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Juhannus - Midsummer night

The Finnish Juhannus is the top event of the Finnish summer. With the longest and brightest night of the whole year, it is a celebration filled with light, romance and sense of freedom. Most people celebrate Juhannus privately, for example at the summer cottage with friends.

The preparations for Juhannus start with cleaning the whole house completely, and to give it that finishing touch the walls and the floor are wiped with fresh branches of birch. After that the house smells fresh like summer. To decorate the house also on the outside young birches are placed on both sides of the front door.

In the summer the Finns live outside, enjoy every detail more and feel free like a bird, just like when they were kids and had that ever lasting summer vacation from school and all the boring things. Wanting to spend every possible moment outside they serve the dinner in the garden. The table is beautifully set with fresh flowers from the garden, the menu is carefully selected and everybody gets dressed in festive summer clothes to welcome this highlight of the summer.

For the ladies without a boyfriend this day is of utmost importance, since it is the only day of the year when you can use magic to help your romantic situation. Here are various things you can try, but all these have one thing in common: they have to be done precisely at midnight! Some believe you should stand in front of a mirror with your back to it, holding another mirror so that you can see yourself in the both mirrors. At a certain point you will see your future husband in the reflection.

You can also try going to a well (a lake or a river will do just fine) at midnight. There you bend down naked to see your future husband's face in the water. When there is no water or a mirror try the following. Go to a field and gather seven different kinds of nature flowers and bind them together with a flower stem. Then put the bouquet under your pillow and you will see your future husband in your dream. You can also eat nine salty herrings before going to sleep. The one handing you a glass of water in your dream to lessen your thirst is your future husband.
Since you know now who to look for, it saves a lot of time.

The lucky ones who already found their other half enjoy the romantic setting of the nightless night. Juhannus is traditionally very romantic. The classical scene from an old Finnish movie is a young, beautiful girl leaning against a birch during the Midsummer night, waiting for the prince of her dreams to appear. So it should be no surprise that it is also the busiest wedding day of the whole year. When you want to get married at Juhannus in your favourite church, you really have to book it early.