Polterhochzeit

This is my niece and her newlywed husband sweeping the broken porcelain at their wedding party.

She got married last week already (see here) and celebrated that day only with parents and brothers and sisters.

Today the wedding party, a Polter-wedding (Polterhochzeit), for the entire family and friends took place.

If you are interested in the custum and why and what the couple is doing:

A Polterabend normally takes place in front of the house of the bride (or that of her parents) before the wedding. The couple generally announces the occasion but does not specifically send out individual invitations. Word spreads via word of mouth, and those with a desire to show up may do so. Many couples use this as a way of including people whom they are not able to invite to the wedding itself.

The actual high point of the custom is the throwing onto the ground of porcelain that has been brought. Flowerpots or ceramics such as tiles, sinks and toilet bowls are also happily-thrown items. Forbidden are glasses (glass stands for happiness that should not be broken) and especially mirrors (as a broken mirror will bring seven years of bad luck). The couple must take care of the cleaning up. This is supposed to make the couple aware that it will have to work together through difficult conditions and situations in life.

Relatively new is the so-called Polter-wedding. In this case, the wedding is combined with the Polterabend, and the smashing occurs in conjunction with the wedding reception.
This is how they decided to celebrate with all of us (I think a little late after the actual wedding, but its their wedding and not mine, so don't pay any attention to my opinion).

It was an extended party night (reason for this backblip). It rained several times, we had little rivers streaming across our tent, the mud was everywhere, but we had a lot of fun.
Sunday blip will show the location and the clean-up team.