How to Plan a Memorable International Wedding in the Finnish Archipelago

Are you planning an international wedding in Finland? As many of my clients have been through this task, I thought I’d share some tips on how they have managed to make the experience memorable for both Finnish guests and guests arriving from all over the world.

While our own wedding took place during pandemic and we weren’t lucky enough to have our full circle of friends and family attend the wedding, I’ve been very happily witnessing many weddings for my amazing clients where they were able to get most of their loved ones celebrating in one spot.

Milla & Stuart had their wedding in the beautiful setting of Herrankukkaro in Naantali. It is the home to the world’s largest smoke sauna and in their own words (taken from their website) “in the heart of the archipelago, just a half an hour’s drive from downtown Turku. It is a distinctive conference and recreational center built around a fisherman’s homestead”.

For the night before the wedding, some guests stayed at Naantali Spa where they also had a little dinner gathering on Friday. I was invited to the dinner as well, and as a photographer it was very nice to meet most of the guests ahead of time. As I’m always stressing the fact that you should choose a photographer you’d like to hang out with anyways, and in so many ways chemistry means more than anything else, it means the world to be included as a person and not just as a hired vendor. Before the dinner we had our final meeting to discuss the details of the wedding day, and we went on a little mini shoot adventure near the hotel.

Since wedding days go by so fast, especially with international weddings it makes so much sense to turn the whole weekend into a multi day wedding extravaganza so that you will have more time to chat with your loved ones, and they will have more time to experience everything Finland has to offer.

On the day of the wedding Milla & Stuart had organized a bus transportation from the hotel to Herrankukkaro, where guests had time to check in to their cottages before the ceremony started. Having the opportunity to stay where everything happens gives you the opportunity to once again get more out of your experience and extends the celebrations from just the wedding day to the next day as well.

Milla & Stuart both got ready at the cottages at Herrankukkaro, and soon after we headed out for a few portraits of them and their doggies.

While we were taking portraits, guest started to arrive at the ceremony location with views out to the sea. Since it had been quite windy, the original spot near the sea changed to a terrace of one of the old buildings at Herrankukkaro called Mallassauna.

They had planned a very warm and thoughtful ceremony, including

• a ringwarming ceremony where the rings are passed among all the guests attending the wedding, and each of them “warm” the rings with good thoughts & prayers
• handfasting ceremony where their hands were tied together
• their dogs acting as ringbearers

They walked back on the aisle with guest throwing dried flowers on them.

For the rest of the day & night they had chosen to enjoy local Finnish delicasies with their loved ones and we got to hear lovely speeches while people were enjoying the relaxed atmosphere of this very special venue. Milla & Stuart took a dip in the sea and continued dancing the night away. Guests were able to party without worrying about getting back home right away and the next morning after breakfast, there was a bus taking us all back to downtown Turku where we were able to catch a train back to Helsinki, where most of the international guests continued their journey back home from Helsinki-Vantaa airport.

Here are more photos from their day including special details and inspiration for wedding planning.

Flowers: https://www.flör.fi/
Cake: https://www.tanniset.com/
All decorations handmade by Milla and Laura Hickson
Band: https://piikkikasvi.fi/rosteri/bilebandit/mr-sushi/