drinks again. In that formal party usually only invited guests take part. You have suits and dresses and very often it is very planned by a wedding planner.
The only Polterabend I ever saw was in a big city (Hamburg) 😄 but in general, it seems to be not very popular any more.
No wedding planner! You do this by yourself. Again an American tradition we learnt from Hollywood.
Toilets are usually made of ceramics. Thus: Polterabend. And the church is part one of the venue, the reception is often held elsewhere
Iam german and was a guest at some weddings and never saw a "bride kidnapping" i wont do it either at my wedding . I think some stuff is outdated
You would also celebrate the 25. Silver wedding and the 50. Golden wedding as anniversarys.
Mostly with a big party and all your family and friends. If the couple is merried in the church there would also be a blessing ceremony similar to a wedding.
Most weddings I’ve been to are much smaller (than what I’ve seen from the US) and many don’t follow all traditions and yes ofc it’s a typically “western” wedding celebration. My mom actually got married in a traditional german gown and not in white but she’s also the only person I know who did that so idk
Polterabend, you bring Goods made of ceramic, or Porzellan to break. Usually Dish wear, the Toilet is rare.
for a wedding to count for the state (taxes and rights and stuff) it need to be in a Standesamt (court house) or a official venue, there are some in castles or other cool venues that are booked out years in advance ;)
This normally is not a big deal, often with formal clothes but not a true wedding dress and relatively short with the most time taken up by signing paperwork and deciding on the family name.
Often people have a court house wedding with just the closest family or friends and then a big party after the church/ceremonial wedding.
You can have a church wedding or whatever other ceremony you want at whatever location you want, as long as the person holding the ceremony is okay with the location there are no limitations. And this would be the big event with a wedding dress and all your family and friends.
If you only do this, then you are not married in the eyes of the german state and I assume most priests won´t do it without the official court house wedding first, but I don´t know.
There's a lot more than smashing porcelain... There of course are regional differences, but here the Polterabend traditionally is held at the house of the woman's parents (as believed she still lives with her parents and not with the groom yet), and there is no invitation given to the party. The actual date of the Polterabend spreads through friends, friends of friends and others as it's tradition to be held sometime before the wedding, often thursday before the wedding on saturday as the couple is considered to need friday for resting. It's the last chance for all the not-so-lucky guys or even ex's to see the fiancee as bachelorette before getting maried, so they all come to see her goodbye. Nowadays of course also collegues etc will show up. So it's a party thrown for all not so close friends and relatives of both sides that aren't invited to the wedding itself. They all bring porcellain and smash it, as being said: shards are for luck. The soon-to-be-married ones need to sweep all the shards, for showing they work as a team even in hard times, these on this day come in brooms, that have the handles slightly notched (to make them easy break), or are too short, shovels might be bend the wrong direction etc. Sometimes to make sweeping even harder, crown caps (from bottles) are mixed within the shards. They will hook to any uneveness in the ground so it's impossible to sweep the shards and caps in just a few strokes. After sweeping the couple must watch the trash container closely as it will be tipped over if they don't - so they would have to start sweeping all over again. However, they will need to sweep a few times anyway, as without invitation some people will show up and some will leave at any time, and some will come back smashing a second pile of porcelain ;)