My wedding dress was both blue and borrowed, for whatever it’s worth in American marriage superstitions and legends. This, however, doesn’t appear to play a role in German wedding superstition, which, surprisingly enough considering Germans’ reputation world-wide for lacking senses of humor, revolves around practical jokes and public humiliation.

Until death do they part…

I’ve heard that one German pre-wedding tradition, for example, is the kidnapping of the bride by the groom’s best friend. The two go hide out somewhere, and the groom is expected to run around following clues that will eventually lead him to claim his bride.

Then there are bachelor’s parties. I didn’t have a bachelorette party myself, I’ve seen enough of them roaming city streets to have gotten the idea. While bachelor and bachelorette parties in America generally involve strip clubs and alcohol, here they involve a group of people in matching, custom T-shirts walking around the city, drunk, while the bride or groom tries to sell trinkets to strangers and/or generally humiliate his or herself publicly. Apparently Americans see the bachelor party as the future spouse’s last chance at wild sex, while the Germans see it as the future spouse’s last chance at public humiliation, to be followed by a respectable, sober life, until death do they part.

Another German pre-wedding tradition is Polterabend, which, I have decided, does not coincidentally bear a resemblance to the German word for torture (Folter). Polterabend, my handy online dictionary tells me, translates to “eve-of-the-wedding party”, and there is no American equivalent. I was quite surprised when, after an eve-of-the wedding sauna at the bathhouse in town, six people showed up at my door with a video camera, demanding that I come outside immediately. I was in my pajamas and a bad mood. “Do I really have to come outside now?” I asked.

“Yes. This is important,” they scattered, and I closed the door and began to bundle myself up in hats and scarves and long underwear to face the snowy cold outside.

Outside I found friends, housemates, and my fiancé on the street with a box of ceramic plates and mugs. “OK, let’s go!” someone shouted, and everyone began grabbing dishes and smashing them at our feet. What fun, I thought, grabbing a dish of my own and watching it bounce off the concrete, now in sixteen pieces. By the time we were finished, the pavement was a mosaic of yellow and blue and white and red. Apparently some couples even smash kitchen sinks and toilets – as long as the items are ceramic, anything goes, and everything is good luck for the new couple. It is only forbidden to smash glass.

When every last dish had been smashed on the pavement, someone came forward with two brooms and a dust pan. “Now you two sweep them up.” We both raised our eyebrows in disbelief. Sweep? Us? Weren’t other people supposed to do things for us on the eve of our wedding? I looked at the brooms, then at my friends in disbelief. My fiancé shrugged and started to sweep. He’d been to Polterabend nights before. This, they told us, was supposed to bring us even more good luck and happiness. It was supposed to prepare us for all the “working together” we’d be doing from now on. I shrugged and swept along. When in Rome, do as the Romans. When in Germany on your wedding night, smash some dishes and sweep with your fiancé.