There’s possibly nothing a Dane loves more than flags (and hearts, but more on that later). More notably, the Dannebrog – the flag of Denmark.
A short history lesson for you – the Dannebrog is the oldest state flag in the world still in use by an independent nation. Legend has it that the flag fell from heaven during the Battle of Lyndanisse during the Northern Crusades in 1219, giving the flailing Danish army (who caught it before it touched the ground) hope and leading them to victory. The Dannebrog was – obviously – a gift from God and has been the flag of Denmark ever since, having never touched the floor or been hoisted at night.
Ever since, the Danes have used the Dannebrog for everything – birthdays, deaths, weddings, Christenings, etc. – with many Danes having flag poles in their gardens. This has always been a tradition of my nuclear family’s too, with my Mum bringing out the miniature flag to sit proudly on our table on birthdays (since we never had a full size flag pole here in the UK). Here’s a picture of me and my Mum in 2006 celebrating her birthday with the Dannebrog taking pride of place in front of the birthday girl:
So, of course, the Dannebrog had to feature in our wedding day, and with that we couldn’t miss out the Union Flag or the Flag of Ghana in our celebrations.
As I may have said previously, we chose to have a Danish wedding cake (kransekage) instead of a traditional English fruit cake. I’m not a fan of fruitcake and think kransekage is so much nicer – made of almonds, sugar, egg whites and marzipan displayed in rings and decorated with flags. So for this we needed small flags of the three nations that play a part in our lives. A difficult task – especially for Ghana which, it seems, doesn’t feel the need to use cocktail stick flags (heaven knows why not!). The only thing for it was to make some flags – a job I happily passed on to Jeffrey. So, here are two photos – one of Jeffrey making the flags and one of the two kransekager and a traditional Ghanaian Nkate Cake made of peanuts and sugar, made kindly by one of Jeffrey’s Aunties.
Sophie Kingo is Married 