Getting Married in Sweden
Sweden is home, so this is the one guide here I write from my own doorstep rather than a suitcase. I have worked up in the Arctic north in the deep cold, in silent forest and on frozen rivers with the light barely clearing the trees, and I know the country the way you only can when you live in it. Couples ask me the same things before they book, so here are my answers.
Most of what pulls couples to Sweden is up in Lapland, the far north inside the Arctic Circle, where winter buries the land in snow and the northern lights come out over it, and where in high summer the sun does not set at all. It is cold and quiet and enormous, and the light is the whole reason to come.
This is a guide to the wild north above all. These are the things I would build it around: the snow and the frozen forest of Swedish Lapland, the carved ice of the ICEHOTEL, and the aurora that hangs over both. This is where I would send you, and what I would tell you before you go.
Swedish Lapland
Lapland is the reason most couples come: the Arctic north around Kiruna and Abisko, a land of snow-buried forest, frozen water and reindeer, sitting right under the aurora oval. In deep winter, from December to March, it is properly cold and the days are short, which is exactly what gives you the long blue twilight and the dark nights for the lights. You can see a whole day of it in the cold in Sam and Rob's elopement.
The ICEHOTEL
Near Kiruna, in the village of Jukkasjärvi, the ICEHOTEL is rebuilt every winter from ice harvested off the Torne river, its suites carved into art and lit blue, with a permanent year-round version alongside. It sits deep inside aurora country with almost no light pollution, and it is about the most singular place I can think of to say your vows: you can marry in an ice chapel and sleep on a bed of ice the same night. It is a real Arctic experience rather than a warm one, and that is the appeal.
The aurora
The aurora season runs roughly from late August to early April, and it needs two things at once, darkness and a clear sky. Abisko is famous for a gap in the mountains that keeps its skies clear when everywhere else clouds over, and its Aurora Sky Station is one of the best places on earth to watch. I would never build a wedding around the lights alone, because they cannot be guaranteed, but I would build it around the snow and the silence, and treat the green sky as the gift it is when it comes.
The weddings and elopements that got me here.
The north swings hard between two extremes, and the swing is the point. Deep winter, from December to March, brings snow, frozen rivers, the ICEHOTEL and the aurora, with January and February the coldest, often below minus ten and sometimes far colder. December is close to the polar night, when the sun barely rises and the aurora nights are long. High summer, late May to mid July, is the midnight sun, mild and green with twenty four hour light and no darkness for the lights. Autumn brings colour and the first aurora of the season. No one can promise you the lights, so come for the landscape and treat them as a bonus.
You fly to Stockholm, code ARN, then take a short domestic hop north to Kiruna, code KRN, the gateway for the ICEHOTEL at Jukkasjärvi; direct from the UK to Stockholm is about two and a half hours, and Stockholm to Kiruna about ninety minutes. There is also a night train that leaves Stockholm in the early evening and reaches Kiruna and Abisko the next morning, which is a lovely way to travel north while you sleep. Reckon on most of a day door to door.
Kiruna and the village of Jukkasjärvi are the hub for the ICEHOTEL and the surrounding wilderness. Abisko, a little further on, has the clearest skies in the region and the Aurora Sky Station, and is the base I would choose for the lights. Both put you deep in the snow with almost no light pollution. If you want the Nordic feeling without the Arctic extremes, the Stockholm archipelago and the south are gentler and easier, and simpler for a legal ceremony.
You drive on the right, and a car helps in the north for reaching frozen lakes and quiet forest on your own schedule. Winter tyres are the law whenever there is snow or ice, from the first of December to the end of March, and studded tyres are normal this far north; the rentals come fitted. Reindeer and elk really do wander onto the roads, so drive slowly, especially in the dark months. Distances are long and fuel stations sparse, so fill up when you can, and carry warm kit in case the day gets away from you.
Sweden is on the krona and it is one of the most cashless countries on earth; cards work everywhere, many places take no cash at all, and a UK contactless card is all you need. Tipping is not expected. The clocks are one hour ahead of the UK. The right to roam, allemansrätten, lets you walk and stand on open, uncultivated land, which is a gift when you are looking for a ceremony spot, as long as you keep your distance from homes and leave no trace. And build a fika, a proper coffee and cake stop, into a cold day; it is the local way to warm back up.
You have two ways to do this. Marry legally in Sweden, with the Swedish paperwork behind it, or sign the legal marriage quietly at home and hold a symbolic ceremony here in the snow. Plenty of couples choose the second, because it frees you from the admin and lets you marry anywhere the light is good. If you want the marriage itself to happen on Swedish ground, here is how it works. I have written the full legal detail in my complete guide for foreigners, and the eloping side of it in my guide to eloping in Sweden.
Everything runs through the Swedish Tax Agency, Skatteverket. You apply for a hindersprövning, a check that nothing stands in the way of the marriage, on form SKV 7880, and it is free. Once approved, Skatteverket sends you a certificate of no impediment and a wedding certificate for your officiant. That certificate is valid for four months and cannot be extended, so do not start too early. After the ceremony the officiant returns the form and the marriage is registered.
You do not need to live in Sweden or be registered here to marry, which is the part most couples are relieved to hear. If you are not in the Swedish population register, you send Skatteverket a passport or ID and a marital status certificate from an authority in your own country, showing you are free to marry and issued within the last four months. If you have been married before, add the divorce decree or the death certificate. Allow a few weeks, and longer if the documents have to travel.
The ceremony is carried out by an authorised officiant, a vigselförrättare, with two witnesses present. It can be held almost anywhere, which this far north means a frozen lake, a clearing in the forest, or the ice of the ICEHOTEL, and it can be conducted in English. The legal part takes minutes. Everything after that is yours.
Once you are married you will want it recognised in your own country. Ask for the marriage certificate, and depending on where you are from you may need an apostille, which a Swedish notarius publicus issues, and a translation. Check what your own authorities ask for before you fly home, not after.
Yes, and Sweden keeps it sensible: you apply to Skatteverket for a consideration of impediments, bring the certificate to an authorised officiant, and a civil ceremony at the local kommun costs little or nothing. The full walkthrough, paperwork and all, lives in my guide to getting married in Sweden as a foreigner.
Midsummer, if you want the light that never really leaves: Caroline and Freddie took the archipelago in July and the evening lasted until morning. Deep winter, if you want the opposite: Sam and Rob chose the dead of winter on purpose and got a frozen sea to themselves.
The hotel is rebuilt from river ice every winter and melts back into the Torne every spring, so the room you marry in has never existed before and never will again. Ceremonies run in the ice chapel through the cold months. This is what it looks like. Book the season, then the date.
No. Some of my favourite Swedish days skipped the venue entirely: a cabin on the coast, a sauna, a frozen sea or a summer jetty. Evelyne and Oskar did exactly that, and the day never once felt small.
