If you wonder how much the 2006 World Cup here in Germany is influencing everything in the public life these days, here’s an example. The certainly very unconventional way that our wedding celebration turned out ….

It was a big gamble. Not getting married, but picking a day of the World Cup Quarter Finals for our wedding day – especially one that could see Germany playing, which actually ended up being the case. Admittedly, it wasn’t really by choice, but the way the schedules worked out.

The result was – thanks to all of our friends and family and the German goalie Jens Lehmann – a very exciting, unconventional, fun and memorable day for Sabine, myself, and everyone who came to celebrate with us.

With the quarter final with Germany – Argentina going on and with both of our families and our friends being crazy about football, there was no alternative to (almost) everyone getting into some sort of Germany Team Shirt or T-Shirt, wearing some funny hat in the German colors or putting on black-red-gold makeup as we got close to kickoff time after the afternoon tea. And when all the guests got into the football gear, why wouldn’t we?

We watched the game on a big projector screen, with everyone from Sabine’s 87-year-old grandpa and my 85-year-old grandma to the 6-month-old daughter of my brother Andreas’s band-mate Michael. Andreas, Michael, and Michael entertained the party with a fantastic guitars-only live rock performance later in the evening, which even got the older folks excited.

For Sabine and me, this game was the biggest nail-biter ever. Not only were we hoping that our team wins because we want them to win the cup, we also wanted, wanted, wanted them to win so that this day would really be as perfect as we wanted it to be and everyone would have two big reasons to party. Thank you, Jens Lehmann!

While the afternoon and evening was all about the German colors, we were greeted with literally hundreds of American flags as we walked down the stairs of the historic City Hall of my home town Rheydt, where the wedding ceremony took place. With our next great adventure – the move to the Seattle area – coming up soon, our friends made that the theme of the impromptu reception in the Market Square, which was quite a show not only for our party but for everyone who happened to walk by. What a great day.