So, in Danish Weddings (Part One), I told you about the Danish marriage ceremony.
Now that we’ve said “Ja!” (Yes!) to each other and are officially married, what next? Well, let’s get the party started, selvfølgelig! 🙂
Danish weddings involve lots and lots (and lots) of kissing. You’ll need to keep your wits about you!
Keep your ears open:
Ching, ching! Ching, ching, ching! Someone starts tapping a knife on their wine glass or plate. Then everyone joins in. Ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, ching, chiiiiiiiiiing! And you don’t stop making the noise until the Happy Couple get out of their seats, stand up on their chairs, carefully reach out towards one another (careful, mind you don’t fall!) and kiss. Mwa! And skål! (Cheers!)
Repeat at random. Over. And over.
Keep your eyes open:
You also need to keep your eye firmly fixed on the Bride and Groom. If, at any point, the Groom leaves the room to go wee-wee, then it’s open season on the Bride!
The men dash over to her, and queue up to give her a kiss.
Given that we are in liberal Denmark and there is full equality, the opposite applies selvfølgelig if the Bride leaves the room. Then all the ladies have a chance to go smooch the Groom. You might want to make sure that the Bride and Groom are drinking plenty of water, so they’ll need to leave the room often. Otherwise you’ll just have to lure them out under false pretences. Perfectly acceptable!
Join me next time for the next round of Danish Wedding traditions!
Diane 🙂
Ha ha bought back memories from my wedding to an Aussie in Australia. When suddenly the Danish guest started the tapping on the glass and we had to stand up and kiss on the chair. But the Aussie loved it because I was spending more time standing on the chair than sitting LOL. And then I went to the bath room and the girls( Danish) all applied their lipstick and up they went for a kiss. Have to say the Aussies loved the quirky Danish traditions… We got a lot of so what is next… And I am sure you will cover a few more wedding tradition in you next post.
Hi Anne! Yes, there are lots more wedding traditions still to come – watch this space… 🙂
Hi Diane! thanks for such an interesting post! I'm getting married in July and I didn't know about the kissing part :), now I know what to expect haha!
Congratulations, Madeleine – and stay tuned for the next instalment! 🙂
[…] Danish Weddings (Part One) we got hitched. In Part Two, we started the party, with lots of kissing by all and […]
Great wedding! That’s a good tradition to kiss all the time. I like that. Guess it’s happening on all weddings, especially when everybody gets drunk. Btw, the bride is really nice. And shouting JA is already a tradition in all around the world and not only on weddings.