Preparations and more...     More photos from our big day

Our big day

September 15th started early for us, as the wedding ceremony was to take place already at 10:30 a.m. We were in the hotel's restaurant when breakfast started at 8 a.m. and hastily ate a couple of sandwiches before we hurried back to our room to have a shower and make ourselves pretty. For the ones outside the wedding party, this was a little early for long dresses. As mum (-in-law) Kari went out on her balcony, a couple on the next balcony, who were enjoying a beer each (not the first one that morning, we suspect), just ran into their  room looking somewhat confused! We had ordered horses and carriages to take us to the Town Hall, there should have been 3 of them, but only a couple of days before one of the horses died(!) poor thing, so there were only 3.

Stockings were necessary even on a warm day in September

We felt very "royal" when we arrived in a carriage

As one might have suspected in Greece, only one horse and carriage was ready in time, at 10:00 a.m. that was. But seconds before the reception manager of the hotel, who had dealt with the ordering of the horses, was about to have a heart attack, the other one showed up as well. Those who didn't get a seat in the carriages were about to be taken to the Town Hall in a mini bus belonging to the hotel by same manager. We were on our way, trotting along as the driver of the first horse was yelling and shouting at the other one all the way. Tourists and inhabitants of the city who were enjoying a late breakfast applauded us all the way past the harbor, but all of a sudden we were caught in the BIG TRAFFIC JAM. A big bus was for some reason trying to go the opposite way on the narrow harbor road, and cars coming in the same directions as we were did NOT want to reverse just like that! A Greek man in a pickup car obviously had not used his reverse a lot before, he reversed, turned his wheels, went forward, reversed and turned wheels again, every time ending up with his wheels on the pavement. That was, we were told, when the reception manager nearly got his second heart attack that day... But the bus finally was on its way, and we headed for the Town Hall full horse-speed. The photographer who was waiting there nearly was run down by the horses as the driver passed the Town Hall and headed for the end of the harbor! When we managed to stop him, turn around and go back to the town hall, it turned out he was about to take us to the church to be married!

Only slightly delayed, and still ahead of the vice mayor who was to perform the ceremony, we were taken to his office. The vice mayor performed the ceremony in Greek, while one of his handsome young secretaries translated into English. A "reversed order" ceremony compared to the Norwegian wedding ceremonies it was: In Norway you are first told a looong lesson about the contents of marriage before you are asked if you want to marry your bride or groom. But this was straight to the point, THEN came all the stuff about for better for worse, getting a lot of children and raising them to be useful citizens and so on. No time for second thoughts!

It's not easy to put on new rings when it's 30 degrees, your fingers feel like wooden sticks and sweat is running everywhere. But we got'em   on at last!

After the ceremony the was a lot of signing in big protocols, and of course photographing

The first to sign was the groom (of course!?)....

....and then his just-has-become-wife.....

....and the then best man .....

....and at last the maid of honor was allowed to sign.

The groom, the bride, the vice mayor, the best man and the maid of honor after the ceremony

But this of course was only the beginning, now it was time for the "real" photo session. After a few photos of the hole party, newly-weds with best man and maid of honor,  newly-weds with best man, maid of honor and photographer(!), the rest of the party sat down on a cafe for cold drinks. The newly-weds however were taken to an "all time high" (Skopelos town is steep!) for photos.

The whole party from Norway

Even if Siv is inspecting the rings very carefully.....

... the groom doesn't feel sure that it's real.

We are one of a few couples that comes home with a photo of us and the photographer - taken with the photographer's camera by one of the guests!

Then we left the others and started climbing the steps of Skopelos together with the photographer .

Some of the photos taken at top of the steps, you can take a look at here

After the photographing, it had gotten way too hot to run around in black suits and long dresses. We strolled back to the hotel, and found a beautifully decorated room. The staff had picked flowers and spread their leaves on our bed, and there was fruit and wine for us as well. We were feeling ready for lunch though, so on came the shorts, and we went for a loooong lunch.

Our room was very nicely decorated when we came back from the ceremony.

We changed into shorts and T-shirt before we had lunch. At this time we have been married for two hours and we still look happy!

The lunch actually lasted for such a long time that it was nearly dinner time again before we got back to the hotel. But we managed to get a short siesta, then the suits and dresses came back on and we went for dinner. We had the dinner at "To Gefyraki" ("the Owl"), were we had the restaurant's specialty, Stamnato. Yummy! After dinner there was some coffee and drinks, but the newly weds then were feeling ready for bed, and the other ones actually joined us going home though it was only around midnight. We have heard before that wedding nights are nothing like you're told, and we can confirm that - we slept like babies!

We're ready for dinner

He's serving Stamnato. No reason to look skeptical, it's very good!

When Hilde was "throwing" the bouquet, it "accidentally" ended up by  Liv Inger (Helge's sister). Helge seems to be very pleased!

  Latest update: February 13th, 2001