The Wedding

I’m no wedding expert, but I’ve been to enough to know that the couple getting married doesn’t always have a very good time. It’s easy to see why, with all the planning, the expectations, the logistics, and the fact that — hopefully — you only have one chance to get it right. So I was a little surprised that it was such a fantastic day, and we enjoyed ourselves so much. That’s not to say that it was perfect, but the imperfections were harmless and pretty funny.

The Preparation

There were a lot of things about this wedding that weren’t like others I’ve been to. For example, Lisbeth made the wedding cake. It’s not unusual for the bride to make the cake in Denmark, but I’ve never heard of that in the US. (It was utterly fantastic cake!)

The party (or reception as it’s generally called in the states) was held in the back yard at Lisbeth’s parents’ house. If you’ve been following this blog then you know that they live in a really pretty setting, and so there was no debate where we wanted to have the party.

Many people came together to make this wedding happen. It was amazing. But no one worked harder than Frits and Karen. They had their place looking incredible (and it always looks great).

Another thing I didn’t expect was the æresport, or wedding arch. Apparently it’s tradition for friends and neighbors to sneak it up the night before the wedding without the knowledge of the bride and groom. In this case the secrecy didn’t work because the kitchen overlooks the garden, so we saw them putting it up.

Overall the help that friends, family and neighbors gave was very impressive.

The Church

We were married in Skibet Kirke — a church just a few miles from where Lisbeth’s parents live, and where she, her brother and her sister were confirmed. It’s a small and incredibly old church — around 850 years old — although no one knows exactly when it was built.

I took these pictures a few weeks before the wedding, when we went to meet the pastor and to do a quick run-through of the service. That’s another difference from American weddings — there is no rehearsal. I preferred it this way, as I think going through the entire ceremony beforehand sort of takes away from the actual event. The trade-off, of course, is that it’s more likely that mistakes will be made, but as Lisbeth’s mom points out, a wedding is sweeter if there are some mis-steps. And there were.

The only unpleasant part of the day for me was getting to the church. I wasn’t exactly sure how to get there, and hadn’t eaten lunch, so I was getting dizzy. I decided to stop to get a quick something to eat at McDonalds. But McDonalds in Denmark can be ridiculously slow. By the time all eleven people got something (I was with my entire family) I was getting close to panicking. Luckily we didn’t have much trouble finding the church.

The Service

There were indeed some missteps in the service. The church staff seemed confused about the time. They rang the bell five minutes before three, and this prompted the pastor to start talking about how the bride wasn’t there yet. I’d left my mobile in the car, so I had no idea that it wasn’t actually 3:00 yet. The pastor had made it clear to us that she would not speak English in the service, but to kill time she told the crowd, in broken English, a bit about the church, stopping occasionally to jokingly remind me that Lisbeth may have changed her mind. That went on for five minutes. It was hilarious, but only because I wasn’t worried — I was just hugely relieved that it wasn’t me that was late. So that was one misstep.

A Danish wedding service is similar to an American wedding, but there are some differences. The groom and best man sit next to each other near the altar in chairs on the right side of the church. The bride is escorted in by her father, and they sit in two chairs on the left, facing the groom and best man. Then, when the bride and groom go to the altar to exchange vows, the father of the bride moves over to sit with the best man so that the bride and groom can sit together for the remainder to the service.

The second misstep was that Frits didn’t take my chair after we got up. But the pastor simply prompted him to move, so it wasn’t a big deal. (I was glad, in fact, because I figured that would make me look less bad if I said “ja” at the wrong time, since the vows were in Danish. Luckily I managed to speak up at the right time.)

The third mis-step was more serious, but no amount of rehearsing would have prevented it. Somehow my shirt collar popped out over my suit jacket, which made me look… well, like an idiot. In the pictures above, I’d learned about the problem and fixed it, but in the two pictures below… well, I’m a little surprised Lisbeth went through with it, seeing such an idiot waiting for her at the alter.

It was surreal to walk down the aisle after the service. I felt a little dizzy. It might have been the momentous occasion. The knowledge that I’d just been part of a ceremony that has tied countless couples together in the very same church, on a fantastic day, with friends and family all around. It could have been that. But perhaps I somehow sensed how stupid I looked. Or maybe it was the hastily eaten Big Mac I’d had before the service. At any rate, I’ll never forget it. (The service, not the Big Mac.)

The Rice Bag Incident

Despite the rumors, rice does not kill birds (although I had to look it up to make sure). And the rice tradition is alive and well in Denmark. But, perhaps because Americans don’t often get to throw rice, there was a fourth misstep. Or perhaps it was intentional. At any rate, my own father abused me on my wedding day, and the following pictures prove it. (Well, actually they only prove that I was abused, but he did confess.)

In the first picture above, you can see a white object heading for my pants. That’s an un-opened bag of rice. In the second and third pictures you can see that the bag hit me squarely. I really had to concentrate in order to refrain from clutching my crotch. That would have made for some nice wedding pictures.

And just look at the how Diego — my brother and best man — reacted to my wedding-day pain. Not only did he not fix my collar, but he obviously rejoiced in my being hit in the balls.

The Garden

After the service we went to Lisbeth’s parents house and gathered in the garden. We’d had some very wet weather in Denmark for the weeks coming up to the wedding, so it was great that the weather was nice. Before we went into the tent, we posed for some pictures.

The Party

We had a very nice dinner (a catered buffet from a restaurant that my new sister-in-law Anne recommended, and that Frits and Karen generously paid for), and there were a few speeches. Frits gave the first speech, and I spoke after that. I’d had our friend Michael translate my speech, so I handed that out to the four people present that didn’t speak English.

The Danes have some wedding traditions that Americans don’t have. I’d been told about some of them, but didn’t really expect them to be carried out. And I certainly didn’t expect my own brothers to help out.

One of the traditions is that the bride and groom are surrounded as they dance the first dance of the evening. The groom is then swooped up, his shoes removed, and the toes of his socks are cut off. (The bride escapes unscathed, which is clearly unfair.) The groom often has his tie cut in half too, but my tie escaped that fate. Apparently these traditions are from “the old days” when women were expected to know how to sew.

The Aftermath

The next day, those of us that were still in town gathered at the house again for breakfast.

We spent the following week in a house that we rented nearby which is close to the beach. We’d rented a big van, so we visited Legoland and the Western sea. The sea in particular was fun, and there will be an entry about that soon.