This destination wedding makes my eyes practically pop out of my head.  In a good way.  Not only is the venue (Sodertuna Slott), surrounding area, and couple totally gorgeous, but the colors… and the dogs!  All the dogs! I am so in love!  Thx so much to uber talented Alicia Swedenborg for submitting this destination wedding!  First check out the photos and then read more from the bride!

From the Bride:

“Mikael and I met while we were both playing an online role playing game. The beauty of this is that he literally was my knight in shinning armor (albeit a virtual one!). Back then I was studying at Oxford and he was in Sweden doing the same. A couple of years later, a few of us ‘online friends’ decided to meet for real in London and this is when we fist met face to face. We got along extremely well and decided we wanted to see more of each other. Two more years of long distance dating passed before I moved and we started our life together in Sweden!

How did he propose? 
You might expect a romantic story full of flowers, champagne and beautiful sunsets but I’m afraid I will have to disappoint! We had discussed marriage a few times and we both knew it was something we eventually wanted to do, but we were in no hurry. I had just returned from visiting my grandmother and realised she was getting rather frail and it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to travel. So I turned to Mikael and said “We’re getting married”. He turned and looked at me and said “Oh. Alright! When?”

Our wedding was such an amazing experience that I don’t know where to start! Being two people with very international friends, the biggest treat for us had to be seeing everyone together at the same place gathered in our honour! It was so heart warming to see how many people had gone to extreme lengths to be present that day, travelling from the US, Saudi Arabia, Greece, Spain, Finland, the UK and France to name but a few countries!

My advice when planning a destination wedding is to start as early as possible! Especially when it comes to booking your venue, caterer, photographer, florist, band/DJ and anyone else who will be involved in your wedding. They will appreciate the notice and it will take a load off your mind! Be firm with your RSVP date and politely explain to your guests who are asking for extensions that other people are relying on you to get a final number too. I had a few people stringing me along till the last minute and for some of the things I had planned this was extremely annoying. To-do lists are your friends! Use one and feel the satisfaction of crossing off things! Finally, try to have everything finished a couple of weeks before your wedding and take a long weekend or even a week of holidays to get your mind off everything (and maybe get a tan at the same time too!).

I decided not to hire a videographer because I didn’t want them in my face the entire day. However when the day came, even though I tried my hardest to take it all in, it was impossible and I missed so much! I wish I had hired one now to film all these moments I was unable to see because I was getting ready, or taking pictures. It just goes by so fast! It’s impossible to really fully appreciate it the first time round!

When we started planning we looked at plenty of wedding magazines, websites and blogs and noted some things we liked. However in the end all the best things came out of asking ‘What truly represents us? What do WE like?’. Sure, we could have put together a beautiful classic wedding but in essence we are quirky geeks who love their dogs and we didn’t want people to forget that!

I was fortunate enough to have both my sister and my mother helping me, especially when it came to coordinating abroad for some items we needed imported. If you can get family members, your maid of honour or a friend to help you out it can be invaluable!
 Apart from the help that we received from my mother and sister in organising the wedding, my aunt who is a jeweller made our wedding bands and Mikael’s aunt who is a folk musician played the violin for our ceremony. Mikael’s brothers were our official dog sitters and my good friend Helen was our toast madam organising all the speeches and smooth running of our wedding dinner.

Finally we had a slight geeky theme going, lest people forgot whose wedding they were attending! The purple figured in the flowers, bridesmaid’s dresses, invitations,cake, favour bags and everywhere else we could manage to put it frankly! The dogs were included as much as possible (the only part they couldn’t attend was the wedding dinner on Saturday). The flower girls had a dog each instead of flowers and the dogs had their own doggie treat table at the wedding reception. Oh and one of the layers of our wedding cake had pawprints on it! Finally, to remind people of our geeky side, we had custom made purple dice with our names and the wedding date all over the tables at the reception, as well as wedding trivia cards. We also had made an evening program that inc luded games about us like a crossword. Our exit song was a variation on the Indiana Jones theme, and when we entered the reception hall we played the throne room theme from Star Wars. A game room was also set up for the enjoyment of our guests with various board and card games.”