Finnish Weddings: Walking the Bride Down the Aisle?

[amppa]

Hi everyone. I'm new to these forums, so hello. I just read an article about the Swedish princess getting married, and the article mentioned something about Swedish wedding tradition. The article stated that, in Sweden, the bride and groom walk to the altar together, rather than the bride walking accompanied by her father, who escorts her to the groom who is already waiting for her at the altar, as is often done in the U.S. I am curious: is the Finnish tradition the same as the Swedish one, where the bride and groom walk down the aisle to the altar together?

[Jukka Aho]

Hi everyone. I'm new to these forums, so hello. I just read an article about the Swedish princess getting married, and the article mentioned something about Swedish wedding tradition. The article stated that, in Sweden, the bride and groom walk to the altar together, rather than the bride walking accompanied by her father, who escorts her to the groom who is already waiting for her at the altar, as is often done in the U.S. I am curious: is the Finnish tradition the same as the Swedish one, where the bride and groom walk down the aisle to the altar together?

That particular “human interest” story has generated rather lengthy discussion threads in the comments sections of Finnish news sites as well. See here, here, and here, for example.

Curiously, if you skim through those comments, it appears Finns do not seem to agree among themselves what is (or has been) the actual Finnish tradition in this regard. Some commentators claim the father walking the bride is an American custom which has only become common in Finland quite recently due to the influence of TV and movies, and that it is actually patronizing towards the egalitarian Nordic woman, and that they would never want to do anything silly like that themselves, and never saw it being done here until the late 1970s and onwards. Some others say their mother was walked that way already in the 1930s, and that it is a beautiful and touching custom which has been observed in their family since times immemorial, not to speak of most of the other weddings they have ever attended to. One comment I saw claimed the writer has a Finnish guidebook on good manners in her possession, printed in the beginning of the 1950s, and it documents that particular custom in the wedding customs section.

So there appears to be no clear consensus on the matter... in the public mind. Some people believe one way, some the other, each according to the customs followed in their family and their closest circle of friends. But at least in this article, they quote Carol Ekrem, archivist at the Archives of Folk Culture maintained by The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland and she says according to the archived historical material, both customs – the one where the bride and the groom walk in the front of the church together, and the one where the bride is walked to the half-way point by her father and then walked the rest of the way in the front by the groom – have been observed in Finland at least throughout the 20th century. Ekrem says the theory that walking the bride would have simply been a foreign custom adopted from Hollywood movies appears unlikely in light of historical evidence. She also thinks that the über-feminist viewpoint about the Nordic woman being so fiercely independent she cannot be walked and handed over by her father is “a bit outdated”. (She is of the opinion that publicly kissing the bride after the minister has pronounced the couple a man and a wife is an American custom adopted from the movies, though.)

In any case, even though walking the bride is a custom which is not necessarily followed in all families or universally approved by all individuals, it certainly is a commonly observed and well-known Finnish wedding custom now.

• • •

As for other, related viewpoints expressed in those comment threads, many people argue the custom is more fitting if the bride is still relatively young and semi-dependent on her family. Conversely, they see it a bit less fitting if it is, say, already the second wedding for the bride, or if the bride has been leading independent and self-providing life for quite a many years already. Then again, some others say it is no-one else’s business but that of the bride herself.

The Finnish version of this custom I’m most familiar with is that the groom awaits for the bride and her escort at approximately half-way point of the length of the church aisle, or a bit further front. When the bride arrives to that point, the groom then walks her the rest of the way in the front part of the church. If the father of the bride is not available for the occasion, for whatever reason (death, illness, etc.), but the bride still wants to be escorted, the escort might also be some other male member of the bride’s family such as grandfather, uncle, brother, or even her godfather.

[EP]

One comment I saw claimed the writer has a Finnish guidebook on good manners in her possession, printed in the beginning of the 1950s, and it documents that particular custom in the wedding customs section.

I have a book named "Käyttäydynkö moitteettimasti?" published in 1944. I have no idea when it was actually written because the language sounds much older. And the writer is E. Tiketti (E. Tiquette).

"Nyt saapuu morsian isänsä saattelemana ja morsiusparin vanhemmat kiiruhtavat paikoilleen vinosti alttaria vastapäätä' ja heti tämän jälkeen kajahtaa häämarssi kuuluville."

So according to that the father walked the bride.

never saw it being done here until the late 1970s and onwards.

Me neither. And I walked with the groom, but my father was dead by that time so it would have been kind of hard to walk with him. And when I think of the weddings I attended as a child in 1950´s and 60´s, it was always the bride and the groom. Fathers were usually dead.

[Mölkky-Fan]

In Finland it depends on the time of day of the wedding, after the bars are open probably the bride or groom cannot walk anyway

Seriously, we did it the 'normal way' of bride's father walking with the bride, and groom sat at the front sweating it out.

[amppa]

Thank you all for the informative replies

[Sara]

I walked most of the way with my father and then changed to my husband about 3/4 of the way down. Our Finnish priest said that was the way he has always seen it done.