Although the number of single households continuously increases, people still get married.
Remarkably enough, education levels determine the time of their marriage:
the higher the education, the older couples are when they enter into matrimony.
In former times, year-long engagements were required. Nowadays short engagements are
common and most couples skip engagement at all.
There is an entertaining custom to "punish" men and women who reach the age of thirty
and still aren't married. Accompanied by their friends, those "offenders" are taken
to the city hall where the men have to sweep clean the stairs and the women have to
clean the shoe-polish-covered door handles of the building. Only if a "virgin" from
the opposite gender gives them a kiss are they allowed to stop their cleaning activities.
After church, the bride and groom either get into a car whose flower-decorated
hood shows everybody that there is a just married couple inside or they take a coach with horses
to take a ride to the restaurant.
In contrast to the U.S. where you can get married in hours,
in Germany you have to give a six-week notice of your intended marriage to the city.
After that, the civil wedding may take place in the city hall, usually only with a few people
such as two witnesses and the parents attending. Nevertheless, sometimes friends gather
in front of the city hall to congratulate.
Some days before the wedding, friends and relatives bring old porcelain and kitchenware to
throw on the ground in front of bride and groom. This is supposed to grant them a happy,
lucky life; that's why this evening event is called Polterabend
the evening with lots of broken porcelain. The German proverb which can be translated as
"Broken crockery brings you luck." is derived from this custom.
The Polterabend often develops into an informal and casual party.
If couples decide to have a church wedding in addition to that—and most do,
the civil wedding is scheduled one week or one day before the ceremony in church.