Wedding in Dissington Hall

Last week it was once more time for pulling out the passports and going of to the airport in order to go out in the world and attend an international wedding - this time it was Richard (from England) and Vivienne (from Singapore) who had chosen to get married in a rented manor house in the countryside in northern England.

But merely one destination of course doesn't satisfy the likes of us, so we managed to fit in an evening and a morning in Edinburgh on the way there. Should we - even after having devoured a Scottish breakfast including Haggis - against expectations have had any doubts as to whether or not we were in Scotland we were so lucky to meet a few soccer fans in the street to set the matter straight for us.


The wedding followed the local traditions: Richard had to leave home and go to a hotel for the last night before the wedding, so he could stand there and really sweat it until Vivienne's brother led her down the parted winding stairs which Dissington Hall supposedly is so famous for. The ceremony itself was quite similar to the one we attended in the US: poems were recited by both the maid of honour and the best man, and in addition to the well-known "I do" both the bride and the groom had to say their vows to each other before the kissing. At last the papers had to be signed before the photographer dragged them into the garden for some serious shooting.


Later followed a dinner which in sharp contrast to its Danish counterpart was uninterrupted by neither songs nor speeches. The speeches which by Danish comparison were quite modest didn't occur until the dessert. And thus there was time for a couple of hours of disco before closing the doors around midnight.