In a normal game the Q ♣ queen of clubs determines who is part of the Re party. But what happens if one player holds both Q ♣ queens of clubs ? We call this case a Wedding ("Hochzeit").

If you’ve got both Q ♣ queens of clubs you’ve got two ways to deal with this situation:

1. You say nothing and play by yourself. You alone against three other players (just like a solo. In this case you’re playing a “silent wedding” ("stille Hochzeit"). spielst damit eine “stille Hochzeit”.
2. You declare that you’ve got both Q ♣ queens of clubs at the beginning of the game and want to play a Wedding.

A silent wedding

If you chose the silent wedding, the Q ♣ Kreuz Dame remains the card that determines who constitutes the Re party. In this special case there’s only one player. The silent wedding is a Solo and you play against three other players, all by yourself.

To play a silent wedding you simply do nothing. Just start playing like any other regular game and watch your partners being puzzled trying to figure out who they’re playing with.

Your advantage with a silent wedding is the secrecy: While you’d have to declare every other solo at the beginning of the game (we’ll dive into the details in a bit), you simply remain silent when playing a silent wedding. The other players (your opponents) remain clueless for a long while and are wondering who they’re even playing with. Once you reveal your second Q ♣ queen of clubs they notice what on earth is going on. This lack of clarity on your opponents’ end is your biggest advantage. Your opponents often don’t have any chance to schmear a lot of points while you’re scoring card points yourself. You do need a pretty strong hand to win a silent wedding, though.

The silent wedding is scored like a solo. Like any other solo, bonus points (Charly, catching a fox, Doppelkopf, …) do not apply.

A normal wedding

If you don’t consider your hand strong enough to win against 3 players you should consider your second option and declare your wedding. To do so you declare loudly that you want to play a wedding before the first card has been played. Usually this works by the dealer asking the players in order (starting with the player to the left of the dealer) if they want to declare a special game contract (a solo or a wedding, for example).

Once it’s your turn when stating your preferred contract, you simply say “wedding” (we’ll look at this process in more detail when we talk about contracts).

When playing a normal wedding, the two Re players will find each other over the course of the game. The player who wins the first trick¹ joins the Re party together with the player who declared a wedding. If the wedding player happens to win the first trick themselves, the same idea applies to the second, then the third trick. Should the wedding player win the first three tricks, the party-finding phase is over and the wedding player continues playing by themselves against three other players.

Announcements during a wedding

When playing a normal wedding, the party-finding phase can take up until the end of the third trick. In general, announcements and bids can only be made once the game contract is clear. In all game types the contract is immediately clear (even in a silent wedding). The regular wedding (where you announce that you’re playing a wedding) the party-finding phase takes longer. This means that announcements and bids are not allowed until the two Re players have been found — or until it’s clear that the wedding player continues playing by themselves. The moments in time where you’re allowed to make bids and announcements get postponed by the number of tricks it took for the Re players to be found. If, for example, the second trick was the one where the wedding player found their Re partner, “Re” and “Kontra” can still be announced until after the third trick, “no 90” until after the fourth one, and so on.

In a silent wedding the contract is immediately clear (it might not be known by all players but the party affiliation no longer changes throughout the game). In a silent wedding, you’re immediately allowed to make a “Re” announcement and boost the game points by doing so. But beware: If you decide to make an announcement during a silent wedding you reveal some information and might give away one of your biggest advantages.

Apart from the delayed party-finding process, the wedding is a regular game that’s scored accordingly. Bonus points still apply.

Time to practice

In the following game you will be asked for declarations before a game starts. If you happen to have two Q ♠ queens of clubs you can declare that you want to play a wedding. Other players will also declare a wedding if they can. Depending on your luck this might take a few games.

Also, solo games are enabled for the following game — but you can simply ignored that until you’ve read the solo chapter.