Ben Hamilton
January 4th, 2023

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This will do! Get married wherever you want (photo: Kristoffer Trolle, kristoffertrolle.com)

Copenhagen prides itself on being a marriage capital of the world, offering couples weird and wacky ways to get hitched, and it would appear to be paying off!

Last year there were 7,484 civil weddings in Copenhagen Municipality – a new record that eclipsed the 6,091 that took place in 2021 and the previous high of 6,679 set in 2019.

The wackier the better
Of the 7,484 weddings, 497 were conducted outdoors at locations such as Tivoli, CopenHill and the garden of Det Kongelige Bibliotek as part of the ‘Vie i det fri’ initiative – up from 406 in 2021.

While a further 268 took place at locations entirely of the couple’s choosing as part of the ‘Book en foged’ initiative.

Police shoot dead knifeman following capital’s 10th stabbing in 12 days
A policeman was today wounded with a knife on Moselgade in Amager – the tenth stabbing in the capital since Christmas Eve. Officers opened fire at the assailant and killed him. On January 2, two men aged 29 and 30 were stabbed where Åboulevard intersects HC Ørstedsvej on the border of Nørrebro and Frederiksberg. It led to the police establishing a visitation zone surrounding Blågårds Plads in Nørrebro, which is due to end tomorrow at 14:00. Hundreds of locals have been stopped and searched by patrols using dogs.

DTU’s 200 million kroner clean-up bill leaves huge dent
DTU is forecasting a loss of 400 million kroner for 2022. Half is attributed to soaring energy costs and inflation, while the other half has been blamed on a huge bill for cleaning up research facilities on the island of Lindholm that the university vacated at the end of the year. For the last decade, DTU had been using the labs on Lindholm to conduct research into infectious diseases. “If we are going to foot this bill ourselves, then it has to be paid with research funds, and we don’t think that should be spent on cleaning up 100-year-old research facilities,” it reasoned. DTU took the matter to an arbitration panel, but lost. Its next step is to approach the Education Ministry for help.

BDSM defence rejected by city court
Copenhagen Court yesterday sentenced a 38-year-old Esbjerg businessman to three and a half years in prison for raping a woman at Hotel Stay in Islands Brygge. In his defence, he did not deny having sex with the woman for seven hours, but said it was in keeping with their agreement via Scor.dk, a site on which they both admitted BDSM preferences. The court rejected the man’s claim that they had agreed on sex without limits – the woman told the man to stop on a number of occasions, not least when he punched her, rendered her unconscious by stangulation and urinated in her mouth. The court was able to assess nine videos taken by the man during the woman’s ordeal.

Two Vesterbro restaurants closed down
Two restaurants, both owned by Umut Sakarya, have closed down. Guldkroen and Guldgrillen were both located in Vesterbro. “It’s a decision I made quite a while ago, but it’s only now that I can tell you,” wrote Sakarya on social media. Sakarya is a celebrity chef with Turkish heritage.

Green light for Stejlepladsen housing complex
Plans to build 500 new residences at Stejlepladsen in Sydhavn, which were first tabled in February 2021, have received the final green light from the authorities. Frustrated in its attempts to build new housing on Amager Fælled in recent years, Copenhagen Municipality switched its attention to Stejlepladsen, formerly an environmentally-protected green area, and the new year brought the news that construction can start in the spring. 

Police seek home robbery suspect
Copenhagen Police is seeking a suspect in connection with a home robbery carried out by three men on Kronprinsensgade near Christiania on the night of November 19 at around 02:00. Two men, aged 23 and 20, have been charged with threatening the home’s owner with a knife and stealing valuables, and now the police have issued a photo of their suspected accomplice (see below).