from Hola
by Marit Larson
Translated into English by Mauro Cappiello

Stefan Edberg and Annette Olsen just married

Last April 18th, Saturday of the Holy Week, Swede "golden tennis player" and his six-year time girlfriend (former fiancée of another very important Swedish tennis player, Mats Wilander), got married in Växjö, Sweden, a 70 thousand inhabitant city and Annette's birthplace, even though her parents migrated from Denmark. Just by chance, the wedding of the year coincided with the 650th anniversary of the city of Växjö, and, originally supposed to be an intimate event, turned into a spring celebration for the inhabitants, even though the day before it had snowed in great part of Scandinavia, which is very rare in this time of the year in Sweden.

So the wedding day dawned with clouds, with four degrees and a light and cold rain, but the couple had planned the marriage since eight months and since six months the wedding dress had been bought in the French shop Pro Nuptia in London, where the couple resides in Stefan's apartment, when they are not around the world for tennis tournaments. At three in the afternoon the newlyweds arrived hand in hand at the Växjö cathedral, filled to the last of its six hundred seats, Annette visibly nervous, while for Stefan this was a "match" that didn't worry him too much, as he confessed the day before.

They addressed to 38 year-old priest Leif Adolfsson who was waiting for them in front of a floral decoration of pink roses around the altar. As tradition in Sweden, only a member of Stefan's family acted as wedding witness, his brother Jan Edberg, and so did Marianne, Annette's sister, and her two nephews, Alexander, six years old, and Michaela, four, children of her sister Lisbeth and her brother in law Feder Möllestedt.

After Annette, 28, received the golden wedding ring with diamonds from the hands of Stefan, 26, the ceremony ended and the couple turned to hear the trumpet solo "One hand, one heart" with Music from "West Side Story" by the musician Lawrence Johnson.

Leaving the church they passed under another shower, the traditional rice, went across an arch formed by local players raising their raquets, and went away in a carriage drawn by two white horses heading to the Teleborg castle, that the couple had rented to invite nearly one hundred friends and family members attending the ceremony to enjoy a wonderful dinner followed by dancing, and then disappear after the couple to an unknown destination.