Summer holidays 2016 - part 2: Wedding Bene and Maren

My cousin Benedict finally married his longtime girlfriend Maren :-) The wedding was taking place in Berlin, where both of them live together with their two kids.
So after our short holidays in Sicily [click here for the post], we took a flight on Friday 7th of August to Berlin where we got picked up by my parents.
In the early evening we met on the hotel's roof top terrace for a cosy get together of some of the wedding guests, including already some relatives which were nice to see again.

Wedding day, 8th of August:
The wedding ceremony was held at the church by the Stölpchensee in Berlin Wannsee.

me, my cousin Bene, Marco

Engelbert, me, Bene, my mum

me, Bene, my mum

Sisters: my aunt (Bene's mother) and my mum

my uncle Jan

aunts, cousins and uncle

my dear cousins Emily and sister Ann with her husband Edward

 

the parents of the spouses

 

Congratulations to the newly weds, Bene & Maren :-)

Four of my lovely cousins: Benedict, Benjamin, Christoph and Stephan :-)

Carl(chen) with daddy Bene - both exhausted from the heat.

The wedding party - at the Villa Schöningen in Potsdam.

 

Eleanora, the sweet little girl of my cousin Ann and Edward

me with my aunt Ebeth (Bene's mother)

Cousins :-)

(unfortunately not all 15 of us - Anne-Marie, Nele, Roel and Max, we missed you!!!)

Annette, Benny, Daan, Alex, Emily, Bene, Flo, Anni, Stephan, me and Christoph

Marco & me

my cousin Florian & me

Daan, Alex, me, Benny and Flo

Alex, Stephan, Edward and Christoph - presenting Italian(!) beer at a German(!) wedding :-)

 

Jan, Ebeth's hat suits you just perfectly!!! ;-)

my aunt Marina (left)

 

my uncle Martin

my cousin Daan with his girlfriend...

...and his brother Benjamin.

 

back: Eleanora, Edward, Alex, Engelbert, Flo, Stephan, Christoph, Benny, Daan, Martin

front: Emily, Anni, Marco, me

Normally people walk their dogs, but I have never seen anybody before walking his GOATS!!!

my mum and Engelbert - love that picture :-)

Marco and my mum

Lovely speech, Bene!

my aunt Mechthild aka "Plimmi"

 

a piece of former Berlin Wall

The Glienicke Bridge (right next to the wedding party venue) connecting Berlin to Potsdam, the capital of the region of Brandenburg. The bridge played a historically important role which gave it the name "Bridge of Spies". During the Cold War it was used several times for the exchange of captured spies and political prisoners between Western states and the Eastern Bloc. One of the first "exchanges" on this bridge is actually the foundation of the recent Steven Spielberg movie starring Tom Hanks called therefore "Bridge of Spies".

my cousins Stephan and Florian escaping the heat :-)

me with my dear cousin Ann

Party time!

I refrained from posting further party pictures, not only because most of the pictures taken that night were of wedding guests I didn't know, i.e. weren't any relatives, but also because as it is typical for party pictures, they are mostly blurred and don't really show the objects in their most favourable way :-)


What a nice wedding! Bene & Maren: ich wünsche Euch alles Gute für Eure gemeinsame Zukunft! Vielen Dank für diese Einladung zu diesem schönen Fest. Ich hoffe auch Ihr hattet einen unvergesslichen Tag.

I'm really happy for Bene & Maren and it was really great to see so many relatives again at this wonderful occasion. We're such a big family and it's so difficult to get us all together. What a pity that not all of us 16 cousins and all aunts and uncles could attend the wedding - would have been so great to see you all again! Hopefully soon!

Sunday, 9th of August:
Breakfast at the hotel with some relatives. After that it was already time for Marco and me to get on travelling - part III of our summer holidays. 10 days of camping holidays in Northern Germany laid ahead of us [click here for the post].

Thank you amore mio, Engelbert and R. Klöpsch for having shared your great pictures I used on this blog!