Dressed in head-to-toe Swedish designers, Christine and Maria demonstrate how to get married, change jobs and move countries all in a pandemic
It’s widely accepted that some of the most stressful life events include changing jobs, moving homes or countries in the midst of a pandemic… and getting married.
While some people would do their best to avoid tackling more than one big life event at a time, art director Maria Nilsson and marketing manager Christine Gelfgren – perhaps with a gentle shove from the universe – took on all three. They jumped into their marriage, change of country, and change of job, feet first and, albeit one broken shoe strap later, lived to tell the tale.
Photo: Magnus Bergqvist
Photo: Magnus Bergqvist
“We had been engaged since the fall of 2020 and were holding off on our wedding planning until the pandemic ended,” says Gelfgren. “When I got a new, exciting job at Zalando in Berlin and we were planning our move, we realised it was just so much more practical to be married when relocating to a new country as a couple. Since we were already engaged, it was an easy decision [to get married] and in less than a few weeks, we secured a spot at City Hall in Stockholm and decided to tie the knot in a very spontaneous wedding ceremony with a few of our closest friends.”
Nilsson met Gelfgren while she was visiting a childhood friend in London. Whether it was their mutual love for indie clubs, cheap beer or tiny Shoreditch flats, the spark was lit. “None of us were out at the time but I had said drunkenly to my friend that I bet Maria was into girls,” says Gelfgren. “I didn’t know it then, but it would take me another five years to win that bet when we found ourselves living in the same city (Stockholm) and we eventually started dating.”
Photo: Magnus Bergqvist
Fast forward to 2021 and the loved-up couple exchanged vows at Stockholm City Hall almost 12 years to the day they first met in London – one pandemic, one new job and a new country ticked off the stressful life events list.
“As we decided quite quickly that we were going to have the ceremony before moving to Berlin, there wasn’t a lot of time to extensively plan any details of the wedding, including the outfits. As luck turned out though, I didn’t have to,” says Gelfgren. “When packing up our apartment, I went through my closet and stumbled across a light suit that I had thrifted a couple of years earlier. I had only worn the jacket before, but it was this perfect cream colour with subtle seventies lapels and when I tried it on with the matching pants, I knew instantly I had found my wedding look.”
The shoes provided a bit of drama on the day. Not wanting or having the time to break in new shoes, Gelfgren opted for an old pair of trusty slingbacks but one of the straps broke.
Photo: Magnus Bergqvist
“You can’t really tell in the photos but Magnus Bergqvist, who took our wedding photos, came to the rescue, and fixed them with some good old duct tape!”
Gelfgren paired her outfit with a set of vintage pendant earrings and an Engelbert necklace Maria gave her for her 30th birthday.
Nilsson’s search for the perfect wedding look wasn’t as simple as looking in her wardrobe, but she finally settled on a classic black Arket suit worn with a black silk shirt, a pair of loafers and a Totême scarf.
Covid restrictions at the time meant that only groups of eight people could gather so the wedding day was divided between friend groups – one for lunch, the ceremony, followed by an intimate dinner at their favourite neighbourhood restaurant, Vina.
Photo: Magnus Bergqvist
“Someone had tipped off the restaurant that it was a wedding dinner, so they had decorated the table with flowers,” says Gelfgren. “We shared a lovely dinner together with lots of great food and natural wine. After dinner we went to the iconic Stockholm restaurant Pelikan, for a final nightcap and coffee before heading off to our wedding night.”
“We still very much plan to have a big wedding shared with our families once we’ve gotten more settled in our new hometown, but this spontaneous ceremony and how we spent the whole day, is something that we will cherish forever,” adds Nilsson. “It really couldn’t have turned out any better.”
Photo: Magnus Bergqvist