Circus wedding

A Fairytale Marriage

A fine blend of awkwardness, madness and love

Making their wedding as personal as possible is probably every couple’s dream. Jenny and Jon certainly succeeded: theirs offered a magical and exuberant circus atmosphere – a wedding that reflected their lives as circus performers. A memory to last a lifetime for both the couple and their guests! A sword-swallower is probably all you need for a successful wedding dinner. Perhaps a blue clown rabbit might be needed as well. Joking aside, there are of course other wonderful elements to the dinner – but you can just imagine what a real mood-lifter these two actually were. And all this without coming across as contrived or pretentious: Jenny and Jon are circus performers themselves and were keen to share a little of their rather special professional lives.
“It wasn’t our intention to have a specific circus theme, but of course it felt good to show family and friends a bit of what our lives are like,” says Jenny.

PHOTOS//LINDA-PAULINE

Let’s take a step back: Jenny is from Sweden, whilst Jon – or Jonathan, as he’s actually called – is from England. Both stumbled into circus life more or less by chance when they were teenagers – neither of them has any family background in the circus world. Jenny practises ‘contortion’, a snake-like form of acrobatics, alongside her twin sister. Jon performs high-level, hair-raising acrobatics – in the circus discipline known as the ‘Chinese pole’, where the pole itself is six metres high. A nomadic existence as freelance circus performers has taken them all over the world – and given them the chance to meet. The two first met in Russia – but it was their meeting in Hamburg a few years later that really sparked things off. Five months later, Jon proposed. Jenny said yes straight away.
— It might seem a bit too hasty, but when you work closely together in a show, you bond and get to know each other on a deeper level quite quickly. “It just felt absolutely right,” says Jenny. Both Jenny and Jon wanted to get married within a year, without dragging it out. They had to start planning straight away, given the guest list – family members from two different countries as well as friends from all over the world were to be invited. And it was a good thing they started in good time; it all got a bit complicated given that they were working abroad during the year of planning…
— Sure, it got a bit stressful, but at the same time it was great fun to have a project together – as a start to our life together. Looking back now, it’s also lovely that many of the things we needed to buy are now mementos from the places we were visiting at the time; for example, we bought my wedding ring in Madrid.

Personal

It was Lisa who proposed.
Jenny and Jon emphasise how important it is to dare to be personal – that’s absolutely the most important thing for a successful wedding.
— It can be hard to know what you want, and of course there’s pressure to make sure it’s a success. But the most important thing for us was to put our own personal stamp on the wedding – and to have fun whilst doing it. For us, it was also about the little details; like the fact that we wore matching bracelets – a rigid bangle with an anchor, which is also a symbol of Hamburg, where we met. This very personal touch was evident right from the invitation: ‘The Fairytale Marriage – A fine blend of Awkwardness, Craziness & Love’. A big wedding felt like the obvious choice:
— It’s basically the only time you can bring family and friends together so that everyone gets to meet. And it was also wonderfully fun! It was also quite natural that the wedding was held in Sweden:
“It was easier for Jon’s family to travel here than the other way round,” explains Jenny.
Both of them wanted an outdoor wedding. They chose the sea and the cliffs at Furuviksparken outside Gävle, a place that defined Jenny’s childhood summers. It was also here that Jon proposed (he knew how much the place meant to her), on 6 June 2016 to be precise.
— We also wanted a civil ceremony, as neither of us is religious.

A wedding by the sea

The wedding took place a year, plus a month and a day, later: on 7 July 2017. Jon and the guests waited for the bride at the water’s edge, with the blue sea and blue sky as a backdrop.
— My mother gave me away to Jon. We walked out of the woods with a view of all the guests – and there stood Jon in the middle, waiting…
A beautiful scene accompanied by the strains of a violin. The fiddler was – a blue rabbit. Who’d forgotten his ears… Jenny laughs at the memory.
— Scotty the Blue Bunny has never forgotten the ears for his costume in all the time I’ve known him, but on that particular occasion he’d left them at the hotel. An outdoor wedding requires a plan B. Jenny and Jon had a particularly fitting one.
— If it had rained, we’d have been allowed to use the park’s permanent big top.
So it turned out to be a wedding by the sea – which, of course, became an unforgettable memory for both the guests and the bride and groom. It was a bit nerve-wracking for the latter, though.
— But just looking at each other calmed us down.

Another unforgettable memory for the guests was the walk to the wedding venue – which led through Furuvik Park. A red carpet had been rolled out at the entrance, and the guests passed through the zoo on their way to the cliffs. The bride and groom were also treated to an extra special experience: a tour of the amusement park in a flower-decorated radio car.
The wedding dinner was held at Högbo Bruk, Nya Herrgården, half an hour’s drive from the cliffs.
— The plan was to hire a London bus, a double-decker, to transport our guests, but unfortunately that didn’t work out. We sorted it all out using the cars that were available instead. A friend had recommended Högbo Bruk to us – and it was absolutely perfect for us. We had a weekend wedding so that our guests would have time to get to know each other properly, and here we found a great combination of outdoor activities and culture. There was also accommodation for everyone – hotel rooms, hostels and small cottages. The food was superb too; we chose typical Swedish flavours for our menu.
— The evening before the wedding, our guests went for a lovely little walk through the woods to a small cottage on the shore of a beautiful lake, where they were treated to a BBQ, a sauna and hot tubs. It was lovely to be able to show Sweden’s beautiful countryside to our international guests. So, back to the dinner, featuring a sword-swallower, a juggler, a male stripper and a circus director who kept both the performers and the guests – as well as the bride and groom – under control – and who also served as the couple’s eminent toastmaster. I’m sure no one doubts that dinner, too, became a memory to last a lifetime…
Finally: Was the wedding everything you’d imagined?
— We couldn’t have dreamt of anything better!

Jenny & Jonas’ top wedding tips

– Don’t pay too much attention to what other people have to say.

– It can’t be said often enough: keep an eye on the rings! Jon thought he’d lost our rings…

– Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

– Hire a good, professional photographer.

– A toastmaster is absolutely essential for a successful dinner.

Guide to Jenny & Jonas’s wedding:

Wedding reception: Högbo Bruk, Nya Herrgården. Near Sandviken.

Invitation cards: Handmade. Text: The Fairytale Marriage – A fine blend of Awkwardness, Craziness & Love.

Wedding dress: Ida Sjöstedt. “A friend recommended her dresses, so I looked her up online and fell completely in love with them. I booked a fitting when I was back home in Sweden, and it actually turned out to be the very first dress I tried on. I had it tailored so that I could remove the skirt.”

Shoes: Two pairs. “I wore a pair of low-heeled pink patent leather sandals because I was going to be walking on the cliffs, and then I had a pair of high heels that my sister and I embellished with Swarovski crystals.”

Hair & Make-up: Jenny’s friend Jewel, a sword-swallower, did both.

Jon’s clothes: Shoes from Carmina Shoemaker in Madrid; his blue jacket and light beige trousers from Suitsupply in London.

Matching bracelets: Paul Hewitt.

Rings: Jenny’s engagement ring from Independent Store in Berlin, wedding ring from Aristocraz in Madrid. Jon’s wedding ring from Brent and Jess, USA.

Bouquet: Centrumblommor in Tierp. “I wanted it to feel a bit wild, not too perfect. They also made the flower crowns for our bridesmaids and flower girls.”

Decorations: Wild flowers, personal items such as rabbits and origami figures.

Photographer: Linda-Pauline, www.lindapauline.se “After a long search, we found her on Instagram. Both Jon and I are really into photography, so it felt important to find a talented photographer in ‘our’ style – someone who wasn’t too traditional but more artistic.”

Toastmaster: Circus director Nalle Laanela, who is a dear friend. “He was originally my clowning teacher, and since then I’ve performed alongside him in Clowns Without Borders (which he set up in Sweden). I don’t know how we could have managed everything without him!”

Wedding reception at Högbo Bruk.
A sword-swallower performed at the party, and circus director Nalle Laanela was the toastmaster.