The Happy Couple

It was a fabulous wedding today when my English friend married her Austrian man.  Despite weather reports of thunderstorms all week, it was a glorious day. The Austrians make weddings very entertaining and there are a lot of high jinks either before and after the event. It is a long day - things usually kick off about 10am when the wedding guests arrive at the house. The bridegroom and best man pick up the bride from the house. Before the bride appears there are 'false brides' who try to claim the groom. While the bride, groom and their 2 little girls went off for the photos we were provided with drinks and bakery items and local musical entertainment. We all left together for the church. It was a lovely service with a local choir. The local village motor bike club (to which Christian belongs) formed a guard of honour with roses and the rest were sitting on their bikes and revved them as the couple came out of the church. They have to cut out the heart from the banner (which was used later in one of the jokes and at the reception) and the groom carries the bride through the heart shaped hole. Bread and wine is provided in the church garden then we all left together to drive to the village hall for some fun. On the way one encounters many road blocks set up by children or local clubs. You have to pay them to be allowed through and and sometimes you get a Schnapps in return for your trouble. At the village club they had set up an obstacle course through which the bide and groom had to pass. A bit like an egg and spoon race but they have to drink a Schnapps if they drop the egg or fail in any of the tasks. They had to collect plastic eggs which contained the numbers for the wedding date. The fire alarm sounded and Jill had to put out a fire with water pumped by her husband. Finally, Christian had to repair a wind turbine (he is an engineer for a wind energy company). 
It was now time to drive to the wedding venue - the beautiful barn which we decorated yesterday. it looked fabulous. After welcome drinks we took our seats and the first thing was the Schnapps (of course) to toast the happy couple. These are called Klopfer and are banged on the table before drinking. (Austrian weddings are also noisy)
We had a fantastic BBQ buffet and wedding cake to eat before more fun things. The villagers put on a pantomime of Snow White adapted to Jill and Christian's story. They did a fabulous job - it was very funny and they must have practised it a lot. 
One of the Best Man's jobs is to look after the wedding bouquet until midnight. Of course, he lost it in an unguarded moment and had to buy it back in an auction.
At midnight it is said that the bride and groom are now married. The bridesmaid removes the hair clasp from the bride's hair and the best man changes the flower from the left side of the groom's lapel to the right side. we all lit candles and placed them on the heart at their feet. A few words were said and it was rather emotional then Christian took his wife in his arms for impromptu dance. They had to blow out the candles themselves then they stood under a canopy so that the guests could dance with the bride and groom. The guests have to pay for the privilege, now, so they throw money on to the canopy which goes to the happy couple. Lots of dancing and more fun followed. I don't know what time things finished up yet but I bet they saw the sun rise. This was my first Austrian wedding so it was such an experience for me and I felt very privileged to be able to help with it and to be part of it. 
Congratulations to Jill and Christian.
More photos on Flickr