Sølvbryllup --> Silver Wedding

In Denmark wedding anniversaries can be a big deal. The major wedding anniversaries that I know of are the silver and gold wedding. The silver wedding happens at the 25th year marker and the gold at the 50th year marker. Yesterday (and I suppose the early hours of today) I attended the party side of the silver wedding.

The silver wedding events are a week long thing. The night before the anniversary friends and family gather together to build an arch covered in greenery flowers and lights. Once complete they are transfered to the couple's home. Here the object is to set up the arch over the door front without them knowing. This however is just about impossible seeing as everyone knows the tradition and is expecting it. On the up side, this means a warm place for the freezing exchange student to stay and coffee once the arch has been rectified.

The morning of the wedding all friends and family gather at an early hour outside of the home to sing morning songs. This is suppose to wake them up. After the singing coffee and breakfast is served to all of the singers. Breakfast is the basic rolls with tradition morning topings such as cheese, chocolate, and other berry spreads.

The next free day (usually a saturday) the couple will have a formal party. Parties such as these are very much different from what happens in America. In America maybe there are two or three toasts and a buffet plus a live band and an open dance floor. No such luck here. We arrived at 17.00 and didn't end up finishing 'dinner' until probably 23.45 or so. We had an appatizer which was served individually, multiple toasts, then a buffet style entre. After the main meal there were more toasts and a few skits from the couple's children, siblings and other family memebers. There is a lot of pressure put of the couple's children because their form of entertainment has to be excelent. They are also expected to do a parody of a song in honor of their parents. Finially a buffet style dessert was served followed by the last of the toasts.

Another very differen thing is the singing. They sing all the time, though I was informed that this party didn't have nearly as much singing in it as normal. After dessert coffee was served and the area was cleared for dancing. The particular party I attended was a bit more religious if you will, so the dancing was folk dancing. Folk dancing... All I can say is that it is every teenager's worst nightmare, but let me tell you, it was sooo entertaining. After the dancing was over a finally song was sung for the couple and a 'get-out' meal was put out.

All in all, we didn't end up leaving until 02.00. It was a very fabulous and interesting event. There is a lot of tradition in this even that I don't think is as evident in America.