Yes, that’s right! We can now proudly reveal that we are the first Norwegian couple to get married on Mount Everest Base Camp.

It is the 21st of December 2015. The darkest day of the year, but also the brightest for us. Jørn goes down on one knee, the night sky illuminated by the lights from Havana in the background. A diamond ring is presented and that one very important question. Tora says yes, followed by a lot of tears

Fast forward two years and we are faced with a challenge: Planning a wedding. Most people will agree that there are numerous challenges with wedding planning, but ours was not as expected. Every time we started planning the conversation quickly shifted to the honey moon, because that is so much more exciting!

A destination wedding was of course considered, but moving two families to another country seemed hard to do. Still we couldn’t really picture a wedding without some sort of travel and also wanted to highlight that we love one another very much, or very high as you would say in Norwegian. How could we combine this? Well, loving one another very much (or high) could be done by marrying very high up, of course! Those who have some basic knowledge of geography probably know that you cannot go much higher than Mount Everest without loosing touch with the ground. At this very place also turned out to fit our other criteria.

Initially proposed as a joke we quickly started to consider a wedding on Mount Everest Base Camp as a real possibility. But can we do it? There are no roads leading there, the closest airport lies 130 km away round trip and EBC is located at 5364 meters above sea level, higher than any point in western Europe and the continental US. We would also have to bring a wedding dress and tuxedo. And a munk. After all someone has to do the ceremony and Himalaya has a big shortage of priests. In the end we concluded that it should be possible, kicking off months of planning, exercising and preparing. All in secret, because our families knew nothing.

On the 27th of September two very nervous people wait at the airport in Norway with two backpacks filled with a wedding dress and plenty of camera gear. The flight leaves for Kathmandu for final preparations before the journey continues to Lukla, the starting point for the trek. The airport in Lukla is known as the most dangerous commercial airport in the world; there are not many level places in the Himalayas, making it hard to find a place for a runway. The best they could do was a slight slope that was extended to make a runway. This means that one end of the runway is 60 meters taller than the other one – right before a very steep edge. The last fatal accident was as recent as last year and the entire airport is often closed due to bad weather.

As we arrive at the airport in Kathmandu we are told that it has been closed for five days in a row due to bad weather. Luckily the weather gods are on our side and the weather changes for the better this morning. The flight goes as well as anyone could expect and suddenly it dawns on us: We are here now, during the next days we are trekking 65 km to Mount Everest Base Camp. And 65 km to get back again…

From Lukla we get going right away. Due to the altitude the pace is very low, and slowly but surely we make progress. Right at the beginning the altitude is a “mere” 2800 meters above sea level, but it is important to find a steady pace that can be maintained for the next 130 km. Very unexpectedly we start by descending. What? Yes, it turns out that the trail is far from straight and we first have to enter a valley. Unfortunately that also means that we have to walk up the valley again soon on the other side…

After two days we arrive in Namche Bazaar, known as the “Sherpa capital” in Himalaya and one of the largest villages, at 3490 meters. We spend two nights here to acclimatise and have the first “opportunity” to be affected by the altitude. Luckily we both adapt well and can carry on without problems. As a part of the acclimatisation we go on a day trip to a nearby viewpoint and thanks to clear skies we get a glimpse of Mount Everest for the first time, the very top of the world!

The view is phenomenal, so we take the opportunity to practice our wedding photo shoot. No reason to complain about the background and the view here.

The next few days pass by at a surprising ease and Dingboche is our next acclimatisation stop at 4200 meters. The lodge we stay in features both running water and a hot shower (for a fee, of course), and during the night the temperatures stay above freezing point. What luxury!

At this altitude the landscape changes dramatically from green, lush forests and a warm climate to bare mountains, and cold and windy plains. Carrying on towards 4900 meters it even starts snowing, but thankfully the precipitation quickly stops.

After a week of trekking the big day is finally here. The weather is surprisingly mild, the sky clear and EBC surprisingly free of people.

At the very last break before Base Camp Tora manages to leave one of the cameras behind. Jørn quickly runs back, although this is not recommended at this altitude. Up here the oxygen level is just half of what it is at sea level, so it feels like one is having ane entire lung removed. Luckily another trekker finds the camera and brings it along, so we are getting it back shortly after. What luck!

At Base Camp we jump into the wedding outfits and carry on with our photo shoot with the amazing scenery in the background.

After about an hour the munk arrives to perform the wedding ceremony.

To be honest we did not know in detail how a buddhist wedding ceremony was to be performed, especially not at 5000 meters. Mildly confused we sit on our knees while the munk reads mantras rapidly from a set of papers.

Rice soaked in Fanta is thrown in the air above us and we are given colourful scarves, red paint in the face and of course the wedding rings. Rings go on fingers and tada, we are married! It feels a bit surreal then and there, but after some time it starts to dawn on us.

We also get a glimpse into the world of celebrities. Standing there in a wedding dress and tuxedo we don’t exactly blend in and more or less everyone wants to take selfies with us. That is very nice, but we are also trying to keep this a secret…

The first night as husband and wife is spent in an ice cold room with frost on the windows (on the inside), in our separate sleeping bags against walls made out of plywood. Not exactly the most romantic night, but a small price to pay for the opportunity to get married at base camp for the world’s tallest mountain.

The very next day we carry on downwards at full pace. Despite the many uphill climbs we also encounter it is faster to descend. The access to more and more oxygen definitively helps.

Down in Lukla again we run into issues. The great weather we had on the way up is now replaced by a thick layer of fog. All flights are delayed until further notice and we are waiting eagerly for an update. Take-off was scheduled at 7 in the morning, but we are informed that no flights will leave before 9. 9 comes and goes and at half 9 our guide informs us that we can leave the airport to find some breakfast; the airline will call us if the plane is ready to go. More time passes, but no news of better weather. In the afternoon we get the final message: The entire airport is closed for the day, no flights will leave or arrive.

What could we do now? We have to go home and there are no roads. Luckily helicopters still fly in slightly worse weather than airplanes and we manage (well, our guide manages) to book us a flight the very same afternoon. Wearing a wedding dress and tuxedo we are guided into what appears to be someones backyard through an opening in a concrete fence that has seen better days. On the other side of a worn down building is a small space covered in gravel where helicopters are taking off and landing all the time due to the lack of airplanes. A very unofficial looking person with “Security” written on his jacket takes notes on a piece of paper and asks for our names. He hands us a set of completely generic tickets, and that apparently covers check-in, security inspection and luggage handling, all at once.

After some more waiting we are pulled forward and assigned a helicopter. Tora’s vail moves in the wind from the helicopter and it looks a bit like a scene from an action movie. The pilot is rather surprised by the sight of a bride entering his helicopter and a fair amount of people watch curiously, wondering what on earth these weird people are doing. The helicopter takes off and we disappear into the fog heading home.

Back in Norway no-one knows what is going on. It is hard not to tell people that we just got married at over 5000 meters with the world’s tallest mountain in the background, but nothing can be revealed before the wedding celebration. The family has been informed that the ceremony is a secret and the last 3 weeks they think we spent on a business trip to Belgium.

On the 1st of December the family is gathered and are placed in a room with a large projector. The movie from the trip is starting and they get to experience our wedding through the camera. The last scene they see is us running down the mountain, flying back home and entering the very building they are sitting in. As we walk though the door in the movie it stops and we enter the actual room. Mission accomplished!

Over the next few weeks we will publish more stories from the trip, tips for those than want to make the journey to Mount Everest Base Camp themselves and of course more videos.

Now that the wedding has come to an end we can start to plan our honeymoon and all the adventures that are to come. 60+ years of future travel, here we come!