German Jan travelled to Sweden for a design internship and met American Jordan who lived there. After three weeks together Jan had to go home, but kept the relationship going through text and phone calls. Three months later Jan moved to Stockholm so they could be together and six years later they were married!
The couple had two wedding days and two ceremonies – their more personal one at Skinnarviksparken park followed by cake, champagne and photos on July 2nd, and the legal one at city hall the day after.
“Due to Covid, this was the third wedding we planned in entirety”, they told us. “We downsized from a massive three day event at a castle, to a sit down dinner at an old ironworks, to finally a simple ceremony and reception in a beautiful city park overlooking Stockholm City Hall. In Sweden, most people have a civil ceremony that is mainly paperwork and a public ceremony with friends and family. We decided to wear two different sets of suits to mark the occasions differently.”
The personal vows was both of their favourite moment of the two-day celebration. “Our friend Christian married us at our public ceremony. We wrote our own vows that we hadn’t read to each other before that day. We both cried and our guests cried. At the very end when Cristian boomed, ‘Now you may kiss your HUSBAND!’ I just never thought I would hear those words in my life. We are so, so happy to have shared that day with our friends who were able to make it.”
Their theme was midnight blue and silver, their favourite colours. They even asked their guests to dress on theme so their pictures would look incredible. Jan wore a floral suit from Moss Bros while Jordan was in a striped one from ASOS. For their city hall ceremony they both wore checked suits.
“Since our huge wedding plans all fell through, we still felt that we needed an iconic ‘moment'”, they continued “Since both of our names start with J, we invested in a few dozen J balloons in silver mylar. We filled them with helium and tied them together in larger bouquets. They reflected the sun and the surroundings beautifully as we walked with them to our ceremony.”
Their advice to future wedding planning couples is something we hear so often – get a wedding video! Jordan concludes, “This is the most important day of your life. Enjoy it! Try to be in the moment, with no worries or thoughts towards what ‘needs to be done.’ We really didn’t think we needed a video, but after the event we begged our friends to share any video they had taken. This is something we should have planned better for.”
