People choose their wedding dates for varying reasons. My paternal grandparents were married in December 1931, and the next year they were blessed with a daughter. If you look at the months, rather than the years, you'll notice that it was a very short pregnancy - my aunt was born in May, 1932 - but noticing that is, of course, bad manners, so we'll let it lie.
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But there are two couples that have chosen to get married now in the beginning of January, 2009, that might be worth mentioning.
On Saturday, January 3, in a church in the south-western town of Pori, the Speaker of the Finnish Parliament, Sauli Niinistö (60), was married to Jenni Haukio (31), who works for the Conservative Party; Niinistö is also a Conservative. Widowed in 1995, he was a few years ago involved with a cabinet minister from the Centre Party, Tanja Karpela (now Saarela), and has now been together with his new wife for two years, which, apparently, neither the press nor the couple's next of kin had any inkling of.
Niinistö was runner-up in the 2006 presidential elections, with 48,2% of the votes in the secont round. Since President Tarja Halonen will have completed her constitutional two terms in 2012 and can't run for a third, Niinistö is a strong candidate to become the next President of the Republic. But there must surely be others; the elections are still a few years off.
As was to be expected, the evening paper Iltalehti made a lot of fuss about Niinistö's wedding.
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The following day, the blogger Tor Billgren (blogging on Antigayretorik) married his partner of eight years, Erik, in their home town of Malmö in southern Sweden. Among the congratulatory comments on the blog, there were a few condemning their love for each other in God's name. Very sad. Very predictable. God must be happy for Erik and Tor - and weeping because of the idi... I mean, people speaking in his name.
The civil wedding was performed by a member of parliament, Olof Lavesson, who is also from Malmö.
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May God bless both couples with much love and a long life together!
