A 10-10-10 Wedding in Sweden

We did it! Got married at the Gothenburg City Hall on 10.10.10 day. Pretty awesome, eh! Along with thousands of couples, including an IKEA wedding. We still have a wedding in India but we needed to be legally married somewhere.

Since getting legally married in India would be a nightmare and a half, we figured Sweden was easier. If you already have a personummer, you just need to fill out a vigsel anmälblanketten and send it to Skatteverket. Then you need to make the application to the rådhuset in the city of your choice. Stockholm rådhuset for wedding has a four month waiting period. Holy crackers.

Be aware, wedding days are only on Saturdays in Sweden. As it turned out, Göteborgs Rådhuset was closed on October 9th and allowed for weddings on October 10th instead. When Þorbjörn and I got engaged, we thought it would be awesome to be married on 10.10.10. We could never forget the date.

So we filled out our forms, I attached a “please let us marry on October 10th 2010!!” note and voilà, we got our date!

As usual in Gothenburg, Saturday was a lovely and sunny day and Sunday was overcast and blah. Blah blah swedish weather strikes back. But no one was going to stop the bride from champagne and a Swedish-American wedding.

We had brunch at Skansen Kronan, a cool old fortress tower in the middle of the city with an awesome view. Wait staff was friendly and food was delicious. Skansen Kronan was romantic and dark inside and appropriately, I ate Swedish waffles. Because that’s what a bride can do. Eat delicious waffles and lots of whipped cream (sadly no Nutella!!!).

And then 30 minutes later, the waffle irons blew the circuit and the kitchen had no power. The staff had to end service a little earlier. Don’t blame me; my friend had five waffles. He broke the waffle iron.

Afterwards, we packed up the car with tons of crap and returned home at midnight. Since parking on Sunday night is impossible in Stockholm, he returned the rental car. And dropped the keys into the drop box.

When Þorbjörn came home, he asked: “So where is the vigselbevis?”
Me: “Uhhhhhh…. I think it is in car”
Him: “Oh Shits…”

At 9am I ran off to Hertz to check the car. Car was fine, he was loaded on a tractor rig with 12 other cars waiting for their adventure to the airport.

Whoops…

The guys who worked at Hertz were really nice. They found the car on the rig and found the marriage license.

Phewww. Leaving our marriage license in a rental car was my first accomplishment as a wife.

And by the way, happy 42 day! (101010 in decimal is 42) The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

BTW, since I’m posting this on 10-11-10 (or 11-10-10 for you Europeans), I should say a big congrats to my parents who are celebrating their 30th anniversary together. And they’re still together driving each other crazy. Just kidding. :D

Here is a photo from their wedding day, 30 years ago: