Maid of honor and bridesmaids

Hello y'all! How's your day going? Mine starts out bueno.

So this is going to be my first post about wedding traditions. It's not (yet) about the difference in Northern versus Southern European traditions, but more.... Eastern/Western..?? Well it's about the bridal party. I know that many places, it's the most common thing to choose a maid of honor and several bridesmaids. However, this is not a common tradition neither in Denmark, nor in Switzerland. Here, the groom chooses a best man, aaaand.... that's it! And not that I want to have 15 bridesmaids, but I have been bugged by something lately: I want a maid of honor! And there's a rather longer reason to that.

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I had been debating with myself for some time if I wanted to be followed down the aisle. In Denmark, tradition states that the bride's father walks her down the aisle and sits next to her during the Church ceremony. But this feels extremely "old fashioned" to me. I mean, I'm 30 (soon 31) years old, have been living on my own (in a foreign country) since I was 18 years old and thus feel pretty independent. Also, in Switzerland, the bride usually walks by herself, exactly because she considers herself an independent, modern woman. I know that my Padre actually liked idea to walk his daughter down the aisle, and I thought it was very sweet of him. Therefore, I'll walk down the aisle WITH him. (If the aisle of our church had been large enough, I would even have considered to walk with both of my parents, but that's not physically possible - our Church is really small.)

Now here comes the part of the maid of honor. I have sister. Lil' sista. I love her to death, and really wish that she'll be by my side too. Since Mr. Louis will have his brother by his side at the alter, I will choose to have my sister there, as my Maid of Honor :) So I plan on doing it the American way: my Padre will walk with me down the aisle, and then let me walk the last steps alone, up to the alter, where my sister will stand and sit next to me.

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I haven't told my family yet about my plans, but I'm sure they'll be cool to roll with it :)

What did you choose to do? Did your father walk you down the aisle? Is it common in your country?

Have a great day!

Happy Holidays!

So I hope that you all had a great Christmas Eve with lots of relaxing down time, candle-coziness, beautiful gifts and good food? Cause I did. For you out there that are not familiar with a typical Danish Christmas Eve, let me share.

First of all, let me say that Danes have kept a lot more traditions than any other nationality I have ever met. And Christmas is no exception. December is always full packed with "Christmas lunches" (in Danish: Julefrokost; Jule = Christmas; frokost = lunch). We have those at work, with friends, families, etc. But don't be fooled by the name because usually these are not "lunches" but dinners. And they continue until the wee hours of the morning.... and they usually involve a lot of snaps.... eeerrr alcohol that it!

The Julefrokost food is traditionally served as a buffet and doesn't vary much. It usually looks something like this:

Image from Hotel Klithjem (source)

Starters: Breaded fish filets with a sweet/sour dressing ("remoulade"), different types of marinated herring, warm paté with crispy bacon and sautéed mushrooms,  all served on very dark and slightly sour rye bread ("rugbrød"). Depending on the size of the buffet, you can also enjoy smoked salmon, cooked shrimps with mayo and eggs on white bread.
Entrée: a selection of pork filet in a mushroom and onion brown sauce, a special pork roast ("flæskesteg"), pork meat balls ("frikadeller") together with "white" (cooked) potatoes, "brown" potatoes (which are caramelized cooked potatoes) and sweet cooked red cabbage. And let's not forget the brown sauce!
Dessert (my favorite!): riz à l'amande - sweet milk rice with vanilla, chopped peeled almonds and whipped cream, served with a cherry sauce. Despite its elegant French name, it has nothing to do with French desserts, but it's delicious nonetheless IF made well. There is also a funny game following the dessert: a whole almond is hidden in the bowl of riz à l'amande and the one who gets the almond wins a gift. Cute, right?
I have received lots of compliments on my riz à l'amande and I take great pride in making one of the best known to Danes, and being a foreigner and all, that must mean that I'm pretty well integrated, don't you think ;)

Now for Christmas Eve, the menu is the following:
Roasted duck or pork (or both) served with white and brown potatoes, cooked sweet red cabbage and brown sauce. Riz à l'amande for dessert.

A lot of the traditional Christmas food is quite sweet, which I am still struggling with at times (I usually only have sweet food at breakfast or as dessert). Also, being a vegetarian now, all these meat-based feasts are quite challenging. I do eat fish occasionally, which is fine for the Christmas lunches, but on Christmas Eve, I don't have much of a choice. To my great surprise, my FI's family prepared some delicious salads for me this year, so that I wouldn't have to feast on potatoes and red cabbage alone, yeahy! Oh, and another few funny Danish Christmas traditions are to dance around the Christmas tree while singing Christmas carols and decorating with cute little Christmas hobbits ("Nisser") like these:

Ljungström nisser (source)

Do you have a specific Christmas dinner tradition in your country/family?

Happy holidays everyone!