the wedding ceremony

the wedding took place in a small church outside of Malmö. it was Greek orthodox and no one on the Danish side (including the groom) understood a word of it. the Greeks had kindly printed an explanation of what was going on but it didn't really help.

mostly, the priest spoke a lot, the guests stood most of the time with short periods of sitting down, then the couple walked around the altar 3 times, followed by the best men holding wreaths over the couple's heads, which was pretty hilarious as they were also trying not to step on the long train. the best part was the end, when the priest launched into a long speech that was directed at us, the audience. the Danish side had no clue what he was saying but he was very passionate about it and, being a frail old man of 86 with a few missing teeth, this made it all very funny. 

i can't remember if there was a part where they had to say 'i do' but the groom's mother seemed slightly peeved that there was no part about someone being able to voice their concern over the marriage. i'm not sure whether this was an opinion on Orthodox weddings in general or this one in particular. let's just hope it was the former.