That was a good wedding.
I am tired from it though.
What I liked about this particular wedding was while there were some speeches, there wasn't a lot of program. Instead, the focus was more on people spending time together and while there were a lot of unknowns to each other, everyone seemed pretty great - even after a few drinks. As one of the +1 people there (I knew my wife's friends of course), I was still able to strike up good conversations and have a lot of fun with people, who were surprisingly open (this is Finland) and happy to get into the weeds. Though for once, I tried to keep it very light.
The ceremony and the reception were at an old villa (not a typical Finnish style) that has been converted to an events location with a few rooms for guests, outside of a small town. The wedding party stayed there, while others like us were in hotels nearby or B&Bs. The town you might have heard of, but maybe didn't know it was a town, or that it was Finnish, since it is "Fiskars" - where the scissor and knife company started. As a kid at school we had Fiskars scissors. The town has a 400-year industrial history, and it is a beautiful place filled with buildings dating back a few hundred years. I will add a couple images of the town toward the end.
The father of the bride and then the happy couple. They are a little older as a couple and don't have kids, so it is a bit different perhaps for them to get married now. They put a fair bit of money into the venue and food and still were able to keep the evening casual and light. And because most guests were also older, the atmosphere was also a bit different to the weddings we have been to in recent years. Less stressed, more experienced. It was well thought out and we moved across the road from the reception place to a very old fire station to kick-on for the evening.
Where the dancing took place.
I only danced a bit at the end, but most people really got into it, singing away, having a few drinks and having a good time. People for the most part followed the dress code, though there were a few ties instead of bowties amongst the men. Not many, but a few.
And my wife wore her graduation dress.
This was taken toward the end of the night and she is still looking in good shape, even though for once she had a couple drinks. We normally don't drink much, but last night I had a few more than I normally have. No hangover though.
Some of her friends remembered the dress.
The evening ended relatively early at around 1am for us and we headed back to the hotel. In the morning, a group of four couples (all friends of my wife) met for breakfast and just chilled out for a a bit, before retiring back to the room before going to brunch. I went for a walk to see the town though, as I have never been in the area and it looks very different to the rest of Finland, because there are so many oak trees.
The town had the feeling of some American movie set in the south, where people would meet and gossip in the main square, and have baking contests. And the river that winds through it was really weird. I am not sure if they have shaped it, but where I walked it was incredibly shallow and maybe only a meter deep at the deepest I saw. This was of course used heavily for industry in the past, but it is now just a destination that people go for the beauty and the factories are all closed.
I was sceptical about the brunch.
But we had signed and paid up, so we went along back to the reception location. I thought it was a bit of a silly idea to have people turn up for brunch the next morning, but it was actually really great. About half the guests attended. We ate together and then spent a couple hours just hanging out, friends talking to each other about the night before, the location and catching up on whatever was going on and it was a really relaxed end to the event.
And when we were driving back (we went with friends), people commented how strange it was to feel so relaxed after a wedding, despite the drinking, lack of sleep and all the out of the ordinary. The event was also child-free, which probably added to the relaxation of the parents, but I think it was because there was little programming pressure on the evening and no rushed goodbyes in the morning that people could just ease away from the weekend.
Still tired, but happily surprised.
I think that my wife and I will visit this town again in the future, maybe for an anniversary or something or when my brother comes to visit. It would be pretty amazing once the fall colours burst out in a few weeks, but any decent warm day in the summer would put it in a good light.
A good weekend.
Taraz
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