Kissing

Adding to the interest of mealtime are the kissing traditions. During the 1970’s a new tradition started in Denmark. When the guests bang on their plates with their knife or fork, the wedding couple have to climb onto their chairs and kiss! When the guests stamp their feet, the pair have to kiss under the table.

 

Kiss the bride / Kiss the groom

According to another Danish tradition, the guest will also have the chance to kiss the bride or the groom. At dinner whenever the groom leaves the room, all the men in the room rush over and queue up to kiss the bride. Whenever the bride leaves the room during dinner all the women rush over to kiss the groom.

 

Speeches and Songs during the dinner

Toasts and songs for the bridal couple are a personal and touching part of a Danish wedding reception. It's possible for any guests to give a toast or song for the wedding couple. Note that normally it’s meant for everyone to join in singing the songs, so enough copies will be made for all the guests. Typically the song sheets are marched in one by one by the waiters and waitresses and are presented in some novel way e.g. rolled up and tied with ribbon or whatever your wild imagination can dream up. The tunes are traditional or well-known (children's songs are particularly popular) only the lyrics have been changed to convey a humorous and/or heart-filled message. The speeches and songs are made/sung throughout the dinner! Therefore a tradional Danish wedding dinner often goes on for a number of hours. Anyone who wants to give a toast should send their request to the Bestman (Rasmus).

 

AFTER DINNER

 

Wedding cake

Starting from the Antic Rome, a wedding cake has traditionally been a sign of happiness and fertility. According to a Danish tradition the newlyweds have to cut the cake together before midnight to avoid bad luck - and all of the guests must eat a piece. In the Finnish tradition also the way in which the cake is cut has a meaning. The bride and the groom cut the first piece of the cake togethe, the bride's hand under the groom's. The party of the newlyweds managing to stomp the floor with his/her foot first after the first piece has been cut out but before the piece of cake lands on the plate, will rule the family.

 

Wedding candy

The wedding candy are usually distributed after the wedding dinner or whilst coffee is served. This is a task of honour given usually to the flowergirls and flowerboys.

 

Bridal waltz

According to etiquette both in Finland as well as in Denmark, the “brudevals”, the bridal waltz, must be danced before midnight. However, whereas the Finns are content watching the newlyweds dance, the Danish guests encircle the bride and groom and clap to the dance steps of the waltz. To shock the Finns, it does not stop there! Closer to the end of the melody the guests slowly walk toward the bride and groom giving them less and less dance floor space until there is none – and at the end the guests throw rice at the pair!

 

According to the Finnish tradition, the newlyweds usually dance alone the first waltz, after which two more waltzes are played, the first being dance by the newlyweds as well as their parents until the bestman or the maid of honour calls the other guests also to join the dance floor.

 

The most common bridal waltz used in Denmark is written by the famous Danish composer Niels W. Gade in 1854. The waltz was originally written to a play. In Finland, there are several traditional bridal waltzes to choose from and lately the waltzes have also been replaced by any other slow songs.

 

In this wedding the two traditions are mixed, on the one hand giving the Danes (and of course the Finns too) the chance to corner the newlyweds on the dance floor and to throw the rice on them (again!), and on the other hand reserving the first half of the second waltz to the newlyweds and their parents only.

 

Breaking a cup/plate or pot
According to an old Finnish custom, the godmother of the bride throws a cup/plate or a pot on the floor during the wedding waltz. The broken pieces bring happiness to the newlyweds and their number predicts the number of the future children in the family. The pieces are carefully cathered in a small bag and given to the newlyweds. Sirpaleet kerätään kauniiseen pussukkaan ja annetaan muistoksi hääparille. Another very old tradition forced to brake the glasses used in toasting so that the same glasses could never be used again in the honour of anyone else. As in this wedding we will be renting both the china as well as the glasses, we kindly ask you to forget at least the latter tradition...

 

Cutting the socks

In a typical Danish wedding, after the bridal waltz the men will suddenly circle around the groom and get closer and closer. When the groom is completely encircled, they will lift him up, pull out a pair of scissors and cut his socks. This old tradition have roots in a saying from the 15th century; “make you stockings green” – meaning that a person will make up to another with erotic advances. When you cut a piece of the socks of the groom on his wedding day it will prevent him from trying to make up to other women in the future.

 

Serenade to the bride

Even though it's difficult to get a Finnish man to sing infront of a crowd (at least without enough alcohol), in the Finnish weddings men traditionally sing a serenade to the bride. Needless to say that this usually happens first after enough alcoholic bewerages have been enjoyed...

 

Finnish wedding games and stealing the bride!

Finnish weddings often include wedding games. A Finnish wedding will almost always have some sort of games for everyone to play. They can be fun and social or ridiculous and even a bit embarrassing. These games may be akin to those played by children, such as musical chairs, or they may include a quiz about the happy couple's life. Usually the theme of love and marriage is present. There are a whole bunch of games, like blindfolding the groom, lining up a group of women from the party and one man and have the groom guess which leg belongs to his bride.

 

A very traditional game that often causes alarm in non-Finnish wedding guests is called the "stealing of the bride" (morsiamenryöstö). This game is based on an ancient practices of kidnaping the bride dating back to the history of Atilla, king of the Asiatic Huns from A.D. 433 to A.D. 453 (see below for the origins of honeymoon)! In effect, in the Finnish weddings the best man and his trusted men suddenly grab the bride at an unexpected moment and carry her out of sight. The groom then has to finish a set task, such as singing a song, writing a poem to the bride, or (as in the earlier days) collecting money from the guests in the bride's shoe. Once he has successfully completed the task, the bride is returned unharmed, although sometimes slightly tipsy. Modern variations of this game include the stealing of the groom/mothers-in-law/fathers-in-law instead. The stealing of the bride is planned and implemented by the bride and groom's attendants, and usually comes as a "waited" surprise to the bridal couple.

 

The bridal bouquet and the garter

The blindfolded bride tosses the bridal bouquet over her shoulder to a bunch of non-married women waiting to catch it. The one who catches the bouquet is next in line to get married...

 

To make things more equal, the groom in turn has to remove the bridal garter from the bride's thigh without using his hands. The garter is then thrown by the groom to the non-married men wanting to catch the garter as a omen of their future marriage...

 

Honeymoon

Scandinavian history describes the abduction of a bride from a neighboring village. It was imperative, that the abductor, the husband-to-be, took his bride to be into hiding for period of time. His friends assured his and her safe keeping and kept their whereabouts unknown. Once the bride's family gave up their search, the bride and the groom returned to his people. This folkloric explanation presumably is the origin of today's honeymoon, for its original meaning meant hiding.

 

The Scandinavian word for honeymoon is derived, in part, from an ancient Northern European custom in which newlyweds, for the first month of their married life, drank a daily cup of honeyed wine called mead.

 

 

These are of course only some of the traditions in both countries and not all of them will be followed at this Wedding. Which traditions in the end will be followed remains to be seen...