A Magical Winter Wedding in the Alps

Real Weddings

“We wanted to combine all the best aspects of having a winter wedding in the Alps. For us, the focus wasn’t on a theme but rather the atmosphere.”

 

Bride and groom full names: Erica Blomgren & Marius Dalstø

Length of engagement: 8 months   

Wedding Date: 25th January 2019

Wedding location: Schloss Prielau, Zell am See, Austria

Photographer: Klaus Bauer


 

We met…

We first met in November 2013 at a bar in Oslo. After our first meeting I was out travelling for a month. Marius believed my absence and rejections to his invitations was a sign I wasn’t interested, so he surely got surprised when I contacted him after New Year asking for a date. After a couple of months dating we finally became a couple. We both love to travel and explore new things, and not at least to have fun!

 

Our proposal…

We got engaged on the 16th of May, 2018. It was our one year anniversary in our new apartment and he gave me a small wrapped in gift. I was sure it was something related to the apartment. But when I opened it and saw that it was a jewellery box he took it back and went down on his knee. He really took me by surprise that evening, my first response was “you’re joking?”, but of course I said YES!

 

 

Our wedding theme/colours…

We wanted to combine all the best aspects of having a winter wedding in the Alps. The romantic classic feeling from the beautiful scenery, with the party and cosiness from the Tyrolian feel. For us, the focus wasn’t on a theme but rather the atmosphere. Our motto was “Nu kör vi!”, meaning Let’s go! It created the right mind-set with the whole wedding party being excited and ready for fun.

We wanted to be able to enjoy the moment and don’t get stuck in details. Having a wedding abroad also sets limitation. Our wedding coordinator, Anette, was fantastic in arranging white/green flowers for the ceremony. We trusted her fully with all the decorations – the only request being small Jägermeister bottles as name tags!

 

 

My dress…

I had expected it to be difficult to find the perfect dress, but at my first look around in Oslo with my bridesmaids I found it; a beautiful and romantic Amposta dress by St. Patrick. I loved the classic look and the long sleeves, which suited a winter wedding. I purchased the dress at Kristins Brudsalong in Oslo. They were so helpful and did I great work on customizing the dress – I wanted an open back. During the ceremony in church I had a long veil, but when I removed it for the party in the evening the open back really did the trick.

 

 

My hair and make up…

This can be a bit tricky when getting married abroad. Luckily Anette helped me to get in contact with the fantastic hair dresser Andy from JOJO Hairstudio in Zell am See and the sweet makeup artist Julia. I newer tend to use a lot of makeup so I wanted a very natural look, both to feel comfortable and because I know that’s how Marius appreciates me.

 

 

His suit…

Marius wore a traditional white tie outfit with matching personalized gold cufflinks and shirt studs. Wearing a black tie during special holidays and events is quite normal in his family, so for me to see him in a white tie was special.

 

 

What our bridal party wore…

We wanted our bridal party to feel comfortable and let them chose their outfits. My bridesmaids were matching dark blue long dress, and we all had matching faux fur jackets. Marius’ best man wore a black tie.

 

Our ceremony…

Our wedding ceremony was held in the St. Hippolyt Church in the centre of Zell am See. We are grateful for Priest Engelhardt who performed an evangelic ceremony in the Catholic Church and adopted the traditions to a Scandinavian wedding. We had a string quartet from Salzburg playing all the music. Walking down the aisle with my dad to the song Pachelbel, seeing Marius standing at the altar smiling at me, I felt so proud and literally had the biggest smile ever!

 

 

We chose our photographer because…

Klaus was familiar with the venue and had worked with Anette before. We didn’t want to spend time away from our guests by doing a long photoshoot. Klaus is fantastic at “in the moment” photos and very good in expressing the atmosphere through the pictures. This was exactly what we were looking for.

 

We chose our wedding coordinator because…

Our wedding coordinator Anette Mayer is, together with her husband Andreas, managing Schloss Prielau. After having visited Anette in Austria we know instantly that her experience, professionalism and good laugh was exactly what we needed when arranging a marriage abroad. For us to have someone we could trust, that adopted to our vision of the wedding and helped all the way with planning and arrangement was vital. Plus, she had some great ideas which fitted perfectly into our Nu kör vi thinking!

 

 

We chose our venue because…

First, we wanted to get married abroad. With us being a Swedish-Norwegian couple, we preferred having everyone travelling which also gave us more time together with our guests. Second, we decided on a winter wedding since we love skiing and the after ski. None of us had been to the Austrian Alps, we searched the internet for a location that was reasonable accessible for our Scandinavian guests. We saw pictures of Zell am See and Schloss Prielau online and it looked idyllic. The castle is intimate, and the venue had all the facilities necessary. We made a quick visit during the summer, which confirmed that this was the perfect place for our wedding.

 

Our menu…

We had no time to try the menu in advance, but it wasn’t necessary; head chef Andreas Mayer and the kitchen staff served us a delicious customized menu:

Starters: Cream of pumpkin soup with lobster ravioli

Mains: Roast saddle of deer in strudel crust with port wine figs, potato-turnip purée & chestnuts

Dessert: Apple poppyseed strudel with honey sauce and strawberry ice cream

Midnight snacks: Goulash soup

In Scandinavia the dinner is the main event, and it usually lasts for 4-6 hours. Toastmasters oversee the program and speeches that are spread out during the dinner – it creates a fantastic fun and warm atmosphere. All the cred to the kitchen staff for an amazing meal and excellent service throughout the dinner!

 

 

Our honeymoon…

We had two weeks in Zell am See in connection to the wedding, giving us time to go skiing and enjoying the Alps. Therefore we didn’t go on honeymoon until after Easter, which was perfect because it was great to relive the memories from the wedding. We spent our honeymoon in the Caribbean, visiting Turks & Caicos, Sint Maarten and St Barth. All the islands were beautiful in a different way, leaving us with a lot of things to explore and enjoy. We will definitely go back!

 

 

My favourite part of the wedding day…

It was truly the whole day, the atmosphere and to share this day with our friends and family. That we succeeded in surprising our guests with a lot of unusual crazy happenings but within the setting of a traditional Scandinavian wedding is what made our wedding perfect.

But there are also all those small moments that really made a difference. We both were quite nervous in the morning about the formality and because we genially wanted our wedding guests to relax and have fun. So when two of our friends came to the church with tailor-made outfits looking like Dumb and Dumber from the movie, we all completely cracked down in laughter. That was a fantastic moment which really made us lower our shoulders and remember to have fun. And the warm and thankful feeling towards are family and friends when we they all stood up, cheering and welcomed us to the dinner… wow! Our toastmasters did a fantastic job in setting the scene for the dinner. When they halfway through the dinner played our wedding (party) song and everyone was standing on the chairs, dancing and laughing – it symbolized everything we hoped for this day.

 

 

My piece of advice for other brides…

Don’t get stuck in the details, focus on the big picture and vision of the wedding and try to enjoy every moment of it! For others like us getting married abroad, find a wedding coordinator you trust and that understands your needs. Also, I would really recommend having the wedding on a Friday rather than Saturday; it means that no one needs to think about travelling the next day and can enjoy the party to the fullest. We arranged an après ski at Schnaps Hans at Berg Hotel Schmitten on the Saturday, and to catch up with your guests the following day and share stories from the wedding day was priceless.