The American Invasion of Denmark (aka Joy and Klaus' Wedding!!)

So much has happened since my last blog post! Mainly, I GOT MARRIED!!!! :) Klaus and I were married on April 6th in a beautiful ceremony surrounded by our amazing family and friends! We both felt incredibly blessed and couldn't have asked for a better day. :)

The week leading up to the wedding was crazy busy but also SO much fun because the Americans arrived!! The weather was chilly but as good as we could have hoped for- NO snow or rain and perfectly blue skies for the majority of their stay in Denmark! :) I think it snowed the day after the wedding but for Denmark that's not too bad :)

Michelle, Paul and Noel were the first to arrive and we spent Monday and Tuesday showing them around Bakken and then Copenhagen.

Walking to Bakken with Michelle

Noel and Paul driving the bumper cars!

Then on Wednesday my parents arrived and we did some more sightseeing around Copenhagen in an attempt to help them beat the jet lag (not sure it totally worked...?) Thursday morning I made a trip to the airport to pick up Kim and showed her around the city a bit too including a stop at Ny Havn for a beer and people watching.

I left Kim at Nørreport and pointed her down Strøget for some shopping and headed back to the airport to pick up CJ and Jess. :) Klaus met us at the airport and we took the tired/hungry travellers back to their hotel to meet up with my parents and took them all to dinner.

Friday morning was spent setting up the reception hall with the Krogsgaards, me and Michelle. I think it turned out really nice even if it was a bit hectic to get it all put together. After lunch the Sheplers arrived in Brede and helped us wrap up the last bit of decorating before heading to the church for the rehearsal.

Talking thru the ceremony and figuring out how to make it work

In all the craziness of the day I FORGOT the rehearsal bouquet!!
But it was a work of art and deserves to be seen!!
Thanks girls!!

Friday evening we all went into Copenhagen for the rehearsal dinner at Madklubben Vesterbro, another adventure (there was a mishap with our reservation so they had to do some quick rearranging of tables to get us all seated) but we had a great time and very good food! :)

 

 

Saturday was the big day!!! :) Everything went very smooth and surprisingly I was not nervous or stressed at ALL. :) I think because I had done so much work ahead of time I was able to relax and trust that the rest of the pieces would fall in place and was able to just enjoy the day. It was PERFECT! :)

Mom helping me get ready

 

Bridesmaids

The Shepler women

There are so many more pictures from the day, but this post is already getting SUPER long, so I think I'll post the rest on facebook once we get them back from the photographer. :)

Sunday morning we had our FULL family over to the apartment for brunch and present opening :) By this point Klaus and I were exhausted and decided to opt out of the Sheplers' adventure to Sweden, which was apparently a good choice as they FROZE! This was the day the weather turned yucky and they got snowed on!

This was also the day that Klaus let me know what was going on with my visa application... There has been a mistake made (things happen.) and he got a letter on THURSDAY that said my application had been denied based on some miscounting of the days I've been in Denmark and what they considered my "first entry date". Thank God Klaus was smart enough to wait until after the wedding to tell me about it because I think I would have had a meltdown if he had told me Thursday or Friday, but unfortunately for him, he had to deal with it on his own for I'm sure what felt like an eternity. :( We have appealed the decision and I have been granted the ability to stay in the country during the appeal process, so no worries there. But unfortunately it takes on average 7 months for the appeal to go thru before they can re-look at the visa application... All this means that we will have to play the waiting game quite a bit longer (probably summer of 2014 before all is said and done...) I am trying to be positive about it and focus on all the things that I can do while I wait. Things that I wouldn't have time for if I had a job or school, but it is a tough time right now and the timing of it is pretty unfortunate. However, I refuse to let it take away from the amazing time I had with my friends and family at our wedding!

Thank you all for the love and support you have given us!
XOXO
Joy

PS- for those keeping track: I made 6 trips to the airport, saw the Little Mermaid 3 times and played tour guide to 8 Americans in just over one week!