Wedding at Villa Fridhem: a photographer’s guide

A wedding at Villa Fridhem takes place in a 1909 villa designed by Ferdinand Boberg for Prince Carl and Princess Ingeborg, with dinner in the Prins Carl dining rooms and a park running down towards Bråviken bay. The house stands at Getå between Norrköping and Kolmården, a little over an hour south of Stockholm by train, and runs today as a boutique hotel with a restaurant, a bar and a wine cellar. The entire villa can be taken by one party.

This guide is for couples considering Villa Fridhem who want to know how a wedding day works there in practice. It covers the house and its rooms, how dinner and the party are usually arranged, what the location means for guests who travel, and what the light does by the water at different points in the year. The figures come from the hotel’s own pages. The rest comes from photographing in this kind of building.

Villa Fridhem belongs to the category of Swedish venues that sit outside the capital but remain easy to reach. If you are weighing several of those against each other, the guide to a wedding at Södertuna Slott covers the closest comparison in Sörmland.

The house: a royal summer residence from 1909

Villa Fridhem was built in 1909 as a private summer residence for Prince Carl, son of King Oscar II, and Princess Ingeborg, daughter of King Frederick VIII of Denmark. The architect was Ferdinand Boberg, the same man behind the NK department store building in Stockholm and Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde. The couple were closely involved in the project, and the models for the house were Ingeborg’s childhood home Charlottenlund outside Copenhagen and the couple’s earlier summer house Parkudden in Stockholm.

The villa was built with thirty rooms. Extensions and renovations have added considerably more since. Prince Carl chaired the board of the Swedish Red Cross from 1906 and was known as the Blue Prince after the pale blue cavalry uniform he wore. He wanted the place to be a home of peace, which is where the name Fridhem comes from. The couple had four children: Margaretha of Denmark, Märtha of Norway, Astrid of Belgium and Carl. Weddings in the Bernadotte family were often celebrated here.

The estate stayed in royal ownership until 1953, when it was sold and became a convalescent home. A conference hotel opened in 1990, and the house runs as a boutique hotel today. The history is set out on the hotel’s own history page and in the Wikipedia entry on Villa Fridhem.

Two things in that history actually matter on the day. The first is that Boberg broke with the symmetrical window placement a manor house normally has, which gives the building facades that read differently from different angles and therefore more usable backgrounds than a symmetrical castle offers. The second is that it was built as a home rather than as a function venue. The rooms are many and relatively small, and that shapes how a day moves through the building.

Where is dinner held at a wedding at Villa Fridhem?

Dinner is served in the Prins Carl dining rooms. Guests sit under crystal chandeliers with a view across the manor park and down towards Bråviken. The restaurant works to a fixed seasonal menu, and for weddings the hotel offers a dinner package with a welcome drink, three courses, table setting and decoration to your brief, a wine pairing chosen by the sommelier, and an overnight stay with breakfast.

The hotel publishes no fixed maximum for a seated wedding dinner. That is because the number depends on which salons you take and whether you take the whole house. Ask the wedding coordinator for a floor plan built around your guest count and your setup before you commit. If you want comparable figures from the same building, the largest meeting rooms are Boberg at 60 square metres for up to 70 people and Bråvik at 59 square metres for up to 50, but those numbers describe conference seating rather than a dinner with dancing.

Beyond the dining rooms there is the Peacock Bar, an aperitif area and a wine cellar. This is the kind of house where the evening can be split across several rooms without anyone leaving the building, and where drinks before dinner can sit on the terrace when the weather allows.

Ceremony in the park or inside the house

The manor park slopes down towards Bråviken and is the obvious place for an outdoor ceremony. The advantage is that guests walk straight from the ceremony to the toast on the terrace with no transport in between. The disadvantage is that a park has no roof, so you need an indoor alternative agreed in advance and communicated to your toastmaster and your suppliers.

If the ceremony is in a church in Norrköping or Kolmården instead, allow twenty to thirty minutes by car for your guests. That transfer works, but it eats into the gap between ceremony and dinner, and that stretch of the day is always the most fragile. Take the group photographs at the church immediately after the ceremony if you choose that route, not after the drive.

A third option is a civil ceremony inside the house. Couples marrying in Sweden apply for a Certificate of No Impediment (hindersprövning) through the Swedish Tax Agency, Skatteverket, before any ceremony can be booked. An indoor ceremony suits a party of under thirty and makes the day short and close, which many couples enjoy more than they expect. How the ceremony choice shapes the schedule is covered in the guide to building a wedding day timeline.

Staying over and the wedding weekend

Villa Fridhem runs as a boutique hotel with rooms and suites, and the whole house can be booked for one party. That is the decisive difference from a function venue in a city. When your guests sleep on site, nobody books a taxi at midnight, the party ends when it ends, and there is a breakfast the next morning where everyone gathers one last time.

In practice it also means getting ready happens in the house. Ask for a room with windows facing the park when you book. The light from that side is broad and even and lasts the whole morning without lamps. A room on a darker side forces ceiling lights in the middle of the day, and that colour shows in the pictures of the dress.

If you want to spread the celebration across several days with a welcome dinner the night before and a brunch the day after, the house handles that well. Guests who have flown in from abroad get more out of the trip, and you get a weekend rather than a single evening.

Practical information: getting there and transport

The address is Getå, Villa Fridhem 1, 616 90 Åby, between Norrköping and Kolmården. From Stockholm the train to Norrköping takes a little over an hour, and timetables are on the SJ site. From Norrköping it is a short drive north along Bråviken.

The hotel offers a free shuttle service to and from Norrköping subject to availability. Book it early and confirm your guest numbers, because a shuttle carrying twelve people does not solve transport for eighty. For a larger party a coach from Norrköping is what usually works, with one departure before the ceremony and one late at night.

Put the transport in the invitation rather than only on your wedding website. Guests travelling from Stockholm, Gothenburg or abroad need to know both how they get there and how they get back before they book a train or a flight. That one line saves you thirty emails in the week before the wedding.

Light by Bråviken through the year

Villa Fridhem sits in woodland running down to water, and that gives you two things at once: a lot of green and a lot of reflected light. At midsummer the sun sets just after ten in the evening in this part of Sweden, and it sets in the north west, well north of due west. At the end of August sunset falls around eight, and by the middle of September just after seven.

The difference matters more than it sounds. A June wedding can leave the portraits until after dinner and still have an hour of low light left. A September wedding has to place them before dinner, or the evening pictures become indoor pictures. Decide that when you set the dinner time, not when the photographer arrives.

In the middle of the day the tree canopy in the park is an advantage. It breaks direct sun and gives a soft light that works even at one in the afternoon on a clear July day, which is otherwise the hardest hour of the day for portraits.

What couples often miss

The first is that the building was designed as a home. The rooms are numerous and fairly small compared with a castle, which means eighty guests cannot stand in one room and see each other. Distribute drinks, dinner and dancing across several rooms deliberately rather than hoping it resolves itself.

The second is the group photographs. The park takes the whole party without difficulty, but only when it is dry. The wet weather option has to be settled during the walkthrough with the hotel, and it has to be a room where everyone fits in frame, not a hallway where you stand three rows deep and the back row disappears.

The third is how your guests get home. Villa Fridhem is not in a town and taxis do not wait outside. Book return transport in advance for guests who are not staying over, or expect the last hour of the party to thin out as people start solving it themselves.

Gallery

A photographer’s perspective

My name is Karin Lundin and I am a wedding photographer based in Stockholm. I have photographed at Villa Fridhem, and what stays with me is that the house never feels like a venue. It feels like somebody’s home, and you can see that in how guests behave in it. People sit down in a window recess with a glass instead of standing about in a hall. That produces a completely different set of pictures than a function room does.

The crystal chandeliers in the dining rooms are good to have in frame but they throw their light straight down. If you are there in September and dinner starts as the light is already going, ask for the levels to be brought down and for candles on the tables. The room gets warmer and faces get softer, and it costs nothing to ask.

The park is where I would spend the portrait time. The slope down towards the water lets me place you above or below the camera rather than straight in front of it, and the treeline gives a background that is not a building. Fifteen minutes there is enough. Count on the walk down and back taking as long as the photography itself, and put that in the schedule.

If you take one thing from this guide, take this: ask to see the room where you will be getting ready before you book it. It is the only place in the whole day where the light cannot be moved.

Want to capture the day on film as well? I often work alongside Nordvér Films.

Key takeaways

• Villa Fridhem was built in 1909 by Ferdinand Boberg as a summer residence for Prince Carl and Princess Ingeborg and originally had thirty rooms.
• Dinner is served in the Prins Carl dining rooms under crystal chandeliers with a view over the park and Bråviken.
• The hotel publishes no fixed maximum capacity for weddings, one party can take the whole house and the coordinator gives a figure for your party.
• A free shuttle to and from Norrköping is offered subject to availability, book a coach separately for a larger party.
• The train from Stockholm to Norrköping takes a little over an hour, followed by a short drive north along the bay.
• Sunset falls just after ten in June and just after seven in mid September, which decides whether portraits can sit after dinner.
• Ask for a room with windows facing the park for getting ready, it is the one light of the day you cannot move.

Frequently asked questions about a wedding at Villa Fridhem

How many guests does Villa Fridhem hold?

The hotel publishes no fixed maximum for weddings. The number depends on which salons you take and whether you take the whole house. Contact the wedding coordinator and ask for a floor plan built around your guest count and your setup, which gives you a figure that actually applies to your day.

Can you book the whole of Villa Fridhem?

Yes. The hotel lets one party take the entire villa for weddings and anniversaries, which means both the rooms and the restaurant are yours for the stay. That is the arrangement that works best when guests stay over and the celebration runs longer than one evening.

What does a wedding at Villa Fridhem cost?

Prices are not published. The hotel offers a dinner package with a welcome drink, three courses built on seasonal produce, table setting and decoration to your brief, a wine pairing chosen by the sommelier and an overnight stay with breakfast, and quotes it per party. Ask for a price per guest including drinks so it can be compared with other venues.

Can you hold the ceremony in the park?

The manor park slopes down towards Bråviken and is used for outdoor ceremonies. Settle an indoor alternative in advance and pass it to your toastmaster and suppliers, since the park has no roof and the decision otherwise has to be made on the day.

How do guests get to Villa Fridhem?

By train to Norrköping, a little over an hour from Stockholm, then by car north along Bråviken. The hotel offers a free shuttle service to and from Norrköping subject to availability. For a larger party you need to book a coach separately and put the departure times in the invitation.

What time of year suits Villa Fridhem best?

June and July give the longest evenings, with sunset just after ten, which lets portraits sit after dinner. September gives warmer colour in the foliage but sunset just after seven, which means portraits have to happen before dinner. Both work with the right schedule.

Who designed Villa Fridhem?

Ferdinand Boberg, who also designed the NK department store building in Stockholm and Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde. He deliberately broke with the symmetrical window placement a manor house normally has, and set the main entrance and veranda to one side of the centre of the house.

Which other Swedish venues are similar?

The closest in character are Thorskogs Slott in western Sweden and Södertuna Slott in Sörmland, both with a park, accommodation on site and dinner inside the house. Högberga Gård outside Stockholm is a closer option if your guests are flying into Arlanda.