A more accurate title for this page might be “The Wedding of Rainer and Anita”, but as this website is more about places than events, I’ve entitled it for the starring venue for the day, Weingarten’s Basilica of St. Martin (or Sts. Martin and Oswald, to be precise). The Basilica is unquestionably Weingarten’s top attraction, and I’ll get to it, but the day was a busy one, spent at a series of venues, and the first was a Weingarten building called the Schlössle.

The Schlössle (“little palace”) is one of the city’s oldest buildings, first built around 1550 as the administrative seat of the imperial bailiwick of Swabia. Given the date, it shouldn’t be too surprising that it was built in Renaissance style. In the 18th Century, the building was redone in baroque style (with some beautiful stucco work by Franz Schmuzer) and became the residence of the imperial district judges. In the 19th and 20th Centuries, the building served as a residence for several officers, and in 2001 it became a museum of the city (the Stadtmuseum im Schlössle).

The upstairs floor in the Schlössle has rooms that are sometimes used for temporary exhibitions, and at other times are used for other purposes. Our purpose in visiting the Schlössle was to use one of these rooms for a sort of civil marriage ceremony, which would involve a local official and the signing of papers. This would be a small ceremony, with only family and some close friends in attendance. And a photographer, who took some pictures of the happy couple prior to, during and after the ceremony. Starting with some in the courtyard behind the building.

The guests gathered in the courtyard, and at the appointed time we made our way upstairs for the ceremony. In addition to the procedures, the official offered advice (I think – it was all in German, this being Germany), and there was an exchange of rings. And applause, of course.


In the courtyard after the ceremony, Rainer’s brother Ralph and his wife Miriam (Ralph was acting as Rainer’s Best Man) presided over an additional procedure, which involved a large plastic sheet being transformed into a portal to matrimony. Hard to describe – just watch the video:

If I understand things correctly, Rainer and Anita were legally married at this point. But we were just getting started. As soon as Rainer and Anita had successfully navigated the giant heart, everyone got into their cars and we all headed to a restaurant for lunch. This fortified everyone for the next event on the day’s itinerary. Baden-Württemberg may have been satisfied that a marriage had taken place, but the Church had yet to weigh in. After a break to allow everyone to collect their wits (and for some to make wardrobe changes), we all headed to the local place of worship. And what a place it was!

There has been a monastery on top of the Martinsberg (a hill just east of central Weingarten) since 1056, when Welf I, Duke of Bavaria, founded a monastery for the Benedictine order. In the 12th Century, a Romanesque abbey church was constructed for the monastery, which seems to have acquired the name “Weingarten” around the time work on the church began (the town was known as Altdorf at the time). Over the next few centuries, the monks of Weingarten performed a number of monkish duties, the most well-known being manuscript illumination. Between 1715 and 1724, the Romanesque church was demolished and replaced by a new one which was Baroque in style. The plans for the new church were developed by Franz Beer as part of an ambitious plan for the entire monastery complex. The overall plan was only partly completed, but the church was largely finished by 1724 and is essentially the one seen today.

During a major restructuring of German territories in the early 19th Century, the abbey was dissolved, and became the property of the Kingdom of Württemberg, and over the ensuing century, the abbey rooms were used for a number of secular purposes. With the dissolution of the Kingdom following World War I, an organization called the Beuronese Congregation acquired the abbey, and Benedictine monks were returned to the property. They were evicted by the Third Reich during World War II, but returned after the end of hostilities, with the church becoming a papal minor basilica in 1956 (the source of its name; architecturally, it's not a basilica at all). Since then, the population of monks at the abbey has dwindled, and the rooms have largely been used for other purposes (such as education and housing of refugees).

The Basilica was designed to be half the size of the immense St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and is actually somewhat shorter than that, but 46% of a St. Peter’s is still immense, and the Weingarten Basilica at 335 feet is the largest baroque church north of the Alps. A unique kind of place to hold a wedding!

We parked behind the Basilica and made our way to the front by way of the north courtyard. Besides the Basilica, the north courtyard is the only part of the abbey that was completed, more or less, according to the original plan. One of the surrounding buildings had a sundial on its face, whose shadow showed us that the time was just past 1:00, and sure enough, when we consulted our watches, we could see that it was … 2:37. Probably a rounding error.

The front of the Basilica was as imposing as expected, with the drama being heightened by some threatening clouds. Looking towards Weingarten’s Old Town, we had a view of its rooftops, as we were on top of the Martinsberg hill.

We entered the church, and were immediately impressed by its vast interior. We were early for the ceremony, so we took time to note some of the Basilica’s Baroque features.



The ceiling frescoes were done by the famed German painter and architect Cosmas Samian Asam. Cosmas sometimes worked with his brother Egid Quirin, but apparently he worked solo on this project. We’ll have more on the Asam brothers when we get to Munich.

The church’s main organ was built between 1737 and 1750 by Joseph Gabler and has gone through a number of restorations. The most recent restoration, in 1981-83, was intended to return the organ as closely as possible to its original state. The organ has 63 stops and 6890 pipes, and is famous for its Vox Humana (human voice simulation) capabilities. It’s apparently difficult to play, as all of its action is mechanical, and a fair amount of force is required from the player for each note. One of the requirements for the organ’s design was that the pipes not block light from entering the church, and Gabler appears to have done a good job of this.

Like any great Catholic church, the Basilica has a prestigious relic, this being a small amount of the blood of Jesus. According to tradition, the blood (actually blood-soaked earth, from the foot of the cross) was collected by Longinus, the soldier who pierced Jesus’s side with a lance. He placed it in a leaden box and buried it in Mantua, Italy (presumably to protect it from the Roman authorities). It was discovered centuries later, in 804, and exalted by Pope Leo III, but was again buried during the Hungarian and Norman invasions. It was rediscovered in 1048 and re-exalted, this time by Pope Leo IX, and was divided into three parts, one of which went to Holy Roman Emperor Henry III. Henry bequeathed the relic to Baldwin V, Count of Flanders, who gave it to his daughter, named Juditha. Juditha married the above-mentioned Welf I, Duke of Bavaria and founder of the Weingarten monastery, and the rest is history, as if there hadn’t been enough of that already. The presentation of the relic took place in 1090, on the Friday after the Feast of Ascension, and an annual procession known as the Blutritt (blood ride) has taken place every year since, on that day (except for a 37-year gap in the 19th Century). When not riding around Weingarten, the relic is displayed in a reliquary which looks like a gold-decorated red pillow, in a windowed marble table under the Basilica’s main altar.

Which brings us to Rainer, standing up near the altar, waiting for something to happen.

As Rainer waited, guests were arriving and filling the pews toward the front. I’m not sure how many guests there were, but there were many more than there’d been at the Schlössle. Not nearly enough to fill up the Basilica, though (this might have taken the whole city). I won’t cover the ceremony in great detail - it was beautiful and commenced at the appointed hour and followed much the same procedures as Catholic weddings all over the world (except in German). But here are a few highlights:


With the ceremony concluded, everyone left the church and congregated outside, for photos and greetings.


For additional fun, there were bubbles and a balloon release.


Then the bells started. This may have been a signal that it was time to leave. And it was. There was a party to be started.

In Lindau. Lindau is a city of 25,000 at the east end of the Bodensee, located in an appendage of the oddly-shaped state of Bavaria. It’s about 35 minutes from Weingarten, so all of the guests (including us) loaded themselves into appropriate vehicles and headed south. Eventually we all converged on the Hotel Bad Schachen, on the shore of the Bodensee. No, this isn’t a case of startling humility, and there isn’t any Hotel Good Schachen anywhere. “Bad” is a word that refers to bathing, and in the summer, this is one of the many activities to be enjoyed in the area. But not so much on the day of our visit. First of all, we weren’t exactly dressed for it, and second, the weather was threatening, and it would be raining with authority before the evening was over. But before the cats and dogs started to fall, we had a chance to give the hotel and its surroundings a pretty good look from the outside, and it was clear that this would be a glorious place to stay in weather that was sunnier and warmer.




Things inside the hotel were very nice too. To somebody coming from a country where someone running a hot dog stand that was started by a parent qualifies as a “family business”, the Hotel Bad Schachen seems positively dynastic, having been run by the same family since 1752 (seven generations, going on eight). And they didn’t survive this long by giving poor service. A ballroom had been secured, and it was decorated beautifully. And dinner was wonderful, when the time came. There were heartfelt speeches and toasts (which we didn’t understand), some cute kids sang a song, and there were reception rituals involving cutting things and throwing things which were pretty much the same as seen in wedding receptions in the U.S.


In the end, the reception lasted longer than we did. It had been a long day, and we were still feeling some of the effects of jetlag, so when we felt ourselves starting to drift off, we made our farewells and found our way back to the nearby motel where we’d registered earlier (fortunately the rain had mostly let up by this time) for some much-needed rest. And as usual, we already had plans for the next day. First, we would pay a visit to the city of Ulm.