We were married on a Friday morning. Afternoon weddings cost an extra 80 euros, and we decided we’d rather spend the cash on decadence than extra sleep. Raised on fairy tales and Hollywood romantic comedies, German wedding regulations came as something of a surprise. All the paperwork, signatures, and officially stamped forms that we were asked to trade for a wedding date. Proof that we were both single. Proof that we both lived at the addresses that we said we did. Proof that we were who we said we were. They never mentioned any of this in Cinderella…

The true meaning of marriage: paperwork!

Once you make it through the gauntlet of paperwork though, all that’s left to do is show up at the Standesamt (marriage registry office) with your friends and family for the civil ceremony. If you want to get married in a church or on a mountainside, you can, but you have to do it later. The Standesamt gets first dibs and without its seal of approval you and your partner won’t get access to handy bonuses like tax reductions and inheritance rights.

If you don’t want to bother with a second ceremony there’s nothing stopping you from making your 20 minutes at the Standesamt into an unforgettable extravaganza, and Standesamt weddings differ wildly from couple to couple. I’ve seen couples in suits and enormous white princess dresses, I’ve seen couples in business casual wear, and I’ve seen spiked and colorful punk couples emerging from the Standesamt. If you stand around outside the city hall long enough, you can see the wedding parties for yourself, waiting patiently outside for the couple to emerge for rice throwing, pictures, and champagne.

Our wedding motto was “absurdity”, and we wanted it to be a theatrical, costumed affair full of color and humor. Upon arrival our wedding party was ushered into a beige-walled waiting room, where we would be called by an employee when the ceremony before ours was finished – a traditional white dressed affair. Video cameras rolled, cameras clicked, and champagne abounded. There were costumes, masks, and over-sized hats. It was Alice in Wonderland meets Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka. In short: it was perfect.

Weddings – German weddings, American weddings, all weddings – are moments of extreme cultural importance. We pack all of our emotions into this one tradition, time stops, and a euphoric spell is cast upon the group of people focused on celebrating love and commitment, even if the next day the spell has faded and the glass slipper is missing.