Ok time for a little update on the preparations. One week away from our wedding event, are we ready? According to our plan, we are 70% ready. So what happened and what will happen? Let us rewind a second.

A wedding requires some preparation it seems. Since the gods did not volunteer to help, we took it upon ourselves to organize the whole lot. The list of things to do was so long that we made a good ol' list using post-its on the lounge floor and I ended up putting it all into microshoft project - hey, it really works. As of today, it is true, we are .. 70% done! And it's going to cost some money.

Some of the main tasks? Booking the places for the various events of the day: the ceremony, the reception, the dinner and the party - and organise all the details. Once the plan is made it is just a question of going through it and making sure nothing major has been forgotten - then accept the consequences. Our goal really is to enjoy the event: I have seen (and heard of) too many weddings where the guests were having fun and the wed couple was just totally stressed out and on another planet. Then again, some weddings even the guests were not having fun (traditional Canadian weddings are famous for that!).. Lets see.

Traditions or not, it quickly became obvious that until we settled the dress situation, we would not get any further. Similarly, I need shoes! And they should be blue and shiny.

Wedding Step Numero Due: get a dress for the bride and shoes for the groom.

Finding Annika a dress without spending a fortune and falling in the wedding dress trap was easy, we just needed to go shopping until she fell in love with one. It happened first with a 3000£ John Galliano dress at Harrod's in London, but somehow it was a tad out of budget. I also fell in love with some 400£ blue stingray shoes, luckily out of budget and out of size..

Well, just one Londonian shop later was a Karen Millen with the perfect dress until death tears us apart. Total dress shopping time: 35 minutes. Wow. I sure want to marry you Annika! We spent the rest of our shopping time doing the Tate.

Wedding Step Numero Tre: book the places

The plan goes like this: 14h ceremony at the Round Tower church just around the corner, 15h reception with wedding cake and champagne at Gefahrlich (our favorite artsy cafe-bar-resto-shop-gallery) in multiethnic Norrebro, then time for a little nap, then 19h30 back downtown for a spanish dinner at El Tapeo (literaly 15 seconds from our doorstep), and at midnight the final party at our place, an easy tumble from the restaurant.

Some other major tasks were:
- make and send web infopage with hotel, guests & schedule info - order some orange flowers - find volunteer photographers for whole event - get a little suntan (it is dark & sunless up here) - decide hymns & poems - talk to priest - decide on afternoon buffet at cafe - print map & buy 5 bus cards to go to cafe - make cake design - find bakery and order cake - taste food and wine at restaurant - find pictures of all guests for placing people - prepare speech - prepare table setup and placement - clean & decorate appartment for party - buy & install disco ball and lights - make collage with old wedding pictures of grandparents and parents - find & install music system - find corpse bride movie for video dj - buy drinks and food at metro etc etc.

Oh yes, why in a church?? Well I did struggle with this question really, and so did Annika, and then not. Frankly, the main reason is simply because it is a nice place which we are allowed to use. It will give this feeling of grandeur and happening to the ceremonial part of the wedding. I asked the gods to give me a sign if they minded, but they didn't, so I guess I'm safe - and I promised Annika that I would behave. Do I adhere to religious institutions and traditions? Absolutely not. We must also say that in Denmark, even priests openly question the existence of gods, and the protestant church is pretty much as its name implies, protestant. This means there is no exams or special requirement to hold a ceremony in a church, and our priest is actually a woman. I heard the reason for being so open-minded is that they expect people like me to see the light one day. Well since it is mutual, it is a fair deal.

A special note must be said for the Trinitatis complex and its Round Tower which was completed in 1642. It was built to gather three important facilities for the scholars of the seventeenth century: an astronomical observatory, a student church and a university library. This is probably as liberal as a church can go.. As for priests, apart for their expected dogma which comes with the job, the ones I met have always been quite compassionate and caring people. So if it's ok with them, if it's ok with us, if it's ok with the gods, and if it makes some guests happy, why not indeed? It's a win-win-win-win-win and more situation.

Still, meeting with the priest last Friday was quite an event itself. She is really easy-going, though she also made clear she was no private party organizer: doing our ceremony in church did mean some limitations from our part. Then we talked about different cultures getting married in church, with examples of protestant and muslim couples, and she had to fall into the very European/Danish condescending conclusion that muslims are "the most extreme". I never thought I would find myself making a tolerance speech to a priest! On the contrary, I think muslims are the most realistic in their belief: "there is one and only one god"; no incredible stories about a virgin, or prophets turned into the son of god, let alone the first testament fairy tale. I asked if she ever travelled to muslim countries: maybe she would realize it is no different than here. That was my impression for Malaysia, Morocco, Bosnia and Turkey. All my muslim friends are far from fanatics, sorry. So we talked about hymns and what to do and that was nice.

What else? My family is arriving from Canada on Wednesday, so it is a straight line from now on! Today we are both burned out - not from stress, but from those sun machines.

But remember: whatever you do, never ever go play Bingo. It requires way too much time and way too little brain cells.. especially if you are busy organising a wedding and a move to China.