On Saturday, S’s uncle got married.  It was basically the main reason we went to Switzerland to begin with.  They got married in a tiny, tiny church.

It just had two rows of pews – I have never seen such a small church before.  There was a steep stone driveway leading up to the church that we had to walk up and down.  Several times.  In the rain.  And I was wearing very high heels… 

There were a few close calls, but luckily I didn’t fall at all!

S’s uncle was in a fraternity in college.  The fraternity brothers played a huge role in the entire wedding day – including the ceremony itself and the celebrations afterward.  This is the uniform that the brothers wore:

Yep… flags, swords, and everything.  And they were ALL up on the stage of the church (forgive me… I’m sure the proper name isn’t "stage", but I don’t know what it is, and it’s up in front of everybody and LOOKS like a stage…) along with another group of men dressed as medieval Swiss soldiers.  Pictures of those guys to come.  So… basically it was a CROWDED little church. 

I couldn’t understand a word of the ceremony (it was entirely in German) so I spent the whole 1.5 hours looking around at people and the church.  The bride was absolutely beautiful, and the groom could not stop beaming and crying at the same time throughout the whole thing.  In a way, not being able to understand the words that were being said made me look at it all in a different light – I had to study peoples’ reactions, their facial expressions, etc. 

After the ceremony, everybody headed to the next town over to a hotel where there were drinks, appetizers, and the professional pictures were taken.

The bride and groom traveled in this classic car for the occasion:

It was POURING rain the whole day.  I had to take a picture when I saw this:

The bride outside standing under a Mizuno umbrella!  Love it!

Inside, the gathering was on the top floor of the hotel.

It looked like a renovated old barn, with the high wood beam ceilings.  There were beautiful chandeliers, which I loved.

So elegant.

Did you see those men in blue up on the stage?  Those are the medieval Swiss soldiers.  It is a Swiss custom of some sort.

They had swords and everything!  A couple of times one of them turned around really quickly and knocked someone with their sword.   Oops. 

After the appetizers and pictures (approximately 3 hrs) we headed to another hotel and restaurant for the actual reception.

S and I were at a table with his sister, his brother and his girlfriend, and one of the fraternity brothers with his family.

The hotel was called Hotel Schiff.  It is a great hotel and restaurant that we actually ate at with S’s family last time we were in Switzerland. 

Outside, the rain was still pouring down.  But the view of the lake was beautiful nonetheless.

One thing that I really liked was that they gave everyone handmade nametags.  This was really helpful for me, as I pretty much didn’t know anyone except for S and his family. 

They also went around and introduced every single person and told a little bit of information about them.  It was time consuming, but it was really helpful and interesting (S translated it for me on the fly so that I could understand what was going on.)

These beautiful menus (which I couldn’t read…)

Sound appetizing??

The hotel had a pretty spiral staircase!

I was starving by the time they actually served the food (two hours after we arrived there!!!)  We started with some wine.

The first course was a delicious salad in a thin shell bowl, with warm crusted goat cheese on top.

My favorite part was the cheese.  It was incredible!

In between the salad and the next course was when they went around the tables and did all the introductions.  It took over an hour, so I was starving again by the time the next plate was finally delivered.

When they did the intros, they also gave out these cute decorations they made.

I loved the ladybugs!

The next course was fish with spinach in cream sauce.

The fish was flaky and tender, absolutely delicious!

There was another presentation at this point, another hour.  I couldn’t believe it.  Then the next course..  beef, scalloped potatoes and veggies.

This was just so-so.  The veggies were delicious, but the beef was a little chewy.  And I’m not really a fan of potatoes in general so I didn’t eat much of them.

Guess what?  After that course was completed…. another hour break.  *sigh*.  All I wanted was dessert!

We took some pictures.  S’s mom and I:

The usual suspects.

Then, the bride and groom did a dance for everyone.

Finally, dessert time!  I was hoping for wedding cake, but there wasn’t a cake in sight.  I thought… maybe the Swiss don’t do wedding cake? 

It was sorbet with fresh fruit.

Finally, long after the sorbet, the cake was finally taken out.  I was shocked, and disappointed because I was very full at that point.  The wedding cake is always my favorite part, and it had been such a long time that we had thought there wasn’t going to be any!  Also, by this point everyone was quite drunk and distracted so people weren’t paying much attention when the bride and groom actually cut it.  Oh well. 

I was full, but managed to eat a big piece anyways

It was delicious, and worth the wait!

We finally left the reception at almost 2am.  I was exhausted at this point and really wanted to go home.  It was still pouring rain! 

I’m really glad that I got to experience a Swiss wedding – especially now that I am thinking a lot about ours and how we should do things.  Let’s just say this helped me to make a lot of realizations about how I do (and don’t!!) want mine to be