Real Danish Wedding

The highlight of our trip to Denmark was the wedding of our friends Keith and Dorthe. They live in New York and already had a civil service but this was a traditional wedding for Dorthe's family and everyone else who could make the trip. It's great to have a wedding with such a small crowd- you actually get to talk to everyone and it makes the whole thing more intimate. The church service was partly in English and partly in Danish. What was really interesting for us was all the different customs. The service was at three o'clock so we took James to the church though I held him in the outer aisle for fear of interrupting, he never made any outcries. The church building itself was beautiful and of course, very old, begun in the 1100's and 'remodeled' in the 1700's. After coffee and cake following the ceremony, we headed to the coast where the reception was held at a beautiful spot overlooking the bay. Danish tradition includes a lot of food, songs, dancing, and very long toasts (the longer the better they say). Dorthe picked the menu and even helped prepare some of the excellent food for about 70 guests. We actually went around the room and introduced ourselves after everyone sat down initially. I felt like we were at camp or something but it was very interesting and entertaining. The directions were to tell your name and how you knew the couple, which every Dane did almost without exception- every American on the other hand had some funny story to tell and made a big show of the whole thing which was hilarious. Most of the relatives and a lot of Dorthe's friends had prepared a speech, a game, or a song (lyrics were handed out to everyone and included an original by Dorthe's mom that had at least a dozen verses sung to 'Clementine'- luckily the guitarist stopped every couple of verses for a toast of 'Skole!'). We sang 'When I'm sixty-four' which we think should be done at every wedding. One of the best traditions that we should also import is that when the bride goes to the bathroom, all the women in the room line up and kiss the groom (and vice-versa) in a long conga line- very fun. Then of course there is the cutting of the socks; everyone picks up the groom after he dances the first dance with his wife and pulls off his shoes and cuts his socks in half. I thought they were making that one up but they did it anyway.
James spent the night with a nice neighbour of Dorthe's mom (I have to say many, many Danes look like supermodels and this family- we met them all the day before- was no exception) where he played with his first Legos. We were the first people to leave at about midnight because we had to pick him up and go let the dogs out, but the dj was just starting up at that point; apparently 12 hours of reception is pretty normal in Denmark. They even have a second round of food for the late night. Interesting cultural differences aside, it was an AWESOME wedding, one of those you don't forget and was enjoyable from the first toast. Cheers to the couple and their families!