It was held in a small village Church just across on the mainland up in the hills. When we got there the guests were standing about in the afternoon sunshine waiting for the Groom(Dimitri) and Bride(Poppy) to arrive, no one goes into the Church to wait. Dimitri arrives with his family and all the cars in his group beeping their horns all through the village. He waits at the door of the Church for Poppy to arrive. Dimitri also carried their son Spiro who was being christened straight after the wedding. We were all going to be there for a while!
Poppy arrives by car with her family,more horns then she walks up to the church with her Dad. She meets Dimitri at the door and together they walk into the beautiful little Church, followed by the quests. Guests are not divided as with English weddings they all mix together with importance put on standing as close as possible to the action so they can see what’s going on. And that’s just what my friend and I did. Everyone is free to take pictures throughout the ceremony and the official photographer runs around taking pictures from every angle, while the guest chat, wander around in and out of the Church.
Here’s a brief description of the ceremony. The Service of Betrothal focuses on the ring exchange. The priest blesses the rings by holding them in his right hand, and making the sign of the cross over the bride's and groom's heads. Then he places the rings on the third fingers of their right hands. The ‘Koumbaro’ (the best man) the couple's religious sponsor, swaps the rings three times between the bride and groom's fingers. Next the priest leads several prayers and as they come to an end, he joins the right hands of the bride and groom. Their hands remain joined until the wedding ceremony ends, which symbolizes their union.
The Common Cup. The priest follows the crowning with a Gospel reading, which tells of the marriage of Cana at Galilee when Jesus performed his first miracle, changing water into wine, repeating this ritual, the priest gives wine to the couple. They each drink from the cup three times.
The Ceremonial Walk. The priest leads the stefana-crowned couple three times around the altar, which is their first steps as a married couple. The Koumbaro follows close behind, holding the stefana in place. At this point the couple (and anyone standing nearby) is pelted with rice, which ushers handed out earlier to the guests. The rice throwing got pretty wild, with the best man looking like he had a bad case of dandruff for some time!
The Removal of the Crowns. When the Ceremonial Walk ends, the priest blesses the couple, removes the crowns and separates their previously-joined hands with the Bible, reminding them that only God can break the union they've just entered into. All in all it's lovely and chaotic, at one point one of the big candles fell over and nearly set one of the little girls on fire then when all the rice throwing had finished there was so much rice on the floor it was like walking on marbles. All good fun.An hour later half the service over – now to the Christening!
A brief description of the Christening - the service begins with prayers, blessing the water and the baby (Spiro) being undressed and anointed with pre-baptismal oil. The priest makes the sign of the cross in the water with the oil three times before little Spiro is ‘dunked’ three times.
The priest then anoints Spiro on his brow, chest, ears, hands, feet and back. The sponsor will make the confession of faith by reciting the Nicene Creed. Next little Spiro was dressed in a post-baptismal clothes, which included a fantastic little hat that made him look like a miniature gangster. The only time he cried was when they began dressing him after the service, he’d had enough by then. 
Believe it or not the christening was also an hour. Then we all mosied outside to collect our ‘favors’ – gifts of almonds (koufeta) wrapped up in netting and decorated with ribbons etc. and because it was a Christening as well there were little christening gifts with a nautical style.
The little boxes have sweeties in
It was the longest wedding I’ve ever been to and I enjoyed it immensely. Off we go to the reception. As soon as the guests arrive they start feeding – no waiting for the bride and groom. By the time they got there we were nearly finished. When they did arrive the noise level with clapping, clinking cutlery was deafening. They cut the cake as soon as they arrive and have a toast, a little dance, then finally they get to sit down and eat. We left before the dancing started but I understand it could have gone on all night!! What a great evening.
The bride and groom share a toast with us
More pictures of the wedding here
So you see we are still alive and from next week I'll be bringing the blog up to date with our New Zealand trip and what we've been up to this summer here in Greece.
