Life Between Worlds Issue #2
On September 1st, 2005 I got married to the most wonderful woman in the world. It happens to be that Christy is Canadian. To make sure she didn’t miss out on this important day due to language issues, we decided to get married in Canada which turned out to be a perfect day for the both of us.
Planning and Preparations
Since we currently (2005) live partly in Germany and partly in Canada, Christy did most of the planning while I was in Germany until two weeks before the wedding. During this phase Christy almost daily updated me about the hassle she had to go through to get all necessary services in line: Caterers who couldn’t get a proper quote together, jewellers who lost rings, the wrong flowers etc, etc. From experience you would think that providing good service is a big deal for businesses in North America, and for that reason it would be much easier to get the right people and services together then it would be - let’s say in Europe; in reality however, it turns out that as soon as the word ‘wedding’ comes up everybody seems to go crazy. Not only the prices go up even for the most simple things instantly but also the quality of service and peoples dedication to fulfilling their responsibility drops significantly. Maybe there is an inverse function of diminishing quality of service associated with higher ticket items and services?
Anyways, I am very grateful to Christy for taking care of all the planning and preparation; as you’ll see below she did a fantastic job (It feels good to be married to somebody with great organizational skills). All I basically had to do was the online invitation, giving my opinion on some of the bigger decisions and get a tuxedo ;-).
Canadian Marriage Primer
Getting married in Canada is quite different then in Germany. Since we are both atheists we decided to not get married in a church. Now in Germany - as far as I know - that leaves you with having to go to a Standesamt (official wedding office with a notary employed by the city in which you decide to get married). In Canada until a short while ago pretty much anybody could marry you that applied to become a wedding commissioner, in which that person was able to obtain by a mail-in test from the provincial government. Now with latest political developments involving gay marriage Alberta decided that this wasn’t possible anymore and that instead getting married by our close friend Ed we had to find a more officially licensed wedding commissioner. Eventually we found Shirley Louis a lovely and caring lady which at the age of 70 looks an acts like she would be in her early 50s - impressive.
In contrast to German formal weddings, is that in Canada you can have your wedding at the place of your choice and the commissioner simply comes out there to do the job. This allows you to set up the ceremony just the way you want it in almost every regard. There are only a few ‘formal’ sentences that have to be spoken and repeated as well as questions and answers to go through to make it a valid wedding (Of course a wedding certificate also has to be signed and witnessed). We had a little briefing with the commissioner a few days before and were able to set up the ceremony just the way we wanted. We enjoyed her communicative nature and got the good feeling that we were with the right person. It is pretty much standard in North America to have a rehearsal of the ceremony (rather unusual to almost impossible in Germany) before the actual wedding day. Through an accident and the associated blockage on the road to the location it happened that I was more then one hour late to get to the rehearsal, which I thought was a funny start to the whole thing.
Our Wedding
We decided to get married at the Devonian Botanical Garden about 20 minutes south/west of Edmonton. We chose the ‘Primula Dell’ section, a wonderful private and well prepared meadow surrounded by tall trees, beautiful flowers and a little pond with water flowers on it. The wedding day was divided into three sections: the ceremony itself, a break with a tour of the gardens for all interested wedding guests and the following reception. Our guests gathered as planned at around 10:30am at the Primula Dell area which was wonderfully decorated and set up with all the chairs and an arc at the front where we stood while getting married.
Shortly before 11:00 AM the violinist began to play Canon by Bach and everybody slowly got seated. Then the ceremony started with the commissioner walking to the front where the flower decorated arc was set up. Myself and my brother (who was my best man and witness) walked after her and took our positions. After a couple of minutes the violinist changed to the famous "Here Comes the Bride" tune (Bridal Chorus by Wagner) and miraculously Christy came out of an opening in the trees on the opposite side and walked towards us. All I could think at that moment was "Man, what a beauty..." She just looked stunning in her beautiful champagne coloured dress - hair, makeup, shoes - everything was perfect.
She walked by herself from the opening to the beginning of the chairs which - divided into two sections which formed an aisle leading its way directly to the front where I was waiting for her. As soon as she reached the chairs her Grandfather joined her to bring her to the front and to me. It was wonderful weather, sunny and dry but not too hot and I felt everybody was with us, supporting, loving and truly caring. So although I felt very secure in that surrounding I was very excited and had a positive nervousness in me. I just couldn’t believe how good it felt to do this. I just felt blessed to get married to the love of my life and to be supported by so many great people.
As soon as Christy arrived her grandfather gracefully handed her to me and the ceremony began. The commissioner read through it and we repeated our vows to each other and answered the ultimate question - of course with ‘yes, I do’. We then exchanged rings and signed the wedding licence together with Christy’s Grandpa and my Brother as witnesses. Although we where both very excited and maybe a bit nervous everything went flawless and just felt great. The commissioner did a great job and was very matter of fact with everything. We felt that she was very much in the moment and thrilled for us.
After signing the certificate we kissed and received a great applause. Then we walked back through the aisle towards a champagne station. We did a little toast to each other and Scott McPherson the MC and my good friend invited everybody to have a drink with us. In the following thirty minutes we got congratulations and had a little sip with everybody. The whole procedure was beautiful and perfectly smooth, it was a very relaxed yet an emotional and joyful atmosphere, all of which made us very happy. It just felt great to stand there in this beautiful place of nature in nicely glittering and warm sunlight together with my dream partner, now being my wife and with about 40 family and friends chatting, laughing and celebrating the first moments of our marriage.
The Break
After about half an hour the MC informed everybody about the garden tour offering and when we would gather again at the pine pavilion, a wooden hall construction with open side walls. While almost everybody went on the guided tour on large golf carts, Christy and I went with our photographers to take pictures at different spots in the gardens. We tried to do different things then what typical wedding pictures are like and had great fun in the process. Since this takes some time out of this very special day, it was more important to us having fun with the process of taking the pictures then to necessarily getting the ‘perfect’ result. It was fun to play around with some different poses and Christy even climbed some rocky hills in her high heels to get to some good spots.
The Reception
The reception started at around 2pm with Scott announcing the newly married couple. We thanked everybody for coming, did a short toast and went on to open the dinner. Christy picked a very good caterer. We had vegetarian food as well as barbequed fish and chicken satay with a large variety of sides, salads etc. We finished the dinner with some great cakes and a coffee. There was no seating plan so the party ended up with a nice mix of people sitting together. Christy and I where sitting at a separate table by ourselves which gave us some 'privacy' to come down a little and to simply enjoy the moment by ourselves during dinner - a very good idea.
After dinner Scott opened the round of speeches starting with Christy’s Grandparents, followed by my Parents, my Brother and finally by Scott, our MC. All I can say is that we feel blessed by the great family and friends we have around us and the support and love we received on that day. And Scott: You really hit the nail with your great speech and as a friend you made up for all my missing buddies from back home - thanks for all your help and our great friendship.
I did a little speech myself, telling people in a joking way why I married Christy with the ‘downside’ of having to spend time in a mostly cold environment. I mentioned all kinds of reasons (Grandmas great cooking, love, support, friendships...) but out of nervousness I forgot the most obvious one. Everyone who saw Christy on that day standing next to me knows what it was - going to a ‘cold’ country for such a stunningly hot woman is simply a no-brainer. Her fine character and unusual courage and finally her reliability as a friend led me to not even think about it twice. Everyone who was there (or who wasn’t and knows what I am talking about) should help me a little at this point of my ‘virtual speech extension’ and give a long and intense inner applause to Christy.
Finally Scott announced our Cuban party theme with "ibomba" a really great Cuban band which is renowned for their music far beyond the borders of Alberta. The bar was opened with Mojitos (Cuban mint based cocktail drink) and the party was on. We had great fun chatting with everybody, sipping drinks and - a lot of dancing of course.
Taking Off for The Wedding Night
At around 6:30pm the party slowly came to an end and our limousine was ready to pick us up and bring us to the Westin where Christy and I enjoyed a nice in-room dinner and celebrated our wedding night in privacy.
The Next Day
We slept in the next morning and had a nice breakfast at the hotel before we headed to Christy’s Grandparents house for the traditional after wedding gathering where all guests where welcome to come between 12noon and 5pm. Most people from the wedding showed up and it was a great day sitting and chatting with everybody in a very relaxed environment. There was a lot of good food and Christy’s Mom got us a wedding cake with the ‘lead image’ from our wedding invitation printed on it - I was very surprised and moved by that gesture - it looked (and tasted) great.
Gifts and presents
In Canada, it is tradition to open all the gifts the day after the wedding in front of everybody but we decided to break with that and spare everybody from having to sit through the many greetings, wishes and presents. Instead we did that privately and enjoyed it a great deal.
Thank you
At this point Christy and I would like to thank everybody a great deal for all the nice cards, greetings and for the support and your generous presents from all the guests as well as some remote friends - thank you all very much.
Honeymoon
We left the Garden Party at around 7pm and enjoyed the rest of the evening by ourselves. The next day we got ready and took of to our wonderful 10 day honeymoon in the Canadian Rockies, the Okanogan and in Vancouver. But this is a topic for a future column of our ‘life between the worlds’ story.
Relax & Succeed,
Christy and Peter
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