Heinz Lehmann MDL

Ladies and Gentlemen, dear Bride and Bridegroom Franziska and Steven

I would call it now a fit of high spirits, my plan to address all of you in my role as the father of the bride with some good words in understandable English.
After consulting some of the abundant in the internet available samples I know: It is a task to difficult to fulfill for a person with my command of English.
Instead of giving an elaborate address I will tell you a fairy tale.

A fairy tail of a girl that grew up in a small town situated on the banks of the river Spree.
It was a nice girl in good spirits and originally chubby cheeks, with no problems at school, with a bias for books and vegetarian diet, with caring parents and charming siblings.

Everything went well until the family moved into the new home.
Everybody got his own room.
The girl got a nursery on the ground level.

What she not knew: Her room was a former smithy where for a long time several conspicuous things were going on.
After the old blacksmith had died the place became a meeting point for spiders of any kind.

Even after converting the smithy into a nursery the spiders did not stop to visit the place.
Although the girl loved domestic animals, she could not stand spiders.
She tried to chase them away where ever she saw them.
On night she smashed an especially big exemplar and hung it on the door to deter all further spider attacks.
It worked out well.
What she not knew: The smashed spider was the daughter of the spider king.
And that the old king cast an evil spell on the girl saying:
I make you from this very moment on wandering restless around without any chance to finding a boyfriend.
So it happened.
The girl grew older, became a nice young lady but couldn’t find an appropriate partner.
It was worrying her more and more.
But as a graduated media assistant and with 2 years at the university finally she had a good idea.
She decided to ask the magic mirror, in modern terms the internet
and found after long nights of searching an important advice.

It said: The spider king is about to die. The spell he cast is losing its force.

And: You can escape from it instantly when you go north cross the big water and find a certain place where a nice lot is living.

A lot where even men go around in skirts,
where the main food is haggis with whisky,
where the most popular leisure time activity is tossing the caber
and where the football teams always losing their matches against continental clubs.

With some luck you will even find a prince, your prince.

Without any hesitation the girl left her parents and siblings.
In a cold and windy February night, despite the tears of her mother, she took the train to Düsseldorf, boarded an aircraft and landed ultimately in Scotland.

Following the promoting of her heart she found a place with a type of prince living in it.
Instead of a steed he had a snooker table, because he had lost his license to ride – in modern words his drivers-license.
All the same she fell in love for him and the spell of the late spider king broke once for all.

I told you a fairy tale.

Sometimes fairy tales become true.

Finding a partner over the distance of more then 1.000 miles was some years ago hardly imaginable.

Even under modern circumstances it is no normal situation.

The more should we be glad that we are now here together, to celebrate the real outcome of the fairy tale.

As the father of the bride
I am glad, that we are here all together.
I am glad that Franziska and Steven got each other.

I am glad that both of our families have enlarged substantially.

I thank everybody who contributed to this beautiful wedding-party.

I wish all of us some joyful hours.
Ladies and gentlemen, I now invite you to be upstanding and drink a toast to the bride and groom Franziska and Steven.