American Folk Dancing In Sweden
Listener Submission: Most Interesting Reception Music Story

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My wife Kathy and I were married in Sweden. A Swedish friend of ours (Hannah) arranged an old-fashioned traditional Swedish wedding. All we had to do was show up and get married. After the ceremony there was a reception at Hannah's house which was at one time the village hall. So, it had a quite-large meeting room upstairs and Hannah had invited just about everyone she knew.

The room was full of people along with two tables full of Swedish wedding fare and a band. Fiddles, guitar and piano. The band had played about ten minutes when Hannah announced that my wife and I are also in a band. Kathy is a folk-dance caller and singer and I play mandolin. Well, for the next couple of hours Kathy taught and called squares, reels, jigs, and circle dances and I played mostly traditional American fiddle tunes on the mandolin. The band played along and we had a great time. We had a traditional old-time American village hall dance in Tempte, Sweden. And, we got to be the band for our own wedding reception dance.

Larry Stelter
Spooner, WI