Personal Story: Our Wedding in Stockholm in 2020

When we got engaged in March 2019, a week before Miguel goes back to the Philippines, we knew that we wanted to get married in Stockholm. We planned it to be a small wedding ceremony since we wanted to spend money on our honeymoon instead.

Friends and families were supposed to travel to Stockholm. Little did we know that just a few months in 2020, the world would be plunged into a pandemic.

Despite that, we decided to go ahead with our wedding even though it was just the two of us and our photographer. In this blog post, we will share our personal account of what it was like to get married during a pandemic.

Our wedding plans before the pandemic

I’m not a big fan of a big wedding celebration. In fact, I’d prefer it if we elope instead! But, it is still good to share and celebrate this day with our loved ones so we settled on a small wedding celebration in Stockholm.

We booked the ceremony for March 28, 2020, and started inviting friends and family to come over. We even had some of our friends who were living outside Sweden fly in for the occasion!

Then in February, we started to hear the news of canceled flights. We were starting to get worried but decided to hold off on making any decisions until we had a better idea of what was going on.

Mostly, travel decisions! I was more focused on planning and worrying about our travels than our wedding, to be honest.

I’m the least-prepared bride you will probably ever meet

We did everything in February! With a lot of things going on during that time, I was a little overwhelmed.

I ordered a few white short dresses, earrings, and shoes online. Looking for shoes online was difficult for me because I have small feet. I wanted light-colored shoes, but it’s either my size is out of stock or they don’t offer my size at all.

I ordered my bouquet a week before the wedding. It didn’t come to my mind at all—I only realized it when I was looking for wedding photos on Pinterest.

I never imagined this to be part of our wedding story but that’s the reality! Writing about it makes me laugh because I couldn’t believe how I prepared for our wedding

All travel plans were canceled

Ideally, I wanted to hop on a flight after the wedding ceremony. That’s why we booked the ceremony for 13:00.

We were supposed to travel to Amsterdam a week before our wedding. We wanted to have our honeymoon in Spain and Portugal. And, we were planning on going to Finland and Tallinn a week later.

We also looked into traveling within Scandinavia so we don’t have to take any flights.

But, none of that happened!

Our wedding day

That day was supposed to be the biggest day of our lives. But, we were processing what was happening around us, too.

We were both excited to be married to each other! It was unfortunate that we couldn’t go anywhere after the wedding, but we were just happy to be married.

We had a quick lunch, booked an Uber, and arrived at the Stockholm City Hall within 15 minutes.

Stockholm was empty and quiet at that time. We arrived early so our photographer, Eva of Evia Photos, can have enough time to take our photos.

The ceremony went smoothly (it was 5 minutes only) and our photographer did a great job capturing the moments.

I’m thankful that we still have a photographer on that day. At least I have pictures to share our wedding story.

Our ceremony is at 13:00 and we need to be there at least 15 minutes before. The Oval Room is where the ceremony will take place which is on the second floor.

Before we go to the Oval Room, we had to show our IDs to the City Hall staff. The lady gave us a paper that we will give to the staff in the Oval Room.

Civil Marriage in Stockholm City Hall

As soon as we entered the Oval Room, it suddenly dawned on me that I am getting married NOW. The blood rushed in and I got excited more than ever.

There were chairs on the right side where we can put our coats and bags. I was a bit nervous because I know that the ceremony is so quick, you won’t have the time to remove your coat.

But since the room was empty, we were allowed to take our time.

When the officiant was reading the ceremony, I couldn’t understand everything; I’m feeling emotional and I’m on the verge of crying. But, as I have said, the ceremony is so quick, you wouldn’t have time to be emotional!

After 2 to 3 minutes, maybe, we are now putting the ring on each other.

Also, kissed each other!

After the officiant said we are now husband and wife, she gave us our marriage certificate.

Aaaaaand, we are married!