We just got the photos from our official wedding photographer Louisa and I love them! They are exactly what I hoped for and more. Now we just have to make a selection out of the 500 pictures and create a nice slideshow. We will probably do that on the plane tomorrow, so that we have something to show when we get back to the USA. We will also post them here on our webpage in the wedding section as soon as possible. When I look at these photos, I still feel like on my wedding day and hope that this feeling never ends. It really turned out as the perfect wedding, I had the best time of my life and everybody had so much fun.

Luckily we don’t have any photos of the week before, when I was stressed to complete exhaustion due to all the wedding preparations, so I will hopefully forget about that week soon. My mom and I practically didn’t sleep and by friday I had no choice but to drink a cup of coffee to keep functioning. Everybody who knows that I never ever drink coffee can imagine how exhausted I was. The stress culminated in the decision to move the wedding from the outdoors location inside due to the weather forecast two days before the wedding. Rain, wind and 55 degrees just didn’t seem right for a wedding outside. We managed to find a new location, hired all friends to make it look festive and everything paid off. The wedding day was cold, rainy, and windy – but perfect. Nobody missed being outside, the venue turned out beautiful with everyone’s decoration effort and we stayed warm and dry. The ceremony was so beautiful, that even I forgot completely where I was.

And then we had the best reception ever, which I rather call party. Because that’s what it was – a raving party without formalities. Excellent italian food, an intimate venue, beautiful flower centerpieces, the most wonderful people, and a rocking funk band. At one point, every single person in the room was on the dance floor and went crazy – even my mom’s 78 years old aunt. My friends and I danced until 3 in the morning, just like in good old times. I would still be dancing, if my feet had let me.

After all the preparations and long party night, Linc and I had to recover for 2 days, doing absolutely nothing. Then it got time for our honeymoon, but again, the weather had other plans for us. Since there was a huge bad weather zone hovering above all of Europe, we skipped our planned trip to Italy. We just didn’t feel like driving for 8 hours just to be rained on in Italy. So we just spent 2 days in Erding, a small town by Munich, and it turned out the best decision. We spent 11 hours in the Therme Erding, the world’s biggest Sauna and Spa paradise. I wanna say that that one day was more relaxing than spending a week at the beach. They have 25 different thematic saunas, various huge pools, relaxation areas – all very creatively and beautifully designed. A natural pond with boats outside, sandy beaches, 2 bars in the big pool, meditation pool, massages, planetarium sauna with stars projected to the ceiling, waterfalls from huge flower sculptures, a sauna built out of salt stone, a natural dip pool with little ducklings, huge beds in nest form to rest in, 3 restaurants, etc. Now imagine that wonderful sauna world about three times as big as a regular target store and full with naked people. This wouldn’t be possible in the US, but in Germany it is common to wear nothing at all in a sauna. And in this particular sauna paradise it was explicitly forbidden to wear swim suits in order to create a common ground for everyone. In the beginning we felt a little awkward, but then the beautiful setting and extreme relaxation captures you so much, that you don’t think about anyone around you anymore and just enjoy being completely free and floating.

Even though the unreasonable and unusual cold weather for this season changed our plans in multiple ways, I think we made the best out of it and still have some money left to spend a few days at a warm beach in the US. See you all soon! I’m looking forward to coming home.