Married!

Tove and I were married on June 30, 2011 at the courthouse in Trondheim at 12:30 P.M.  It was a short and sweet ceremony conducted in a "ceremony room" at the courthouse.  Here is the text of the wedding vows:

PROCEDURE FOR A CIVIL MARRIAGE

                                               (Laid down by Royal Decree of 19 January 1996)

                                                               

You have come before me today to be joined in marriage. I wish to remind you of the deep significance of the commitment you are making to one another in choosing to live together in matrimony. By entering into marriage, you are promising to stand by and support each other for better or for worse, in prosperity and adversity.

However, you are promising each other more than that:

Marriage involves a pledge to love and be faithful to one another. Vowing to love each other for the rest of your life is the most difficult promise you can make to another person. It requires your setting high standards for your life together, and it requires your sincere desire to strive to achieve these standards, now and in the years to come. That is the promise that you are making to one another today.

When you enter into marriage, you become one, but you also remain two independent, equal individuals. There is no contradiction between love and unity on the one hand, and freedom and autonomy on the other. Love also means showing respect for one another.

It is my privilege, but also my duty under the law to impress upon you the importance of the promise you are now making to one another.

And now:

I ask you first        (brudens navn)

do you take            (brudgommens navn),

who is standing at your side, to be your lawfully wedded husband?

And do you,          (brudgommens navn)

take                        (brudens navn),

who is standing at your side, to be your lawfully wedded wife?

As you have promised each other - in the presence of witnesses - to live together in matrimony, I now pronounce you husband and wife.

After the wedding, we went to the Hjørnet Bar & Brasserie at the Britannia Hotel (http://www.britannia.no/content.ap?thisId=5544081).  The Britannia Hotel is the "Grand Dame" of Trondheim Hotels.  The lunch was delicious.  I had trout with vegetables served on a potato cake (almost like hash browns) and Tove had a nice chicken caesar salad.  I highly recommend the restaurant for a filling lunch.

After lunch we returned home to celebrate our nuptials with a small bottle of champagne given to us lovingly that morning by Tove's cousin Eva.  Coincidentally, we ran into Eva at the restaurant -- she was dining with friends.  She was so excited to see us there -- we exchanged hugs and expressions of love.  Eva will be the "Toastmaster" at our Bryllupsfest on July 9.

Our wedding night dinner was delicious as well.  We went to a charming old restaurant in town called "Grenadaren" 

We both ordered reindeer filet (caribou).  I tend to order reindeer whenever it is on the menu.  We enjoyed a bottle of Cotes du Rhone with it.  It was a memorable day.

We now await the arrival of Devon, Patrick and Piper.  They will get here on Devon's birthday!