Crispins winter wedding pics....NO FISH pics at all:)

crispin

crispin

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Lilliehammer, Norway
Ive just had the enjoyment of ending a year long engagement with a delightful winter wedding at home in Lillehammer, Norway. I have a number of friends on here (who werent invited:p) who've asked to see some wedding pics. If you are looking for a reefing thread......this aint it! But there is a fish theme later on if you care to stay with me:)

I was the one who said i wanted to be married from home on our organic sheep farm, and as we live in Scandanavia its best to do it in winter. there are basically three things people know about Norway....the chicks are pretty, its bloody cold and its VERY expensive, so i thought id make sure that foreign guests could find out for themselves what its like to live where we do. There was so much negativity about doing a winter wedding, especially as summer here can be stunningly beautiful and the fact that i wanted to serve our own organic lamb spitt roasted to the guests. I was told so many times (mum in law!) that its impossible to braai outside when its snowing and minus 20 C, which it could well be. I eventually dug my heels in tight and made sure that i would have our own spit roasted lambs. So in September (4 months in advance!) when the first lambs came back from the mountain forests where they eat blueberries and wild mushrooms I selected three myself for the wedding. Just cause i know a number on here will enjoy seeing a propper SA braai in the snow i'll start with a pic of them.....

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Just for intrest we placed two lambs together on one spit here and wired it to the frame, hind legs in the cavity of the other. I also hung the lambs myself and marinaded them for 3 days, injecting a great marinade deep into the muscles, especially the forequater as that can dry and be tough. I also made a coke and herb basting for the roasting period and we slow roasted them over 5 hours, three lambs and a few spare legs (nice to farm with your own livestock!)
 
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then came the venue. To fit a large wedding at home in winter there is NO chance of using marque, hired in. We had to build our own venue. when we first got to the farm in 2009 and took it over from Torunns dad it was a real mess. No electricity, old hay dried for winter feeding in one corner, tractor parts and broken electricle stuff in another etc etc and we always said we would get it cleaned up. Over a few years we did, but then in 2011 we started in earnest. It was cleared, washed. Then we added bulkheads to the walls to increase the insulation from 5cm to 20cm on all walls, put in insulation and then new wood panells, insulated the floor, laid underfloor heating throught the building, threw a new 10cm thick concrete floor and added 6 massive windows as the barn looks out over a massive beautiful lake and i wanted lots of natural light. We havent finished the insulation of the roof or put up pannels there, but that will get there.

before whikle we are cleaning in June 2011..

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the floor was so stuffed that water wouldnt run to drains so thats all been fixed...

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you will notice the big wooden beams in this photo, which realy do give the building its charactor. I realy wanted to keep them, but the cheapest way would have been to put a ceiling into the building at 3m right across and we would have lost the beauty of them. in the end we spend the money and kept the beams and will insulate the roof afterwards....

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then we had to insulate the floor (concrete was measured as being minus 13 in winter 2010) and lay pipes for underfloor heating....

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there are a mass of pipe systems in there and they all get coupled to a heat exchanger which has heated water from massive tanks in a boiler room we have below. We have 5000l of hot water at 80 C going at full capasity which is circulated under the concrete. The plumbers quoted us R16 000 to lay the pipes and do the connections which we did with a few mates in one weekend:)

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then we got a company ion to throw a new concrete floor at a rediculous cost and they were absolute wankers! It wasnt easy actually with them only comming just before new years eve and it was very cold, so the concrete had to be kept arm in the mixer trucks. quite a sight to have 6 mixers lined up on the farm pumping concrete and we had to burn gass burners to keep the room from freezing and destroying the concrete.

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for the decorations we had great fun and had 10 large circular tables with a re and white theme (wifes fav colors) and we cut branches from trees (and a few whole trees!!!) to hang decoratings and led lights from. Lots of wine imported from friends of mine in SA and a whole stack of Aquavite (a Norwegian drink)

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you might notice the one aquavite is called 'rakefisk' which is a Norwegian Delacasy, its basically fermented trout wrapped in a potato wrap with sour cream, oinions and a few other things. It smells disgusting but its great to eat and I wanted to mix Norwegian and South African foods for the menue.....it is however NOT possible to eat rakefisk without drinking aquavite!
 
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ive also imported my two wooden hippos ( they are big carved hippo's i brought when i wqas working in darkest africa doing bee projects) and they are in the barn. Here is the smaller one, i cant find a pic of the big fella....both carved by the same man about 5 years apart....

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the ceromony was lateish in the afternoon (it gets dark early here) so we kept it nice and short (as it should be!) and then did the photos outside in the garden while the guests were kept warm inside with massive amounts of mulled wine. When you do mulled wine on the scale we did its easy to do it propperly and i think there was 8 l of it, filled with herbs oranges, chillies, spices and a myrid of good things. It also allowed us to keep the insides warm while we did the pics outside in the snow....

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here's the groom, the bride and two best men enjoying some gluwine while the photos were going on...
 
we also lit the whole farm with candles and all the inner light on tables came from candles, it looked truley beautiful at night...

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thats the main farm house on the right with the venue on the left and the braais with the sheep roasting striaght infront of where the man is walking
 
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Keep them pics coming, have to leave to get some Jameson- having braai with foreigners at the lodge.

Btw, You have an excellent venue, and your pics are great, so is your wife- awesome bride
 
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