Trollenas Slott Castle Wedding Prep and Ceremony

The last phase of our Epic Swedish adventure is the most interesting one of all. Our amazing experience of a White Tie Wedding in a 500 year old Swedish Castle! But first, we needed to get to the castle and get everything ready for the wedding!

Trollenäs Slott

My friends spared no expense when it came to their wedding plans! The bride to be had a decadent gown from Pronovias, with a 4 foot train, intricate veil, Swarovski jewels and so much more - so of course it couldn't just be any regular wedding in a church!

We embarked on our trip to the Trollenäs Slott Castle which was a couple hours drive away. We ram-packed 3 cars full of people and wedding stuff, and myself and 2 other bridesmaids were buried under the wedding dress in the back seat of one car. So over mounds of fluffy cloth I caught a glimpse of some cool landmarks on the way...like this gigantic CHAIR in the middle of nowhere!

Giant Chair

You'll also see an old windmill, as well as amazing Renewable Energy projects that they embarked on with new, sleek, huge windmills lined up along the countryside. This provides countless power for a multitude of people in the country. Again, go Sweden!

We finally arrived at the castle at night, and we didn't get to see the full grandeur of it because it was SO dark outside...we were literally in the middle of nowhere! Some of us were left behind as they needed to make a second trip for more stuff. We didn't even realise what that meant until 4 of us - 3 women and one man - were alone in this eerily quiet, antique, ornate and slightly disturbing space. Our fears started playing tricks on us and I for one was not ok with the numerous oil paintings of strangers that lined the walls, with black eyes looking right. at. you. 

Ornate everywhere!

The sitting room in the Castle

We had a lot of preparations to see about before we went to bed, so we stayed up late folding napkins, setting tables and doing a numerous list of things in preparation for the big day. We had the most disturbing yet hilarious night that night, because the silly fears we had became contagious and the more we joked about ghosts and mysteries in the ancient building, the more nervous we got. By the time we were getting ready to go to bed we were having a little meeting on the landing of our floor to discuss where our muster point would be if anything weird happened to any one of us! I foolishly went downstairs to another girl's room to give her something she forgot upstairs and when I found myself alone on the ground floor with everyone else in another part of the castle, I freaked out and sprinted upstairs like the Devil himself was behind me. When I burst into the door that led to the landing where everyone else was, I freaked everyone else out and even made a big Greek man jump like a puppet on strings when he saw me. Unforgettable.

The fruits of our labour

For the most part we slept ok and woke up early the next day to prepare for the wedding! We awoke to a beautiful breakfast in a cottage on the grounds of the castle, with meats and cheeses etc. Then we needed to get cracking with everything we still had to get done!  We still had to prepare some parts of the decorating for the wedding, and as the MOH and lead designer for most of the printed wedding items, I was super busy. Then after the hard labour prep was done, the girls had to go get themselves spruced up and the men were sent to the kitchens of all places to help with the prep going on there before they got into their suits.

Wedding Day Breakfast

Time flew by while we got ready, and it was a mad rush for us to get ourselves prettied up and help the bride into her gown!

We did each other's nails as we took turns getting ready

Eventually we succeeded and before we knew it guests were arriving and it was time to walk with our beloved friend down the aisle!

The romantic weddng aisle 

It literally took all of our hands to get her ready

The guys looking too dapper and too relaxed

Guests arriving

The wedding was in a word, magical. We lined up alongside the chapel of the Castle, and then we slowly made our way to the entrance. The wind was blowing crisp and strong, and I felt like I was going to be swept away in the moment emotionally and literally! The bride looked ravishing nonetheless, and we went through the unique ceremony without a hitch. The bride and groom truly looked like royalty! The next phase was the fun part...food, drinks, magic and dancing (see next post).

Bride to Be and Father

Walking up the aisle

Royal Bride and Groom

Happy Bride and Groom!

Another bride and groom to be

Möhippa! (Hen Night/ Bachlorette Lime in Sweden)

Finally one of the main reasons for our trip was about to happen! The Bachlorette Lime or Möhippa (as they say in Sweden) night was finally here! Unfortunately we didn't have all the bridesmaids (as some of them couldn't fly in from their various international destinations in time) but we nonetheless had a fun night planned of drinks, sillyness and dancing! First we went for dinner to a beautiful restaurant in the city, that had the most romantic and soothing atmosphere. Soft lighting mixed with a really beautiful rustic/natural theme of brick, green foliage and fireplaces at some of the tables! Yuh KNOW this Caribbean girl was sitting next to the fire! Even though it was the 'warm' summer month of August, I was still in love with my thick coat when outdoors day or night. 

Beautiful restaurant in Malmo

Table by the fireplace!

The Möhippa dinner crew

Dinner was really lovely, delicious menu and the wine was flowing as we all spoke of our love and well wishes for the Bride To Be. We ate our bellies full until it was time to dance the night away, and before we left we surprised her with some secret silly goodies we ran away a day before to get in town - feather boas, a crown (of course!) and sash so everywhere else we went they would know what was UP.

Sadly not everyone could stay for the partying so we took some group pics and then went on our way to find a club that could handle us. So our international group of 2 Trinis, 1 Trini/Scottish/Brit, 1 Japanese and 1 Swedish girl started on the exciting phase of the festivities!

The Colours of Benneton group of lovely legs

One of the best experiences I had in Sweden was walking around in a little dress and heels in the middle of the night - with just us girls - tipsy and happy. It was SO SAFE! Like...seriously. Initially the suspicious Caribbean city girl in me was in full gear, ready to ward off any threats that would appear by tongue lashing or acting like a wild banshee. But after a few minutes of walking the super quiet, empty (and did I mention clean!) streets, we saw a couple that was totally calm and happy, walking hand in hand like it was the middle of the day in a park full of people. Slowly I began to relax and I realised there were really no visible threats to our safety whatsoever. Just people out enjoying the night and not bothering anyone at all!

So eventually after walking around a bit we found a little spot that looked like a bar, and we began the madness with some milky shots and some photos with random guys (no photos of random guys or our mischief will be posted here - sorry! I want us all to continue being in happy relationships haha) 

The Möhippa partying crew!

After getting more into the groove we wanted an actual club to have fun in, so we left and walked around a bit more, trying to decide where we could go. Then! All of a sudden! I heard a beat that sounded weirdly familiar...

All the girls were doing their usual talk-over-and-with-each-other-at-the-same-time thing, so I told them "WAIT! SHUSH! LISTEN!"

And then all of a sudden we heard "HEH! HA!" in the all too familiar voice of Machel Montano emanating from a big building full of coloured lights! (for those of you who don't know...Machel is like the Michael Jackson of Trinidad and Tobago...so it was a pretty big friggin deal). Listen to Machel Montano's music here! 

We all squealed and jumped up and down with excitement because they were playing OUR Soca artiste! We HAD to go there!! So we tried to be calm as we walked past the guards and entrance people, although we all wanted to 'buss a wine' right then and there, and we finally got in the club! We totally didn't have the big $$ to buy drinks, so we naughtily snuck in a bottle of alcohol with us, along with some plastic glasses to drink our contraband! We snuck into the female bathroom and took a toast to the BTB and then got to the part of the night we were all waiting for! Dancing!!

Naughty Alcohol Smuggling in the bathroom LOL

The club was soooo cool with the most modern lighting and sound systems, and we danced like it was the last night of our lives. One of my besties Sarah (the Trini/Scot/Brit) and I decided to go into the thick of the crowd to see what it was like, and we almost lost each other because we felt like hobbits in a sea of ents (yes I'm a nerd just deal with it) because everyone was SO tall! It was so weird for us too because no one was touching each other! We tried to do little dances with people..a little hip touch here, a little back rub there...and people were not responding! For Trinis that's a pretty weird feeling - in Trinidad everyone dances with everyone, even if they're complete strangers you can get a little hug or a hip bump out of fun. So we decided ok let's really try this theory out! We saw a group of guys (like in their young 20s) and we decided to hit them with a Trini greeting! We went right up to them from behind and tried to give them big shoulder hug hellos and they FREAKED. THE. HELL. OUT.  I have never seen men look so completely bewildered and scared at the same time so quickly. They almost literally ran away from us! We were left there in the space they previously filled just looking at each other like...what?! What did we do?!

Clubbing in Sweden

Needless to say we figured out that Europeans are NOT familiar with our way of partying. But nonetheless we had a BALL! I think if people didn't know about how we dance and carry on, by the end of the night they had a full lesson. We befriended a lot of other people who weren't european and by the time we were leaving the floor was covered in our multi-coloured feathers! The BTB and all of us had an unforgettably fun filled night!

Sweden Drinking and Crayfishes

Something that we definitey did a lot of in Sweden was DRINK. Why is that a special thing for a Trinidadian to mention? Well it was how we drank! 

We had a lot of sampling of various types of alcohol - some brands we knew, but different versions of them, and some were brand new to us. 

The first memorable moment to share with you was when we experienced a very cool bartending trick from our undercover mixologist, Sebastian! He promised that he had something amazing to show us, and he most certainly did not disappoint in the least. We all gathered around the dining table and watched him tediously pour different alcohols one after the other into his special mixing containers. He lined up some shot glasses on a serving tray in one straight line next to each other and then he slowly poured a rainbow of colours - perfectly - without skipping a beat! We were all gradually shouting our various sounds of amazement and by the time he finished we were standing and clapping! His wife to be promptly got up and gave him a huge smack of pride and the grin he had on his face was unforgettable. 

See his amazing Drink Trick in action here!

Sebastian's Rainbow Drink result - and each had a different flavour too!

The next treat our hosts had for us was experiencing the Swedish tradition of having a crayfish party! It is a traditional summertime eating and drinking celebration in the Nordic countries. The tradition originated in Sweden, where a crayfish party is called a kräftskiva. 

For all of us we were a little confused about the whole thing...first of all what exactly are crayfish?! Well boy-oh-boy I found out. They look like baby red lobsters...or giant shrimps...or...just yuck... and to my horror we had to get up close and personal with them...without removing much of what they looked like in the wild.

CRAYFISH! ACK!

In a traditional crayfish party, the alcohol consumption is often high, especially when compared to the amount of food actually eaten. It's also considered customary to suck the juice out of the crayfish before shelling it! Akvavit and other kinds of snaps (little, strong, yucky, flavoured alcohol) was served, as well as beer. We were all given little instructional post-it notes with crazy lyrics written for us to sing to. Our friend wrote what the Swedish words sound like in English and when you read it you might think we were performing some kind of weird evil ritual on someone's dad. 

We had to have sessions of 'eating' the crayfish and then singing the song:

We sang this with such drunken gusto

and then having shots of the snaps! This is what it's kind of supposed to sound like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjhQ91OjvOo

Wine, Snaps and Crayfish

Very cute traditional Swedish table settings

After round after round we were a happy salty, drunk mess of a group and I no longer felt any aversion towards crayfish! Norwegians are some special drinkers for sure :)

Sweden Part II

Now I can't really go day to day in these posts as we did so much during our stay in Sweden! But in this post I'm sharing the best moments we had touring the city with the help of our friends. There are also so many photos in this post, I put them altogether in a little gallery which you'll find at the end of your read.

First really cool thing we did was when we went to pick up our friend's daughter from Kindergarten! Why was this so great? Well the expression on her face when she saw us was one thing, but the actuall school blew. my. mind. 

The school itself was yet again - pristine and totally organised...even colour coordinated! The little cubbies that the kids had as lockers were all uniquely decorated with their photos and artwork. The classes looked immaculate and adorable, yet colourful and relaxing. Then we walked to use the stairs and I saw slides, yes SLIDES alongside the steps! I mean really?! 

The more we saw and found out about the educations system in Sweden the more we were legit jealous of Julia (our friend's child). The wonderful thing about how their Government and society works, is people get paid quite handsomely overall, and then they are taxed a LOT. BUT! The taxes still leave them with more than enough to sustain a high quality of life. Then the taxes are then actually used to make the country work better and add extra amenities to all of the citizens. So in turn people for the most part all follow the rules, and obey the systems because they work for the people in return. It's like a well oiled machine! 

For example, education is COMPLETELY FREE. The parents don't need to pay for ANYTHING. Not even food. The kids are fed well balanced meals by the schools. I really wished I could trade places with Julia that day. Wouldn't you?

We then got to go on a personalised tour of the city, on bikes! Some of us had to renew our bike skills a bit in the parking lot before we headed off, but once we got the hang of it, we were on our way! The entire city is built to encourage cycling more than driving, so there are well marked cycling paths alogside the pedestrian pavements/sidewalks and proper signage everywhere. 

The girls split up from the guys and went to a dressmaker to get our bridesmaid dresses adjusted, and the guys went to a pub nearby to have a few pints. Afterwards, we went cycling around and taking in all the wonderful architechture of the city. We stopped at a mall and even found a bottle of our very own Angostura 1919!

Another thing is they recycle everything. Not only do they recycle everything but it pays to recycle and it's super convenient as well! In the supermarkets you can return your cans and plastic bottles into a reverse vending machine type thing, and it gives you money instantly!

The city was truly lovely, and again super clean with happy people all going about their lives without any apparent major problems! We stopped a few times to get a bite to eat and a coffee, and I was preparing to play a game of charades as I knew no Swedish whatsoever - but then magically EVERYONE spoke English, Swedish and other languages as well! Not even broken English...really good English! So ordering was a breeze and the customer service was fantastic everywhere we went. 

After roaming around on our bikes, we all parked up and bought tickets to use some paddleboats and tour the rest of the city that way! It was a really great surprise and we all loaded up into our little boats complete with wine (of course) and leisurely enjoyed the beauty of the water with ducks that accompanied us from time to time. We were 100% sold on how brilliant Sweden is.

We are 'here'	The slides in the kindergarten!	Who wouldn't be happy in this school?	Posing with my wheels
Beautiful church	View of the city	The guys having some pints	View of the city
Statue posing	The price of 1919 in Sweden	Silly rest stop	Paddleboating city tour

Sweden Part I

Oresund Bridge!

After waiting a bit in the Copenhagen airport, our Swedish friends came for us to take us to Sweden via car. We stopped off in a liquor store to stock up on beer (as we were there for their wedding and they were still in the midst of preparations). They bought us a popular local 'sweet' that had an awful licorice bitter flavour, and then we were off to cross the amazing Øresund Bridge.

Reunited and eating yucky snack from Denmark lol

It's is the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe and connects two major metropolitan areas: Copenhagen, the Danish capital city, and the Swedish city of Malmö. It connects the road and rail networks of the Scandinavian Peninsula with those of Central and Western Europe. The coolest thing about it we started underground - under the sea! Then we emerged above!

Driving under the sea!

On the bridge heading to Sweden!

We arrived in Malmö and were immediately struck by how CLEAN everything was! The city was pristine and had a wonderful balance of historical and modern architecture. Our friends lived in a sweet little apartment right above a bakery, so the scents emanating from there were divine. We were totally shattered from the trip, but they were so excited for us to get underway with the planned festivities that we took the shortest of naps and then got dolled up to go to a party in the city!

Malmo

I almost forgot that we were also advised by our friends that it's really expensive to by drinks in the club. So we were practically forced to drink, drink, drink before we left! We totally didn't mind to be honest, as we got to sample alcohol we never tried before, and even brands that we new had special variations, like special edition Red Bull, etc. Needless to say we were already quite tipsy by the time we left the house.

Being the Caribbean girl that I am, I wore boots and a jacket in the air-conditioned outdoor temperatures (which I'm sure were a cosy warm night for the Swedes). Carlos was very cosy as he's naturally a human radiator.

We took a cab which picked us up right outside the apartment and when we got to the club we were so excited to show the Europeans how we Trini's party!

The venue was really modern and had luxury cars on display inside. There was lots of space and it was also right on the water. It was so refreshing to be able to walk onto the balcony and see the beautiful, calm dark water outside while taking in the crisp night air.

"Playing D Ass"

We danced the night away in true Trini style while taking photos of us being ridiculous and everything else...and I even took a turn as the DJ (ok no but I look believable right!).

Trini DJ Sensation - DJ Tello

The next day another bridesmaid arrived and we had a big lovely breakfast with a variety of what we consider gourmet cheeses and fresh breads from the bakery downstairs. We got ready to soak up the warm sun and head to the Ribersborgsstranden beach/dog walk. The sun was out and everyone looked sooooooo happy!

Yummy cheeses and breads!

Beautiful happy Swedes everywhere

The city was immaculate with no litter anywhere, no stray animals (other than a lot of happy ducks) and no one looking like they were homeless or badly off in any way. We felt like we were truly in a 'First World" country and on top of that everyone was tall, lean and beautiful! Was it real? We were questioning it at every step of the way. We even saw a woman walking her cat - YES her CAT on a leash, and we came upon a really cute park with swings and things that we never saw before! So of course we had to stop off there and play like big hardback kids on the people ting. I was reminded of my age when I had minor heart attacks on the swings and a very deceitful tiny merry-go-round that had to have been going at 40 mph at least!!

Cat walking!

Me and Julia (friend's daughter) on the cool swing

Trying to hold on for dear life

The park was this huge expanse of beautiful green, parallel to the ocean with the bridge in the distance and the famous "turning torso" building - the tallest building in Scandinavia - in the background. The water glittered in the sunlight and there were happy groups of people everywhere with their cute dogs of all shapes and sizes running around. This had to be a dream of some kind. People don't actually look this happy on a regular basis do they? Even the animals were happy! We had a really lovely picnic (bug free!) and then we took a stroll to the water's edge by a marina of sorts.

Entrance to the park/beach/marina

Me and Carlos with the Turning Torso behind us

Picnic on the gorgeous grass

We dipped our toes into the freezing water and were amazed at how everyone just lazed about casually even in their underwear to soak up the precious rays of summer sunshine. There was a very cool glass greenhouse shaped like an egg, and the apartment complexes near the docks were all so modern and chic looking. We really started to understand why Scandinavia was ranked a happier region to live in the world!

Marina

Carlos by the Baltic Sea

Dipping my toes in the freezing water!

In front of the cool egg shaped greenhouse