AEROESKOEBING: When Benjamin and Natsuko met in Berlin two years ago, they had no idea their budding romance would lead them to tie the knot in what has become known as "Europe's Las Vegas".
Benjamin Krause is a 37-year-old German who met his Japanese girlfriend Natsuko Kubota, 32, while she was "couch surfing" at his Berlin flat via an informal bed and breakfast network.
As their relationship blossomed and talk turned to a life together, they quickly learned that Germany has some of Europe's highest bureaucratic hurdles to marriage, particularly if one partner is not German.
A consultation with one of Germany's many private agencies helping people wed in neighbouring Denmark set them on a path now followed by around 6,000 couples each year, according to unofficial estimates.
They may lack the drive-thru wedding chapels and Elvis-impersonator pastors of the US gambling mecca, but many cities and towns of southern Denmark have collectively won the nickname "Europe's Las Vegas" for offering a quick, simple alternative to couples getting hitched.
And because Denmark is an EU country, the marriages are subsequently recognised abroad, usually with little fuss or red tape.
"I thought that Japan is the most complicated country documentation-wise but I think Germany is much more complicated," said Kubota, who quit her job importing Japanese food for grocery stores and restaurants in Frankfurt to live with Krause.
"We didn't want to wait for six months just taking care of paperwork, that's why we decided to get married here," she said, adjusting a sparkling tiara in her hair minutes before her wedding on the Danish Baltic Sea island of Aeroe.
Krause said despite Aeroe's beauty, it was a pity not to wed in his hometown -- only his parents and a friend accompanied the couple to Denmark.
"I think the (German) government just needs to get used to it that everything is more international these days and you have to make it easier for people when you want to marry," said Krause, who works in entertainment news.
"There is some disappointment but I'm happy for the European community to be able to just hop over the border, do it here, and be home tomorrow again."
The couple sought the help of Karsten Thom, who in 2003 launched the Berlin-based agency "Heiraten Leicht Gemacht" (Marrying Made Easy) after wedding his Kenyan fiancee in Denmark the year before.
For about 400 euros ($500), he helps couples acquire the necessary documents, assists with travel arrangements and books appointments with register offices.
Thom criticises what he calls Germany's needlessly complex regulations, requiring a minimum of six months to navigate for binational couples.
"My personal experience was that in German register offices, they often assume couples are trying to get a residence permit for the foreign partner illegally and you have to prove the opposite," he said.
-- Fairy-tale town --
Aeroe's register office is just a short walk from the centre of Aeroeskoebing, which calls itself a "fairy-tale town" for its quaint half-timbered houses and seaside charm.
Krause and Kubota are welcomed with a broad smile by registrar Joan Lykke Ammersboell, who offers, during the 10-minute ceremony performed in English, to translate the vows into German so Krause's parents can follow the proceedings.
She stresses that every wedding on the island complies with EU law, meaning couples have to provide identification, proof that they entered the country legally and, if necessary, divorce papers from a previous marriage.
But Danish authorities waive the German requirement of a document from the home country stating a person is not already married and which is subject to court review -- usually the biggest obstacle for binational couples.
Betty Nyakatura, who was born in Berlin and holds both German and Ugandan citizenship, estimates she and her Ugandan husband Abba spent nearly 1,000 euros and a full year trying to get married in Germany before they headed to Denmark.
Nearly four years later, her voice still shakes with anger as she describes the contradictory information she received and the helplessness she felt when a German court refused to recognise Abba's Ugandan birth certificate.
"It was extremely disappointing, especially being German," says Nyakatura, a 30-year-old doctoral candidate in chemistry.
"I felt like this can't be my country any more, I can't belong here. If this is how you treat me, how am I supposed to feel safe and at home and accepted if this is what you do to me?"
Ammersboell put the Danish approach down to a different mentality.
"In Germany there's a distance between the people working there and those who are going to marry. They feel like they are sitting in a court. Here they are welcome," she said as she laid out wine glasses for a toast to the newlyweds.
Hairdresser Margit Noerby charges about 100 euros for wedding styling and says the brides are a boon to her business.
"Some really want big hair and they come with big dresses and they make a big deal out of it," she said.
"The girls come from Russia and Africa and all around the world."
Joergen Otto Joergensen of the tourist office estimates weddings bring around seven million kroner (one million euros) annually to Aeroe, population 7,000.
"There's income for the hotels, the ferry, the florist. Many of these people will come back and visit us so it's really good for the future too," he said.
A German interior ministry spokesman said that the key reason why many "perceive Denmark as unbureaucratic" was that the country only observes Danish law when marrying binational couples while Germany also takes the national law of the foreign citizen into account.
He noted this could potentially lead to a marriage in Denmark not being recognised but acknowledged that "an accumulation of such cases in Germany has until now not been observed".
Kubota admitted her experience had coloured her perception of her new home.
"It's just two people who want to be together, to get married. Why make it so complicated?"
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