We are nearing the end of 2018, which has been our busiest wedding season yet!

Strandskoven, our new venue, is without a doubt one of Denmark’s best seaside venues, not only for weddings, but any sort of party! We are pleased to announce that, having held some beautiful weddings there this summer, we have now signed a 3-year lease so we are assured of being able to offer it at least until the end of 2021.

My dream of starting a wedding planning company actually started at Strandskoven almost 25 years ago when my older sister, Anna, had her wedding party there. And to complete the circle we celebrated DIW’s 10-year anniversary with a reception there in November, when we invited all our Ærø partners who we have worked with over the years.

On the 1st of January 2019 the Danish marriage law will change, and a new central unit will be in charge of the documentation for weddings in Denmark. As I write we still do not have all the details about the new process, which is frustrating, and it may mean some extra documentation for some couples. We’ll see! But we are firmly committed to making it work, and fully intend to be here on Ærø arranging weddings for another 10 years!

---

Ærøskøbing museum has been closed for some serious renovation this past year. They will re-open in March 2019, with an entire room dedicated to the wedding phenomenon – “Aeroe, the wedding island of Denmark”.

We look forward to it reopening and sending curious tourists to see the exhibition!

---

Our little map of Aeroeskoebing that we had produced and illustrated by the very talented illustrator Louise Rosenkrands was nominated for the world illustration awards 2018 !!!

It has been an amazing summer, with so much sunshine the island practically turned golden. Perfect for our many beach weddings but of course worrying times for our environment.

We struggled a bit for local flowers and had to resort to scrumping (and swapping flowers for red wine) from neighbours! Luckily, we managed, but it was a particularly tough start for Camilla Jørvad who had her first season in the flower farming business. Her beautiful blooms were often the stars of the bridal bouquets I had the pleasure of making this season.

However, we do have to say good bye to Camilla in her capacity as our main wedding photographer over the past 10 years, since she will be pursuing new creative projects, including a fantastic online course for wedding photographers. She will still be available for a limited number of portrait sessions, though, and is still just around the corner supplying us with her gorgeous flowers and offering her farm as one of our venue options to our couples.

You can’t have a wedding business without a photographer, so Neli Garnet, who has already been working with us throughout 2018, will be stepping up to be our main photographer. She is already looking forward to the coming season!

She spends her time between the UK and Ærø, but we are hoping that she might move here permanently!

---

Every year we get visits from journalists who are curious about Ærø and its magnetic attraction for wedding couples from all over the world, and this year was no exception!

We look forward to being mentioned in an article in STERN magazine, MARE magazine, a Norwegian Newspaper, and being on ZDF TV in 2019.