The Danish Cannonball Run*

During October 2020, as the second wave of covid19 started to take hold in Europe, we at Danish Island Weddings watched sadly as country after country was closed to travel. With each closure, another international couple had to put their wedding plans on hold. By mid-October there was really only Norway and Germany still open for our couples to come from. And then at 1700 on Thursday, the 22nd October, the Danish government announced that from midnight next day the Danish borders were effectively closed.

That meant that none of our planned weddings could take place – unless we could get the couples into Denmark before the deadline! We emailed all the couples who had weddings booked with us in the next few weeks ahead, and told them that if they wanted to get married this year they should jump in the car now and head for the Danish border! Of course, lots had work or other commitments which made it impossible. But we got three crazy “yesses”, and so for the whole of Friday we were glued to viber, sms and whatsapp as updates flowed in from three different routes as our couples raced north. (What John, being a military man, really wanted, was a big situation screen in the office showing 3 little red blips hurtling towards the border. That would have made him happy).

Our registrars were, as always, brilliant. The head registrar promised us that if the couples made it to Ærø they would get married, even if they had to reschedule everything, do weddings combined with check-ins, and do weddings on a Monday (which they don’t normally do).

Excitement mounted late Friday as it started to look like all 3 couples would meet the midnight deadline for crossing from Germany, and one by one they all made it. 

For us the real work started on Saturday, especially for Yuki and Louise, who tried to pull together cakes, bouquets, hair, beauty and the rest of it at no notice. The Gamle Købmandsgaard Café made the cakes, Louise scoured the island for flowers, and Tina the beautician dropped everything in Copenhagen to be here on Sunday evening. To add to the challenge Sarah and Jake announced they simply had to get married in the lighthouse…no problem! 

Amazingly it all worked out, and the sun even shone. 

Congratulations to our happy Cannonball couples - Sarah & Jake, Lanre & Sabina, and Anastasia & Sven!

All photos in this post by Neli Garnet

(*PS – the Cannonball Run was a 1981 film, starring Burt Reynolds and Farrah Fawcett, about an illegal race across the USA)