This is sort of the end-all, be-all of weddings. A crazy beautiful day that gets prettier by the minute featuring soft pastel hues, an eternally happy bride and groom and all kinds of amazing images (and I mean amazing) captured by the always-wonderful Alicia Swedenborg. In other words, it’s the literal definition of lovely… and you can bask in every last ounce of goodness right here in the full gallery.
From the Bride… Tom is a design engineer and I am doing my PhD in Psychology, we first met in London when working together and it was love at first sight (at least for me!). I ran home to tell my brother that there was a really hot guy at work, I put down some moves and he finally asked me out! At the time Tom rode a motorcycle and had a shaved head, I was still doing my undergraduate degree We moved in together after a month and got engaged 2 years later in Stockholm where I am originally from and my parents still live. Life happened around us, Tom changed jobs, I continued studying, we moved 5 times and it took us just under 3 years to plan the wedding.
We always knew we wanted to get married in Stockholm, I was born there, we love it there and most of my family live there. Its an absolutely stunning city and since we visit so often we thought it would be nice for all of friends and family from London to be able to finally see what we keep raving about.
When it came to planning the wedding we knew we wanted it to be intimate and personal. We wanted to be surrounded by the very closest family and friends to celebrate our special day. We chose Fjerholmarnas Krog because we not only loved the island, it had sentimental importance to both of us and my parents as it was where Tom asked my them for my hand in marriage just 3 years ago. We chose our church because we knew we wanted to ceremony and our vows to be in English, we did however have a reading in Polish as my grandparents dont speak English. Our reverend could not be more accomodating, kind, warm and funny.
The first thing we did when we got engaged was look for a photographer, I always knew I wanted stunning wedding photographs as I felt it was the one thing that really allowed you to remember the day as it happened. I found Alicia and it was like love at first sight – her photos were and are always stunning without fail. The second thing we did was secure the venue and make sure that all the dates lined up – we were pretty flexible with our dates, however, we knew we wanted to get married in June because it is the month of love and marriage. The June birthstone is pearl which I chose to wear as my only piece of jewelry in the form of earrings.
We wanted our wedding to encompass all of our nationalities and traditions, I myself am Swedish, Greek and Polish and Tom is English and Irish. It was fun trying to incorporate all of the different aspects as well as languages. We did so by personalising each persons menu to their native language and our speeches were filled with different languages. It was amazing to hear some of our English speaking guests tell us the foreign speeches made them cry even harder than the English ones!
Once we had finally set the date we began looking for stationery, we came across Cardlab who do gorgeous personalised invitations that are timeless. We wanted to convey the feel of the day in our invites so they had a touch of colour (navy blue ribbon), they were romantic, delicate and personal. Cardlab also helped us with our order of the day which was really important to me as it included all our different nationality traditions in it. We also included translations of cheers in every language and selected customs we chose to incorporate into the day.
We didnt start planning with a theme in mind, rather we just had key words we kept telling everyone we met with which were intimate, delicate, fresh, natural, summery and classic. We conveyed that through the really fresh and clean look of our venue, the table settings and our flowers. We wanted pops of colour throughout and for our flowers to look like we had picked them ourselves.
The girls wore navy and each of them got to pick any dress they wanted. We really wanted our bridal party to feel comfortable and natural so we didnt want to put any restrictions on them. The guys wore black suits and we bought them each their own individual ties from Duchamp and Union Jack socks to have a little bit of England with us on the day.
Tom wore a gorgeous navy Jacquard Duchamp tuxedo with bridal white lining, custom shirt with his initials and a black jacquard bow tie. I bought my dress at Mirror Mirror Bridal in London, I always knew I wanted a cap sleeve lace gown. Of all people I could have taken dress shopping I knew the one person I could really trust was Tom so he was there from the first appointment to my final fitting. He really was the one thing and person that was able to ground me and stop me from becoming bridezilla!
We wanted to make every guest feel special and welcome at our wedding as we knew how many of them were travelling to Stockholm especially for us. Each guest received a welcome tote bag when they arrived at their hotel filled with our favorite Swedish treats, drinks and some other gifts.
We spent a lot of time deciding what we wanted as our wedding favours. We chose DIY White Peanut M&Ms in jars instead of the more traditional (less tasty) White Sugared Almonds as our wedding favours (koufeta) as they are traditional in Greece. They symbolise health, wealth, happiness, fertility, and longevity. The white symbolizes purity and the shape symbolizes never-ending love.
They are traditionally given in odd numbers because they are indivisible, this symbolizes that the newlyweds will share everything and remain undivided. The bittersweet peanut taste is symbolic of life itself and the sugar coating is the hope that life will be blessed with more sweetness than bitterness.
We tied a Traditional Greek charm in the form of a small eye (mati) to the jar in order to protect the wedding celebrants from bad luck. We told guests to keep their evil eye after the wedding and put it in their home or on a necklace/bracelet to ward off any evil eyes!
Tom designed the tags on the favours and cut them himself on a laser cutter. We spent a whole night tying each individual eye onto each jar and then the tags. It was a labour of love and each guest took their jars home and we have since seen many creative ways of keeping their evil eyes! As an extra favour we didnt want any of our guests getting cold so we provided each guest with a navy pashmina and white fleece blankets. They really came in handy for the midnight BBQ when it got a bit chilly outside!
Can’t forget about the children! Each child got their own lego toy that they were able to assemble during dinner and each baby got their own rattle as well as a dummy (red lips for baby girls and moustaches for the boys!) which made for some great photo ops.
The morning of the wedding I got dressed at my parents home and Tom was staying at the Diplomat hotel where we spent our wedding night. The boys were surprised with Segways as their means to get to the church and explored Stockholm for an hour before they arrived. We chose to have our wedding photos done before the ceremony as we wanted to really allow ourselves to be with our guests after the ceremony. It was probably the best choice we made as it really started the day off well and we were able to mingle, chat and laugh with our families before the guests arrived.
One of my favourite parts of the day was when I walked out with my dad and I saw all of our closest friends and family standing there just for us. I only looked at Tom about half way down and tears started running down my face. I dont think I had ever been happier to see him, it really symbolised the beginning of our new chapter together.
After the ceremony we walked over to our boat which took us to Fjderholmarna (the Island), the boat ride itself was wonderful as we got to see the national parks of Stockholm and really show our guests how breathtaking Sweden is. We were so lucky with the weather and the sun shined all day long – I think I had obsessively been checking the weather forecast since early April!
It’s so hard to pick one favourite part of the day, but if we had to choose it was probably the dinner at the reception as it not only included lots of incredibly delicious food and amazing company of our guests but it also was when the speeches happened! My dad who is Greek did his whole speech in English and I was just so proud of him – he was so nervous but managed to make everyone laugh and cry all at the same time. Each and every one of the speeches brought the room and us to tears, it was so incredible to hear all of them and to share our personal stories with everyone that was there.
Tears probably ended up being the theme of the day as we cried before, during and after the church and continued well into dinner! There was just so much happiness and joy throughout the day, everyone was so in love with Stockholm and us which was the most amazing part. We really felt like we celebrated us and our new life as Mr and Mrs.
Advice for other couples planning: Dont start planning too early, try and make it a focused amount of time because weve had to change our plans 3-4 times resulting in about 3/4 different weddings! Try to remember that the day is about the two of you and celebrating your love so do what makes you happy.
Try and find a guestbook that you feel you will really be able to enjoy for the rest of your lives. We chose our guestbook tree so that we could put it up in our house and be able to remember that day forever and it really does make us well up inside to think of each and every fingerprint on it and how much it meant to us that each person was there to share the most amazing day with us.
Photography: Alicia Swedenborg | Floral Design: Blombyrn Nyfiken Grn | Wedding Dress: Intuzuri | Cake: Fjaderholmarnas Krog | Stationery: Cardlab | Ceremony Venue: Engelska Kyrkan Stockholm | Shoes: Louboutin | Tuxedo: Duchamp | Wedding Venue: Fjaderholmarnas Krog | Boat: Strmma Kanalbolaget | Bridesmaids Gifts: Kate Spade | Dress Store: Mirror Mirror London | Groomsmen Gifts: Duchamp | Guest Book: Bleu De Toi | Segways: Upp & Ner Upplevelser | Veil: Pronovias | Wedding Rings: Tiffany & Co.