The Ceremony, or, I'm becoming an icon in China

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The morning started with - - - breakfast 😊 an early one as the wedding was scheduled for 9:30 am.. 5 of our guests stayed the night at our place so the fact that I'm an early morning person helped a lot in getting organized 😊

We took the underground to the wedding and crossed the city center in a small and funny parade, attracting some attention from several groups of tourists who got up early enough to see visit the Römer early morning.

We were asked to stay outside and wait for the 9:00 am wedding (didn't think that ANYONE got married even earlier than us) so we kept busy with taking pictures, signing important documents (I assume) etc.... it was a lovely sunny day (lucky us) and must admit - I was a little bit more impassioned than I thought...

The wedding hall is on the second floor so the wheel-chaired guests were escorted to the elevator and waited for us up there in the lobby.

We took the opportunity to take some more pictures until the municipality's representative gathered all of us together, greeted us on behalf of the mayor and explained us what's gonna happen - we will get married in the lovely city of Frankfurt and are not allowed to throw confetti or sweets on the floor...

The ceremony was very secular and administrated by a woman who chose lovely words to describe our relationship as a partnership we should work on all our lives (very smart and unique for someone who never met us) I just thought to myself - does she repeat the same speech several times a day everyday? Does she have several of them she chooses from according to the couple she's facing? unfortunately I didn't get the chance to ask her.

Than she asked Thomas something and he said YES! and then she asked me the same something and I said yes. It didn't sound to me as impressive as Thomas's so I repeated, this time it was a "YES!" than she said I should wait for the translation... so I did, and as a result I said "YES!" three times - - - - for someone who never thought she will - I did! three times!

Then we signed both of us and Kristin and Markus our witnesses, and then we were free to hug, kiss and take some more pictures.....

Heading out, we left first.... going down the stairs to find our friends from the Hash House Harries (the international social-beer-drinking-club we are members of) waiting for us with balloons, wearing the shirts from the weekend we met and bubbblies.....

I couldn't stop laughing, it was such a great surprise - - -

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