Waiting for the wedding ceremony to start

The wedding took place down by the lake on an old pier. It was used by a lake shipping company Alho that operated taking in passengers and milk from the local farms between 1910 and 1940. It had two vessels in its fleet: S/S Alho and S/S Alho II that both stopped here. Of course the pier was in a much better condition back then.

The setting was pastoral - the nature all around us, the lake completely still, only some water birds gliding by majestically, and some other birds chirping in the trees. There was a female pastor whose words were well chosen for the occasion, is waiting here with the groom for the bride to enter escorted by her father.

There were some 100 guests, mostly friends of the happy couple. There was a wedding dinner followed by coffee and cake, then some speeches, songs and poetry reading, but luckily no kidnapping of the bride, which is oftena lengthy and unnecessary part of the program. Here the bridesmaids and best men had planned a very nice, personal program that was entertaining the whole audience.

The wedding waltz was Akseli's and Elina's Wedding Waltz, which is a beautiful, slow waltz, a bit melancholic, as most truly Finnish music is :)
Partying went on until 9 in the morning, when the last guests went for morning sauna bath - there was also improvised modern dance and young men greeting the rising sun by running naked in the corn field.

All in all a memorable occasion - now our little girl is married, sigh.