Ása Steinars' Wedding Diaries, part one: The proposal and the planning

After two years spent grappling with a pandemic and rescheduling our wedding multiple times, it’s finally happening this summer. We’ve invited all of our closest friends and family to celebrate with us for a week long adventure in Croatia, on the Mamma Mia island of Vis.

Planning a wedding is a big project that seems to only grow as the date approaches. With so many tasks to take care of and details to arrange, the planning stage can sometimes be overwhelming. But as it is a once in a lifetime event (hopefully!), it’s important to enjoy the whole process: all the fun little decisions of picking flowers and putting your own personal touches on your big day.

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With only two months to go until our celebration finally takes place, I’m starting this wedding journal with Vogue Scandinavia to document all the steps towards our special day, and to remind myself to enjoy this time in my life.

So let’s start from the beginning: the proposal!

Leo proposed to me on a tiny secluded beach in the Philippines. We kayaked out there to watch the sunset. It was a calm evening and there was a perfect white sand beach. We were all alone and as the sun edged towards the horizon Leo went down on one knee and completely surprised me.

I said yes, of course!

Just a few weeks later, the world was thrust into lockdown. It was strange to start planning a wedding but we were optimistic that our time would come. It feels very special after years of isolation to be able to gather all the people that we love to one island this summer to celebrate love.

Choosing a venue is one of the most exciting parts of planning a wedding and one of the main factors that will influence the overall atmosphere of the big day. It was important to us to choose a venue that reflects our personalities and our story as a couple. As a multinational wedding, with me being from Iceland and Leo from Sweden, there were a lot of different locations to pick from. It was always inevitable that it would be a destination wedding for at least one side of our guest party. We considered a remote wedding in Iceland on one of our favourite fjords by the ocean, or even a barn wedding in Skåne, where Leo is from. However, to our friends' and family's surprise, we ended up picking an old fortress on a small island in Croatia.

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One of our first dates happened to be in Croatia. Leo was working there during a summer for a week-long event. One night, we decided to borrow a speed boat from the event company and take it on an adventurous ride, crossing the ocean to the island of Vis. Then we crashed a party in Fort George and danced all night.

We had to return the boat in the morning, so after dancing all night, we drove back at sunrise. I guess that from that moment, we both felt that if we would ever get married, this fortress would probably be the place. Croatia and the island of Vis are simply so special to us and every time we visit, I feel like I’m in one of the Mamma Mia movies.

Fort George is located on the edge of a hilltop looking out across the Adriatic Sea. It’s one of the best and most unique wedding venues Croatia has to offer. It’s the perfect place to watch the sunset and sunrise either from the garden or the rooftop. It boasts beautifully decorated archways, restaurants and gardens to complement the mood for romance and create a magical experience with a clear view of the Vis bay and the nearby islands.

The next step was to visit the venue, meet our wedding planners and discuss things with the locals. So in the autumn of 2021, we rented a sailing boat for two weeks and spent one week on the island planning. This was definitely the most exciting part of planning the wedding.

The island was very calm at that time of year and Fort George was just packing up after a busy season. We walked around the venue and planned the exact ceremony location, the welcome drinks, the dinner and the overall look-and-feel of the big day.

I was browsing Instagram when I came across the most beautiful invitation cards I’ve ever seen, handmade By Florence. Florence is a super talented artist who designs each invitation card before hand-painting them with watercolours.

We spoke to her about creating a card that would draw on the overall theme of the wedding. Our idea was a map of the island of Vis, showing the town and local beaches, but also where the wedding and pre-celebrations would take place.

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She captured the theme of our wedding and our idea of an invitation card perfectly. When I got the card in my hands, I felt transported to the island.

When we sat down to decide on the overall theme of the wedding we realised that there are some cultural differences between Swedish and Icelandic weddings. For example, the Swedish tradition is to have bridesmaids and groomsmen, which isn’t seen in Icelandic weddings. However, we decided to include it into our wedding, since we saw it as the perfect opportunity to involve our closest friends into our special day and planning.

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The dress code is another cultural difference. In Icelandic weddings there is not usually a dress code, people just show up in relatively fancy clothing. However, we decided to have a dress code for the Friday pre-celebrations (theme: White and Gold) and also for the wedding itself: Summer Smart.

Lastly, it’s the speeches. It's a very big aspect of Swedish weddings to have lots of speeches, while Icelandic weddings are more a mix of games, some speeches and even performances by some of the guests. This part is up to our guests to decide - it will be exciting to see all the different nationalities come together and what they come up with.

With a few months to go until the wedding, we went to Malmö in search of our wedding rings. We decided to go non-traditional and pick non-matching rings. We thought we should simply pick the rings that we wanted to wear for life, without thinking too much about if they matched or not.

Leo wanted a simple, rose gold ring with 4.5mm width, while I decided to get a custom-made white gold ring with diamonds, that would 'hug' my engagement ring.

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It feels really good each time we tick off a task from the wedding to-do-list. Next up, we need to sort out what to wear. The dress for me, clothing for Leo and also the decoration.

Finding the right dress is a big project, almost more difficult than finding the right husband. However I’ve narrowed it down to which designer I want to go for and that’s Galia Lahav. So now it’s time to go and try on some dresses...