The Saustrup Family Blog

The cake is ordered. Catering is taken care of. Parts of the garden pavilion is already in place. The brides dress has been ironed and the groom is pretty sure he knows where his suit is. Everything is under control. Except the weather.

The weather is completely out of our hands, and it’s playing tricks on us. We visited the website of the National Weather Institute yesterday, and none of us were too happy with the predictions: endless showers starting Thursday.

Weather forecast on May 13 (Lørdag=Saturday)

You can’t really fight the weather, so we did the only reasonable thing this morning - we bought an umbrella. I was slowly embracing the thought of our wedding photos being something like we’re completely soaked, it’s raining cats and dogs, but we’re smiling like freshly fed school children. Then I checked the weather service again. This morning is looked much better:

Weather forecast on May 14 (Lørdag=Saturday)

I guess nothing is certain at this point, but a little sunshine would be nice.

No, we’re not dead yet. Lots of things are happening these days, as we get closer and closer to the wedding. It’s less than a week now, and there are still a few missing pieces of the puzzle but we’re getting there.

The first draft of our motorcycle honeymoon road trip route was also put together yesterday. At first sight it looks awesome although possibly a little overwhelming. So far it’s around 4.500 km in total, so the bike is queued up for a change of tires before departure.

Honeymoon Road Trip - First draft (Google Maps / GPSVisualizer.com)

It’s one hell of a trip, but I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be awesome. I can feel it in my toes.

We’re hoping to get married on 3. May, but there are many pieces to this puzzle. Many dates that depend on each other, including Nina’s arrival in Denmark. Her visa hasn’t been issued yet, so we’re getting rather frustrated with the immigration office.

I think the original waiting period was initially around six weeks when she filed the application on 1. February, and this Friday we’ve been waiting for seven weeks. I’ve been calling them every Friday and all they can tell me is that they haven’t processed anything yet, and they need to send me a form which I have to fill out and return. This form can’t be sent from the immigration office, until their in-pile has reached a level where they feel they can process new forms. They can’t say anything about this level or when they might reach it. The only information I was able to squeeze form them last Friday was “two weeks is probably a little naïve” and “the waiting period is now 8-9 weeks”. Great.

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We want to do a wedding video when we’re getting married, so we considered various solutions for this. Still photos seem more important, but a nice video would be sweet too. A professional video photographer will easily set you back at least 2000 euros, and on top of this some of them have the nerve to charge at least 20 euros per burned dvd.

I can get my hands on a couple of video cameras - including a rather nice professional Sony HD camera - so at the moment we’re counting on good friends to help us out with the filming. With 2-3 cameras rolling during the ceremony and during the party, I’m pretty sure we can at least get enough usable raw footage to make a neat montage!

Sadly these guys are on another continent, so hiring them is not an option:

I bought a wedding dress three days ago. Whoa, it feels so incredibly weird. And nice, at the same time. You know, I am not a “dress girl” at all. I can’t remember when was the last time I wore a dress or a skirt. So the whole idea of buying a white (!!) beautiful (!!) dress (!!) was a bit scary.

I was postponing my visits to wedding salons. I was telling myself I will have enough time in Denmark for this. The truth is, I was a bit worried that I would not look nice in a dress, at all, since my physics are far from that of a photo model. Anyways. I gathered my courage and went to the salon last Monday. The second dress I tried on was “mine”. I didn’t even look like a merengue! So I paid for the dress and left it in the salon for fitting. Probably it was the fastest wedding dress shopping in the history. First shop visited, second dress tried.

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We’re getting married! I proposed on February 4. 2008, and even though it still feels new and weird, it also feels incredibly good. One thing is a bit of a bother though, and that’s the initial paperwork. The marriage office at Århus City Hall is being everything but cooperative.

Marriage - or in our case a civil union - is not really a tricky thing in Denmark. It’s not supposed to be, anyway. All you need to do is fill out a marriage application, attach the required documents and wait a couple of weeks for the approval. When you have the approval, you can make an appointment at city hall, and the actual ceremony takes 5-10 minutes.

If you’re both Danish, all the information required is already available and you don’t really need to attach any additional documents to the marriage application. If you’re not Danish however, you need to provide documentation of your civil status. In our case, we need proof that Nina is not already married in the Russian Federation.

“No biggie” I thought. Not the case.

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