So the day has finally arrived. We didn’t have any activities planned, other than the wedding itself, so it was a pretty quiet day until a quick flurry of activity towards the end.
We went for a walk across the river in the morning, and watched the swedish army doing parachute practice onto the frozen river. Not quite what you see everyday, so it was pretty interesting. After dropping four lots of chutists, the plane did a very low fly by over the lake (about 10 metres or so), before flying off to pick up another bunch of human drop bunnies.
It was quite “warm” today .. just 0C. Walking around in the overalls that the hotel supplies was actually quite a hot activity, and the temptation is there to take half of the gear off. Until of course you realise that it’s 0C, and that just ain’t anything other than cold.
So, eventually it was time to start getting ready. After a bit of a nervous wait, the photographer turned up to have a quick chat before he went and set up. Then the priest, who doesn’t speak a word of english, arrived at our chalet to say hello. He left, and we followed off to the ice church a few minutes later.
As we walked to the church, there were lots of people stopping and staring at us, taking photos, with one couple even asking if they could watch the ceremony. We told them they could, but they would have to wait until the very end until they left … something they weren’t too keen on.
We got to the church, and from then on it was pretty much a normal wedding. Apart from the fact it was in a church made entirely of ice, it was -9C and that the ceremony was in Swedish. We did attempt to sing the hymn in Swedish, but of course, not knowing the melody and not knowing how to pronounce any of the words it was a little difficult.
We had a translator for the ceremony, which was good, because otherwise we wouldn’t have had a clue what was going on. And it was also handy having another person there to help with the singing.
The ceremony lasted for about 15 minutes, after which we had about an hour with the photographer, taking shots in the church, under the ice chandelier, and in the Absolut Ice Bar. We had a couple of “colourful” drinks for some photos, and then it was all over. We came back to the chalet to warm up a bit before dinner at the restaurant.
I had been nursing a flu all day, and it was about now that it decided to hit with a vengeance. It could have had something to do with the fact that I was wearing a thin summer suit in sub zero temperatures but I just don’t know. And Caren, being Caren, was pretty tired. So neither of us really felt too up to going to the restaurant. But we did.
It was pretty good, however, the pricing is just ridiculous. I know I harp on about it a bit, but I paid about $50 for a small bit of reindeer (which was very nice, but still) and Caren had a $40 piece of salmon. We’ve worked out that if you want to have a really good holiday in Sweden, you’d need about $1000 a day for food and accommodation. Unfortunately, our budget doesn’t run quite that high.
Due to the aforementioned flu and tiredness, we had a quick main, and then it was off to bed. Husky rides tomorrow!