--amish wedding--

so...back to our trip!!! thanks for giving me input on the header thing!!! anyways, a couple weeks ago we had the "once in a lifetime" chance to go to an amish wedding. YAY!!! so in case you haven't already heard the story from the family blog, i'll tell it again. :-) when my mom was a little girl, she had very bad asthma and went to live with her grandparents over the summer. while she lived there, her grandparents took her to a doctor where she met a little amish girl in the waiting room. they had both brought their dolls, so they played together in the waiting room. the amish girl's mom and my mom's grandma decided to schedule all their appointments at the same time so that they could play. when my mom had to go back home at the end of the summer they decided to become pen-pals to keep in touch.

they kept in touch all the way up until my mom got married and then she invited her amish friend to the wedding. and then about 5 years ago, the amish lady invited us to come and see her and her family!!! we had a really good time!!! so now, her daughter got married, she invited us to the wedding!!! when we got to our hotel there, we got this phone call from mom's friend and she told us that she wanted us to come and pick her up and take her to her daughters wedding the next morning!!! in the morning we were running late, so we were like freaking out because we were going to make the mother of the bride late to her daughters wedding!!!

when we finally got to the mother of the bride's house there was amish people EVERYWHERE!!! my mom didn't know how she was supposed to know which one was her friend because they hadn't seen each other in a LONG time!!! so mom finally went up and asked an amish person where she was and the person told mom she was in the basement. when mom got down into the basement there was all these amish ladies working frantically over a counter. mom had NO idea whatsoever which one was her friend!!! so she just kinda stood there feeling VERY awkward!!!they only knew each other by their voices, so they wouldn't really know each other even if they saw each other!!! there was this lady with her back turned who was talking to a man and mom recognized her voice, so she went up and tapped her on the shoulder!!! as soon as the mother of the bride saw mom she was all excited!!! she informed mom that her pie filling was too runny and this pie filling had to be just right so she would have to be late to the wedding!!! she also told mom that it was not a disgrace to show up late at the wedding, so we could either wait for her to get done with her filling, or we could leave without her and she would get a different ride. at this point mom was very shocked as she realized that the food was basically the most important part of the wedding and everything else didn't really matter!!!

we decided to leave because we kind of felt in the way at her house...when we got to the wedding they were singing songs. so we come in and sit down on these wooden benches and open the songbooks laying in front of us. they give off the number (in german so a different lady translated the number for us!!!)and then they started off singing. there is a main guy for every song who starts off the first word in each line of the song ( this "note" lasts for about 20 sec. in german; VERY off tune.) by the end of this song that seemed about a half an hour our bottoms were about killing us because we were sitting on the wooden benches for so long!!! it felt like the song lasted for half of an hour!!! then i looked at dad and said it felt like a half an hour and he was like "honey, i timed it and it was half an hour!!!" WOWWW!!! this "wedding ceremony" lasted up to like 3 to 4 hours all together!!!

when we got off those VERY uncomfortable benches we could hardly walk!!! then we went back to the mother of the bride's house to have the meal!!! IT TASTED SO GOOD!!! i was stuffed, and i'm pretty sure everyone else was too!!!


then mom's friend said that there was another meal and she wanted us to stay for everything which would have gone VERY late!!! mom told her that we were going to go back to the hotel and relax until the next meal. so, we did and before we knew it it was time to go back to the wedding!!! so, we watched the bride unwrap presents (which, by the way, were wrapped in towels!!!) and then we ate the next meal!!! which was just as good or better than the first meal!!!
after we got done eating, we were about to leave, but mom's friend said that we have to go shake the bride and grooms hand, or else we would be a huge disgrace. so of course we did!!!

sitting in the van on the way back from the wedding, i just had to thank GOD that i am NOT amish!!!

although, it was a VERY neat experience, i mean it's not every day that you get invited to come to an amish wedding. :-)

anyways, so that's the story of the amish wedding!!! i did enjoy it even though my bottom was sore for about 2 days afterward from sitting on those wooden benches!!! i hope ya'll enjoyed this post!!! i think that's actually all from this trip!!! more post coming soon!!!(hopefully)

-s. olivia