As we started into our Mini-Moon the day after our wedding – and after an extended breakfast with our friends and families – we were looking for something not too far away from Stuttgart. But we still wanted a place in a remote area with nothing around us but nature. It didn’t take long until we decided the Black Forest was just the perfect spot.

On the website booking.com we found the “Hotel Restaurant Waldsägmühle”, a four star hotel in the middle of nowhere. PERFECT!

And if you wonder now if this is a cooking spoon and a egg whip in front of the hotel then I can assure you: Yes, it is. And they are there for a reason. But we’ll come to that later.

We had a lovely room…

… with a balcony…

…facing the black forest:

And guys, the best thing was that you could smell the forest! I’ve never experienced anything like that.

The hotel also offers a spa. It’s small but very nice.

So that’s were we went straight away

But we didn’t only hang out in the spa area, we also went outside because the Black Forest has a lot to offer. As we had three days, we tried three different things:

1.) Barefoot Park

The Barefoot Park in Dornstetten is only a few minutes away from the hotel and it’s great fun.

You walk through ice cold water, across wood, grass, fir cones and – yes – nails and glass. The sensation in your feed is just incredible. It feels like a foot massage!

But my favorite underground is definitely the mud!

Before:

Meanwhile:

After:

Aaaaah, that’s what I dreamed of when I was a child!

When you leave the park, you should wash your feed before entering the car again…

2.) Wolf and Bear Park

The “Alternativer Wolf und Bärenpark” in Bad Rippoldsau-Schapbach was another attraction close to our hotel. The park provides shelter for abused animals, like circus bears. When we went there, it was a very hot day and we thought we won’t see much of the animals, but we were proven wrong:

This feller enjoyed a cool bath in the basin that’s originally meant to hold the drinking water for the bears…

But he wasn’t the only bear we saw:

But we were even more lucky that day. We also saw one of the shy wolfs:

The park is located in a very nice setting, in the middle of the forest, with a little stream running through it.

It was great to see these beautiful, wild animals from a very short distance. And I am a big fan of the concept of the park. It’s horrible what some humans do to animals and there should be more places like this. You can support their work, for example by donating a bucket of food or becoming godfather or –mother of an animal. Check out their website for more information: https://www.baer.de/site2010/index.php?option=com_proforms&jid=3&cid=1&Itemid=80

3.) Hiking

When visiting the Black Forest you have to go hiking. It’s the law! Well, actually, that’s not true but you really shouldn’t miss out on exploring this wide, green area on your own two feet.

There is a bunch of hiking trails that begin or pass the Waldsägmühle. Just pick one of them, all of them are very nice

Again, I was stunned how you can really smell the forest. This spicy scent is really something special. And can you believe how green everything is?

The Black Forest is a magical place and the Hotel Restaurant Waldsägmühle is just the perfect location to stay for a few nights when you want to visit this area. But there is one more thing that’s important for a great Mini-Moon: the food! And man, were we lucky!

Hmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!

Our Mini-Moon was just the perfect final to our wonderful wedding. And  the Full Moon made our Mini-Moon event more special.

More information about:

Hotel Restaurant Waldsägmühle

Barefoot Park (only in German)

Alternativer Wolf- und Bärenpark (only in German)

The post Mini-Honeymoon at Hotel Waldsägmühle in the Black Forrest appeared first on Living in Stuttgart.

As we were very unlucky with our choice of location in the first place, we had to change plans three weeks before our wedding and decided to have the ceremony in our garden. This was the best decision EVER!

As we haven’t been able to find a catholic priest who wanted to marry us under the open sky on top of a hill close to the Riedbergpass in the Allgäu, we decided to find a free sermonizer. In the end, I think it was fate that no priest wanted to do the job as he would have never agreed to the change of plans and held his ceremony in our garden. But the great sermonizer we had, was open for everything!

But first things first…!

We were also lucky that one of Moritz close friends is a musician: the singer and songwriter Alex Straub. So – of course – we included him into the ceremony 🙂

As we got married in Vegas last year already, we wanted the same song Elvis sang for me while he walked me down the aisle. So this time, when my dad walked me down the aisle, Alex performed “Can’t help falling in love with you”. It was such a special moment. For all of us.

Then, the ceremony began. And what a wonderful ceremony it was. Our sermonizer was Oliver Bisanz. He is a free theologian, who has studied catholic religion. We met twice before the wedding. During the first meeting, he wanted to find out who we are, how we met, what we love about the other and what not so much 🙂 This meeting lasted for three hours but it felt like chatting to an old friend and we didn’t even notice how time flew by. Oliver also gave us a lot of texts, songs, prayers and so on so that we could decide what we wanted to include into our ceremony (the great thing about a free ceremony is, that you are in charge of the contend!). The second time, we met again a few weeks before the wedding. During this meeting, we figured out what parts we wanted to include, when they should take place and who should perform them.

From these two meetings, we knew already that Oliver was a great listener and that he has a lot of experience with weddings. But when he started to perform our ceremony, we were speechless HOW great he was.

His speech included all the important details of our history. And it was a great mixture of funny…

… and serious moments.

He made us – and our guests – laugh…

… and think.

And of course, he led us smoothly through the important moments:

Our guests told us later that the ceremony was so full of esprit and so diversified, that they felt sad when it was over. And we felt exactly the same way.

I also asked him for you guys, if he would perform weddings in English as well. And actually, he has done it already !! 🙂

And if you’re not convinced that Oliver is the greatest sermonizer of the world, you will be now:

Yes, he  also knows how to play the guitar and how to sing! 🙂

At the end of our ceremony, our friends and families surprised us with a special song – and they had asked Oliver to play the guitar to accompany them. And he did 🙂

Well, what can I say? I think every bride states her wedding is the most wonderful one she can imagine (…and that’s exactly how it should be! 🙂 )

For us, the ceremony was perfect. Thanks to our families and friends who contributed with songs and poems. Thanks to Alex Straub, who performed “our” Elvis song for us. And thanks to Oliver, who held the most wonderful ceremony ever!

Thank you guys. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for making this day so special and wonderful!

This was the last post about our wedding day. But stay tuned for an article about the hotel where we spent our Mini-Moon! 🙂

More information about:

Alex Straub (only in German)

The post Our wedding 2013 – part 3: The ceremony appeared first on Living in Stuttgart.

But there is no photo shooting without a visit to the hairdresser before, so here’s how my   started: At Haarschneiderei Nicole Kohler in Stuttgart-Vaihingen.

Mrs. Kohler was originally fully booked for the 20th of July, but when she heard the story about what has happened to us and why we had to change plans and celebrate in Stuttgart spontaneously, she wanted to help out and gave me an appointment before the usual opening hours of her shop. Isn’t that just lovely? I am still so grateful.

We started with the makeup…

… don’t you think the green suits me just fine? 🙂 Don’t worry, it’s just the base for the real make-up 😉

Then, it was time for the hairdo! I wanted my hair up, but nothing too strict. So here’s what she worked out:

Sorry, quick chocolate bar break:

Ok – drumroll: Here’s my hairdo:

I loved it! 🙂

So with my professional make-up and hairdo, I was prepared for the professional photo shooting! 🙂

Another drumroll please for three of my most favorite wedding photos:

Moritz and I had such a great time during the shooting. Michi is a great photographer and a very fun person. He knows how to create a relaxed atmosphere, he picks out the perfect spots and even though he has a lot of great ideas for postures and positions, he’s open for your ideas as well. We are very grateful that he did the shooting for us – Thank you so much, Michi! :-*

There are still two more posts about the ceremony  and our Mini-Moon in the pipeline. But as I’m waiting for some more pictures, it might take a few more days. So just stay tuned and read about what’s going on in and around Stuttgart in the meantime 🙂

More information about:

Haarschneiderei

Focus on Wagner

The post Our wedding 2013 – Part 2: The professional photo shooting and my hair appeared first on Living in Stuttgart.

If you follow this blog for a while, you might remember that we had originally planned to get married in a mountain cabin close to Oberstdorf in the Allgäu. But things turned quite nasty so three weeks before the big event, we were forced to change plans. But guys, I think some things that happen to you are just fate. At the beginning, I thought we have to cancel the whole thing, because I couldn’t believe it might be possible to organize a wedding withing 20 days. But everything just fell into place and we had the most wonderful wedding Moritz and I could have dreamed of.

As we have a small garden behind the house we live in, we decided to have the ceremony there. We wanted a very relaxed and free ceremony under the open sky anyway, so who needs the Alps when he has a backyard, I ask you?! 😀

A colleague of mine organized two pavilions and 14 benches for us. As wooden benches don’t look like much, one of my bridesmaids organized the white covers. We rented them from Festservice Querner & Berger in Stuttgart-Obertürkheim. They fitted the benches just perfect and made the whole setting look very lovely.

On amazon, I got this red aisle. It really did it’s job! Some of our guests said it looked like the wedding locations in some movies 🙂 I arranged some rose petals on the left and the right, et voilà 🙂

Our guests entered the garden by walking through theses bushes. We decorated them with paper streamers and white ribbons, which I got from the creative shop idee in Stuttgart.

We put up a lot of different kind of decoration pieces, like hearts and flowers.

In the afternoon, we changed locations. We had chosen Namaste India in Stuttgart-Dürrlewang for the reception and party. It is one of the best Indian Restaurants in Stuttgart, even Trip Advisor and the magazine Prinz recommend it. They have a huge room in the basement designed for events and parties.  Again, my bridesmaid organized the chair covers and table cloths for us. This time, they came from hussen-exklusiv, which is a small, family owned business in Ludwigsburg, with very fair prices.

We love this Namaste India. The manager is so friendly. He really gave everything to make this night very special for us! After the flop we had experienced with the – in our eyes – unprofessional and unfriendly management of the mountain cabin, it felt like heaven on earth. So, Mr. Taneja, we would like to say thank you again, from the bottom of our hearts, for your help and support. We had a wonderful time at Namaste India.

The food was amazing. The chef surprised us with a starter buffet (even though we had only ordered soup – how amazing is this??!) that was so good, we had to tell our guests that the main course is yet to come so they should not fill up their stomachs already 🙂

The main course buffet was a dream. Six different meals were offered, including Murgh Shahi Korma (Chicken in Cashew-Coconut-Cream-sauce) – my favourite :-D! One dish was better than the other. We had some guests who had never eaten Indian food before and who were a bit worried at the beginning – all of them told us afterwards how much they loved it.

For dessert we had our wedding cake and an Indian dish (Gulabjamun).

We had ordered the cake from one of the loveliest cafés in town: Café Geiler. When I went there three weeks before our wedding, and asked them if they could do the cake for us, they were originally fully booked for this weekend. But when they found out what has happened to us and that we were in urgent need of their support, they squeezed us in! On the 20th, they prepared the cake after they had closed their café, so when they delivered it to Namaste India, it was totally fresh. Where do you find people like that anymore? Thank you so much Mrs. Rahm and family! By the way, it was the son of the owner who did the cake for us. And he just finished his apprenticeship – as the best of his year! He has even participated in a video clip where he shows school kids what a pastry chef and confectioner does. So check out this fascinating guy: http://www.azubi-tv.de/lebensmittelgewerbe/konditor-in/beitrag/oliver-1-lehrjahr.html

And the cake itself was a dream: Two hearts of strawberry cake, very fluffy, with a ribbon with our names on it. And the best: The white heart on top was lactose free – just for me!! WHAT A DREAM! 😀

Some more words about the decoration:

As little presents for our guests, we had individualized M&M’s:

Some of them had our names on them, some the picture of two rings. We had chosen the colors yellow and orange to make it look a bit Indian. Mr. Taneja’s team organized them on the plates before the first guests arrived.

For the tables, we had wonderful flower decoration, designed by Mayer Blumen, which is also located in Stuttgart-Dürrlewang. I wanted something traditional to suit the ceremony in our garden, but also something exotic. We decided for a combination of white roses and pink orchids. It looked stunning!

Mayer Blumen also decorated the car…

… and prepared my beautiful bridal bouquet:

OK, I think that’s enough for the first post about our wedding. 😉

Stay tuned for the ceremony and the fotoshooting! 🙂

More information about:

Festservice Querer & Berger

Creativmarkt idee

Namaste India

Hussen-exklusiv

Café Geiler

Mayer Blumen

My M&M’s

The post Our wedding 2013 – Part 1: Locations, cake and decoration appeared first on Living in Stuttgart.

Big bummer, hm?! But it wouldn’t be us if we would let something like that get us down. And as my bridesmaid Nadi has put it: Who needs more than 20 days to organize a wedding?? Not us, that’s for sure! 😉

So this is a quick post about my “Wedding Rescuers!”

I would like to introduce you guys to what is in my opinion the best Indian Restaurant in Stuttgart: Namaste India in Stuttgart-Dürrlewang! That’s where we will be for dinner – and for the party afterwards 🙂

Where there is a wedding, there needs to be a cake! And thanks to  Café Geiler, also located in Stuttgart-Dürrlewang, there will be a veeeery yummy cake on the 20th of July!

But a wedding wouldn’t be a wedding without flowers. Well, I think Stuttgart-Dürrlewang is just the place to look for awesome Wedding Rescuers, because thanks to the team of Mayer Blumen, I will not only have a beautiful bridal bouquet but there will be also beautifully decorated tables at Namaste India!

The only thing, I did not find in Stuttgart-Dürrlewang, was the hair-do. Here, my Wedding Rescuer is called Nicole Kohler from the “Haarschneiderei” in Stuttgart-Vaihingen. She even squeezed in a hair trial last saturday and I LOVED the magic she performed on my head! 🙂

Not to forget all those wonderful people who supported us – and will support us on Saturday – to make our wedding the BEST WEDDING that was ever performed in someone’s garden (yes, you read that line correctly, the ceremony will take place in our garden! :-D)  and in an Indian Restaurant! It is very moving when you find out HOW GREAT your friends and families really are. Thank you guys. We love you. Can’t wait to share our special day with you this weekend!! !! :-*

The post Let me introduce you to my “Wedding Rescuers” appeared first on Living in Stuttgart.

It has arrived safely at Rena Sposa and I have had my “accessories appointment” already 🙂

What’s an accessories appointment, you might ask now. Well, that’s when you put on YOUR wedding dress (not the one on display) and try your jewelry, shoes etc. with it. Rena Sposa has a lot of stuff in stock but I had already found the perfect necklace, earrings and shoes for my dress a few weeks ago, so I brought them along for the appointment.

I also I found this cute pearl necklace plus earrings.

I love that they look quite delicate – and that they have pearls! 🙂

When I saw that the jewelry I had bought just went perfect with the dress, I was quite relieved. Now, it was time to try on the shoes. And the shoes are not normal bridal shoes. Why not? Well, they are bright red. I love them! 🙂

One thing I did get from the selection, Rena Sposa offers, is a fascinator. I tried several ones. Check out this funny one… 🙂

But this one was just a bit too big for me and the beige colour did not suit my dress very well. I got another one… 🙂

I also chose a bridal veil and a little jacke,t but unfortunately I cannot show you pictures of these as they show too much of the dress (of course, I would show you guys my dress without hesitation, but as Moritz is reading my blog too, I would spoil the surprise 😉 )

I had a great time at Rena Sposas and with owner Michaela Rena again, just like last time when I was there. I love this boutique!

When I was finished choosing all the accessories, I left my dress at Rena Sposa and they transferred it to the tailor. And one week after, I went to “Atelier Beerwerth”, where Johanna Beerwerth did a great job making the dress fit perfectly.

I have already tried it on after she had finished and it suits me great. You can imagine how happy I am! 🙂 Now, it is back at Rena Sposas, waiting for me to come get it!

So that’s all from the command center of wedding planning and about my wedding preparations in Stuttgart for the moment. As I mentioned, there’s still heaps to do until the big day arrives and I better get going… 😀

More information about:

Rena Sposa (only in German)

Atelier Beerwerth (only in German)

The post Tied up in wedding preparations appeared first on Living in Stuttgart.

So here’s the story:

During the first week of our trip we spent two nights at the Grand Canyon.

On our first evening, we decided to have a picnic at the edge and watch the sunset. So when it was late afternoon, we headed out to find a good spot. But Moritz was never satisfied with the places we passed, he was looking for the perfect spot. Finally, we found an area where the walkway passes behind you and where you have an unspoilt view of the canyon, without people walking through.

We had a lovely dinner there and even though I didn’t understand why it was so important for Moritz that we have found a spot all to ourselves in the first place, I came to understand later – when he proposed 🙂

The day after, we started thinking about our wedding. As I mentioned in an earlier post, if you want to have a religious ceremony in Germany, you need to have a civil one before. And as both of us were not very keen on one of these rather demure events, and as we were passing through Vegas the next week anyway, we went crazy and came up with the idea of just getting married there…

After some research (Yes, as a German you can get married easily in Vegas! And yes, the act does count as an official wedding – as long as an authorised person had performed it.) we were sure, that’s exactly the right thing to do for us. So we made an appointment at the “Graceland Wedding Chapel” for the 14th of Mai 2012 – and felt thrilled! 🙂

We arrived in Vegas one day prior to the wedding and had a ton of things to do: find a wedding dress and proper shoes for me (even though we wanted it to be a very relaxed ceremony, hiking boots or flip flops just didn’t feel right… :-)), trousers, a shirt and new shoes – and a wedding ring!! – for Moritz plus we had to get our Marriage Licence at the  “Marriage License Bureau” in Las Vegas. You wouldn’t think so, but actually everything worked out just fine and we had a fun hen AND stag night on the strip – together 🙂 Yeah, we are not for the normal way of doing these things, are we…

And at the afternoon of the 14th of May 2012, we got married in Vegas. Just the two of us. With Elvis singing two of this best know songs (“Falling in love with you” when he walked me down the aisle and “Viva las Vegas” at the end of the ceremony).

I had expected a very funny but also businesslike event but I was surprised: We felt special from the moment we stepped into the little chapel: The minister treatet us like he was here just because of us (of course he had tons of couples married that day before we came and we even met the next ones when we left – but he did’t show it), the photographer – who became our best man – made us feel like we were old friends, only Elvis could have been a bit more motivated. But I don’t blame him. After years in this business, it must be hard to sing the same songs again and again and again every day. And he sang well! So after 30 minutes, we left the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas as husband and wife! Man, was THAT an awesome feeling!

So if you are wondering now why for gods sake I am telling all that stuff: The following days, you will read a lot more about the west coast, Las Vegas and other places around here – because Moritz and I came back to celebrate our one year anniversary where it all began 365 days ago… 🙂

P.S: For all of you who wonder why I put up posts about my wedding preparations in Germany in the past: These preparations are for the religious ceremony we want to celebrate this year in July. So more about this is to come up here soon as well.

More Information about:

Getting married in Vegas (on vegas.com)

Clark County Nevada: Wedding Licence

Graceland Wedding Chapel

The post A wedding in Las Vegas appeared first on Living in Stuttgart.