Once again I find myself on a plane, on my way back to Scandinavia…
This time I’m meeting Rikard and his family to celebrate his mother's 70th birthday. Makes me remember my own mother's 70th birthday last year. Rikard and I went on an express trip to Mexico City to be with her. We took her to lunch to la Hacienda de Los Morales and had tacos de maguey and chiles poblanos and caballitos de tequila. We laughed and talked and it was wonderful. I miss my mom, my dad, my sister, I miss my friends, I miss Mexico.
This week I had the pleasure of having a couple of friends visit Lisbon, Laura, her bf Alex, Eddie, and his hubby Will. We celebrate Santos (otherwise known as the sardine festival haha) It was nourishing in a way that feels essential. We forget we need our friends, our family. At times it’s a way to recharge.
I’m thinking back on the Norwegian wedding, I owe y’all a Part Two. Seems fitting to write about it on a plane back to Scandiland. So here goes…
Day 2 of Ze Scandi Wedding
Rikard and I woke up with a small headache and about five and a half hours of sleep, but we didn’t want to miss breakfast.
At breakfast, we ran into Aysha, a Turkish girl living in LA. Her bf was playing the night before. They were flying to Portugal that day, another stop on his schedule. After a brekkie of salmon and eggs, we had two hours to get ready and meet the rest of the wedding party in the lobby to be shuttled off to Day Two of festivities.
It was a black tie affair so Rikard wore a dark blue and black tux, a crisp white shirt, and new shiny black shoes. I wore a new olive green dress from Reformation (my fave store for dresses for any occasion, plus they’re sustainable) white heeled sandals from Zara, and the same pearly clutch as the night before. We looked ravishing.
The first stop was a quaint wooden church built in the 1900s, this is where the wedding ceremony was to take place. The old churches in Scandinavia look entirely different from the churches I’m used to in Mexico and the US. While churches in America are cavernous and ornate, these churches in Scandinavia are small and cabin-like. The ornamentation is in the carpentry. It was beautiful but extremely hot, everyone was packed in like sardines and sweating bullets.
The ceremony was in Norwegian, and it took every ounce of energy to not fall asleep. At least it was much shorter than Mexican ceremonies usually are. At one point a very talented Norwegian singer sang a cover of a Celine Dion song and it made me cry… I love a good cry at weddings. After that, we were shuttled to the second stop, where the dinner and party would take place, the groom's father's mansion overlooking the Oslo Skyline.
Forgot to add that since both the families of the bride and groom are wealthy and famous in Norway, both the outside of the church and the outside of the compound was littered with paparazzi, honestly, it was both hilarious and exciting. Turns out we were papped and made it into the Norwegian media… thank god I was smiling while passing the cameras… it was sort of mortifying. Paparazzi photos below…
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to here, now, everywhere, forever to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.