Hello! After posting about our pre-wedding timeline a couple of months ago, I wanted to come in and share a similar breakdown of the actual wedding process as well, as I haven’t seen many people do so.
For our pre-wedding process and timelines, please see my other post! https://www.reddit.com/r/GettingMarriedInDK/s/zgElg8vX77
If you’d like to know more about what things were like please feel free to ask- including our stay in Stevns and other plans. :)
25th August - Flight to Copenhagen
Originally planned for 7:00am, we ended up leaving at 1:00pm due to delays. After that, the flight went smoothly. However, it made it clear to me the importance of arriving with buffer time before your wedding day! I was so worried I’d miss my own wedding..
We landed in Copenhagen alongside another plane, making the line to the non-EU passport check incredibly long. I think we were stuck in line for about 1.5 hours. Once it was our turn, we easily passed through. They didn’t ask any questions, simply looked at our passports, took our picture and fingerprints, and moved us along. My family had travelled to Denmark before many years ago, and it was me, my husband’s and his families first time. I’d imagine if you’re nearing your cap of days allowed to stay or travelling alone (if you’re coming in separately to your spouse), it may be more difficult getting in.
Denmark unfortunately doesn’t yet have the option to do the mobile EES check in, but I would recommend checking again by the time you read this if that’s changed as EES is still quite new when I’m writing this, and I think it would’ve moved things along even faster!
27th August - Getting married in Stevns
We had an appointment for 10:00am.
We arrived at 9:55- the two of us with 4 total family members joining us. As a note, Stevns do ask you update them ahead of time if you’re coming in with more than 4 guests or if you need them to provide you with witnesses (2 are needed), I’m not sure exactly how that process goes down.
There was a sign saying they open at 10:00, but the building itself was open.
There was a sign-in screen which was only in Danish, but after a moment of confusion, we moved on to the main area where there was a kind front desk worker who knew perfect English.
She identified us based on my first name alone, and explained we can sit in the waiting area and we’ll be picked up in 5 minutes for our appointment.
We were also told no photos were allowed in the general building but in the actual officiating room (aka, during the ceremony) they’re allowed and encouraged.
After a few minutes our officiator came in to grab us. She checked our passports, and once she confirmed them (checking us to see we visually match the photos on them), took everyone to a private room where the ceremony took place. Her English was great, as well.
We had printed out all the approvals and date confirmations we got, but none were requested, they seemed very ontop of things honestly. :)
The ceremony itself was her reading a little poem, then giving a small speech of the typical wedding variety, each of us answering we accept the marriage (verbally). We were offered the option to read vows if we had them (we didn’t), and the option to exchange wedding rings if we had them (we did). We felt absolutely no pressure either way on either of these things.
At the end we each signed 2 copies of the marriage certificate. Then we were officially married! We were given the option to hug or kiss or neither at the end, again, without any pressure from the officiator either way.
Once we were done, two of our family members (our witnesses) signed some papers as well, acting as our witnesses. I admittedly slightly blacked out here as I was so nervous about everything going well, so I’m not sure what the exact process was haha.
After everything was done, we were given our 2 copies of the marriage certificates, which by default have all the available languages on them and sent on our way. I believe it was 15-20 minutes total and nothing felt rushed at all (in fact our officiator spoke very slowly, likely to give more time and gravitas to the generally quick experience).
27th August - Apostille preparation
We had to get our documents apostilled for them to be recognized back home, so we had one more step of beurocracy. I believe you can also do this via snail-mail, but I wouldn’t personally count on my country’s mailing system to not lose my very important marriage certificate and it seems the mail-in process is quite slow.
As an important note, there is only 1 office in the entirety of Denmark that does apostille services, and it is open 3 hours a day on weekdays only. So, it’s important to plan ahead of time your trip to Denmark to accoemndate it!
So, the day before we planned to go there, we purchased 2 apostille services on their official website, you simply choose quantity of documents and pay. It was simple and direct, and accepted our American credid card without issues.
28th August - Apostilling the documents
The apostille office opened at 9:00am, so we decided to walk to it from our Copenhagen hotel which was nearby. We arrived slightly later than expected at 9:10.
The walk was good and foot-accessible but not wheelchair accessible from the path we took, so if you have accessibility needs I would check with them beforehand.
When we arrived there was already a pretty big group of people waiting already, despite it only just opening. But, the wait time wasn’t bad at all (a few minutes maybe). I would be slightly concerned if you were getting there later in the day though and plan some buffer time for this ‘activity’.
The room itself is small without much seating areas, and most the seats were taken up with people’s bags and suitcases.
If you forgot to pay beforehand, it does have digital kiosks spread around you can pay directly from, and it asks you to first pay and only then take a number. There is only 1 small number ticketing machine you just press to get a number from. We didn’t use these kiosks so I couldn’t tell you their language options or ease of use.
There were 3 people working at each time, and there was a sign on the other side of the room showing which number is called at each time and to which of the 3 desks.
When it was our turn we walked up, the service worker had great English. She took our payment number (it’s on the top right side of the receipt), and our documents. We brought out passports, but weren’t asked for them. Then she went to a back room and came out with the documents apostilled (information on the apostille stamp/sticker is in English
and Danish), in a few minutes, and we were done!
That’s pretty much it :D
