Bridal Sauna – the Finnish way

Bridal sauna – the Finnish way

In Finland we have stopped practicing a lot of our cultural heritage but some traditions do not disappear. The bridal sauna is one of them.

Long before wedding venues, photographers, and carefully planned schedules, there was the sauna. A place not only for washing the body, but for preparing the spirit. The bridal sauna was held before the wedding day, often with close women of the village. And while the bride stood at the center of the ritual, similar traditions were also held for the groom.

Marriage was never seen as a small step. A bride was leaving her mother’s house, crossing from one life into another. The sauna became the doorway between those worlds. Marriage is the union of two. Two lives become one. And potentially create new life. A lot of strength was needed to cross from single life to the married one.

In the bridal sauna old life was symbolically washed away. Salt and herbs were used for purification, cleansing the identity of maidenhood before entering married life.

Nouse lempi – arise love and passion

The rituals were rich with symbols of fertility and abundance. Eggs and grains all held meaning.

Eggs represented new life waiting to begin. Egg is universally the symbol of beginning of life.

Grains stood for nourishment, food of life, the gift of life.

One of the most powerful parts of the bridal sauna was the lemmennosto ritual, the ritual of awakening the love, fertility and fire of life in the bride. Branches, herbs and flowers from seven or nine different plants were gathered from the forest and tied into a sauna vihta (whisk) to bathe the bride. Also the seat of the bride in the sauna was prepared with care, plants, leaves but also some prickly evergreens and nettle was layed on the sauna bench. To give health but also to remind that life has some stinging parts also in it.

Hair also held deep meaning.

The bride’s hair was braided before marriage, marking the end of one stage of life and the beginning of another. In old Finnish tradition, loose hair belonged to maidens, a symbol of freedom, youth, and a life still open like the wind. Braided or covered hair belonged to married women, whose lives now carried responsibility and structure. Hair was seen as a symbol of time itself.