They came from London. They’d seen Lofoten in a photograph somewhere — one of those images that doesn’t look real, with the mountains going straight into the water and the small red houses on the rocks — and decided that was where they wanted to get married.
“Everyone thought we were slightly mad,” Emma said, on the ferry over from Svolvær. “Which is probably why we had to do it.”
Henningsvær sits on a cluster of small islands connected by narrow bridges. The village is so small that getting sixty people there for a wedding feels like an event. The local guesthouse had been booked for the whole weekend.
The ceremony was outside, on a flat rock above the water. There was no microphone. The wind took some of the words. Nobody minded.
July in Lofoten means the midnight sun. The light at eleven in the evening is the same warm gold as four in the afternoon, which makes everything feel slightly suspended in time.
We photographed until almost midnight, when the mountains turned the colour of old copper and the reflections in the water went still.
James said it was the most beautiful place he’d ever been. Emma said she knew he’d say that.