Lovebirds, get ready!
The church in Grafarvogur has announced drop-in weddings at the end of June. According to RÚV, the ceremony will be about half an hour long and free of charge for the love bugs.
Church wants to encourage weddings
The pastor of Grafarvogur, Guðrún Karls Helgudóttir, says that the church wants to encourage weddings, but the number of attendees remains unclear. “We actually just go completely unknowing into this, we do not know if people are just going to drop in and get married,” Guðrún states.
According to Grafarvogskirkja, prospective couples can contact the church beforehand. Interest is already showing due to already made bookings.
Swedish tradition coming to Iceland
Previously, Guðrún was a pastor in Sweden, where drop-in weddings and drop-in baptisms are common, according to her. The drop-in event has been thought about for several years and the original goal was to do it on Valentine’s Day. “But the last two have not been good because of COVID. We just thought it was the right time this June,” Guðrún says.
“We are thinking of people who are always on the verge of getting married but never went through with it. A lot of people have also postponed marriages due to COVID in the past year and are starting to postpone again, in order to wait to be vaccinated. But maybe this is an opportunity to just hurry up with this,” she states.
The difference between a regular wedding and the drop-in wedding will be that the waiting time will be reduced immensely, the cost will be cut and the wedding itself will be shorter, instead of the regular one-and-a-half hour ceremony.
However, Guðrún emphasizes that the drop-in weddings won’t be a rushed deal. “At the drop-in weddings, people do not have to run out when they are done. The ceremony should not be long, so there should be plenty of time for photography,” the pastor explains.
For the traditional wedding fans, the Mendelssohn march will be available upon arrival and departure.
Church weddings are not “a big deal”
With this arrangement, the church wants to encourage weddings. Guðrún Karls Helgudóttir claims, “It’s safer to be married if something comes up. People just often get into trouble because they have not gotten married. We also want to remind you that even if people get married in a church, it doesn’t have to be that big of an issue.”
Apparently, this will be the first wedding of its kind in Iceland – prepare yourselves!
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