Matthew in Norway: Marriage, Vows, & Peaches

I am now married to Benedicte Foldnes, making me the happiest and luckiest man alive.

Yes married. We both know that it is not the traditional way to begin a life together — date across the world for 9 months, get engaged for less than a month, have a courthouse wedding and a year later have an official ceremonial wedding — but let’s face it, we do not have a traditional relationship either. She is from beautiful Norway, and I’m from cool California. We met in “The Land Down Under” in Australia two and a half years ago during my missions trip. After talking only a few minutes, we learned that a year before we lived only twenty minutes away from each other and shared a same favorite burger joint in Pismo Beach when she did the same type of missions trip. We have a peculiarly exciting relationship. We realized a while back that we would have to break our cultural norms for this relationship to work out. We both have to make sacrifices to be together, but I’m sure some of you know what I mean when I say that ‘when you find the one your heart loves, nothing will keep you apart for long’. For us, not even a little puddle called the Atlantic Ocean kept us apart for long. I will be honest, we do not know exactly how having three weddings is going to feel at the end, but we do know that we are up for the adventure. We are both adventurous people, both have traveled the world, she has been to more countries than she can remember of the top of her head. So now we are officially living this adventurous life together, as man and wife.

Our small wedding day last Thursday was nice. We went to the courthouse in Bergen with her family and friends. We wrote vows together and said them there before our whitenesses — at the end of the blog I will write out our vows. The Norwegian judge was so kind to recite the ceremony in English for me, even with her Norwegian accent. She took her time and made it special. After that we took a cable car to the top of Ulriken and had an elegant mountain top restaurant. The view was beautiful and spectacular. Every little intricate detail of the city and surrounding islands is on display to see up there. The family spent time taking pictures of us newly weds and of the view — as you will see in the pictures at the end. On the way home, we stopped at my mother-in-laws parents house to tell them the exciting news. Then came home to relax with her nearby family for the rest of the warm sunny day. Benedicte’s cousin, Cecilie Foldnes, is an exceptional photographer, who happily took some wedding pictures for us that evening.

We also have a date set for our wedding party in Norway next year; July 27th, 2013. We will have it in her nearby church that her family is a part of. After that we will head back to California for our final wedding party where all the loved ones on my side will be able to join. We are thinking maybe on the beach back in California and a traditional Norwegian church wedding here in Bergen. We do not know what the date is for the California party, but sometime within the first two weeks of August 2013.

Speaking of weddings, we went one of her friend’s last weekend. It was my first time experiencing a Norwegian wedding. They are not completely different from American weddings, but I did find many of their traditions interesting. Songs are a popular tradition, not only in weddings, but for parties in general. Lyrics to the many songs are found in the wedding program. At various times throughout the usual 8 hour reception and once or twice during the church ceremony, the guests and wedding party will sing along in unison. Some of the songs are traditional, well-known Norwegian songs, while others are original songs that friends or family members have written to the bride or groom. Which brings me to another fun tradition. The brides parents typically write a song to her and sing it to her while the grooms parents typically do the same for him. These songs are quite comical, because of funny embarrassing lyrics and because they take a tune of a well-known song, like "Marry Had a Little Lamb".

Norwegian weddings involve many many speeches. The wedding we went to started at 1:00 pm in the church for an hour, then to a 2 hour break and picked back up for the reception at 4:00 pm. This eight and a half hour reception consisted of a speech, dinner, speeches, coffee, speeches, skits, speeches, dessert, speeches, videos, speeches, picture videos, speeches and speeches. And no, there was not a single dessert containing peaches :) The wedding party is a bit different also. Bride’s maids and Groom’s men do not really exist over here, just the Maid of Honor and the Best Man. In the wedding we went to there were two Maid of Honors and only one Best Man. Benedicte wants to mix American and Norwegian traditions by having two Maid of Honors, two Best Men, three Bride’s Maids and three Groom’s Men.

If you are reading this, that means you care about me and my new bride. I want to share our wedding vows we wrote together. We found some traditional vows, mixed them, removed some, rearranged and reworded a lot and added a touch of our own original words. Here is what we said to each other.

I, Matthew, take you, Benedicte, to be my lawfully wedded wife,

to have and to hold,

from this day forward,

for better, for worse,

for richer, for poorer,

in sickness and in health,

to love, to honor, to respect and to cherish.

I take you, with all of your faults and strengths, as I offer myself with all of my faults and strengths.

I will help you when you need help, and will turn to you when I need help.

I will comfort you when you need comfort, and will look to you when I need comfort.

I willingly take the responsibility and privilege of being your companion, lover and best friend in this life.

I promise to always lay my life down for you, to always put you before myself, and to never forget the reasons why I chose you.