Chic boho wedding with bougainvillea

It is easy to see why this stylish couple chose to getting married at this beautiful location in Greece. Aside from the authentic beauty of this lovely Greek town (I can’t simply stop gushing over the vibrant bougainvillea), this is exactly where Jared proposed to his bride-to-be:“Jared proposed to me on a mountain overlooking the town one summer and we knew we wanted all our friends and family to experience this hidden gem of a town. But the town is so small it isn’t really set up to accommodate a large wedding. We searched and searched for a venue but there just wasn’t one. Finally, we found an old restaurant on the water that had been closed for years and fell in love as soon as we saw it. The restaurant wasn’t operational so we had to get the power back up, fix the landscaping, add a bathroom, etc. It was truly a labor of love to get the space wedding ready but it ended up being truly exquisite. We wanted everything to be neutral and natural and were really inspired by the natural beauty (the mountains, the ocean, the olive trees, etc.) We also wanted our wedding to reflect the laid back lifestyle of Greece. We didn’t want anything to be too traditional. We wanted it to feel natural…”

The lovely bride shared with us: “The most important thing to us was for our guests to get to experience Greece in a way that most tourists don’t get to. We wanted them to get to experience a small town living, traditional food and music shared with family and friends, the laid back lifestyle of a small beach town, and the great hospitality of the Greeks.”

“It can be super stressful planning a wedding overseas! Try to enjoy the process because the wedding will be over in the blink of an eye. We had a small Greek band play music as I walked down the aisle and as we left. Our first song was Step by Vampire Weekend (not very traditional for a wedding but it was a song that reminded us of falling in love in college). Both of my parents are Greek so I grew up spending my summers in Greece in a small beach town called Porto Germeno which my dad also spent his summers growing up. Our family congregates in two house over the summer in this town and it’s always been my fondest memories. The town is quaint with only a couple of restaurants, coffee shops, and bed and breakfasts. It’s nothing fancy but it has the most amazing beaches which draws people from Athens (about an hour and a half away). The town has always meant so much to my family and Jared fell in love with it just as much…”

“We kept everything neutral because we really wanted the landscape of Greece to be the main attraction. We keep our wedding attire and all decor neutral. The only color was from the bougainvillea flowers which grow wildly all over Greece and are one of my most favorite flowers. There was a blank wall at the entrance of the venue so Jared and I decided we wanted to paint the names of our guests on the wall as our seating chart. Jared handprinted 200+ names on the wall which took him two full days…”

“The whole day was incredible but the most memorable part for me was walking down the aisle to Jared. The whole day was a blur of happiness but I’ll never forget that moment…”

“I had the hardest time finding a wedding dress! I had something in my mind that just didn’t exist so I worked with Houghton who created my dream dress. My girls wore dresses from Show Me Your Mumu is the same color but different styles and the boys wore Zara suits with J-Crew ties. Jared handmade each of his groomsmen a leather belt with their nicknames stamped into them.”

 

“I wanted to send Jared a little note the day of our wedding while we were both getting ready so I surprised with him a new iPad and a video from me. During the ceremony, when we were exchanging rings, he surprised me with a second ring! In the middle of the ceremony, you could hear me say “Two rings”.

“We wanted our dinner to feel like a big family gathering so we served everything family style. We loved the idea of all our guests passing plates and having a good time throughout the dinner. We served a modern Greek menu of whole fish and lamb chops that were grilled out back along with tons of side dishes (roasted potatoes, eggplant salad, greek salad, etc.). We also had a late night snack of souvlaki. My uncle surprised us with fireworks at the end of the night! We had no idea but it was magical.”

“We had our photographer Thanasis Kaiafas for three days capturing all the events leading up to the big day and he truly became like family. We originally planned to have our ceremony on the mountain overlooking the town which has the ruins of a castle and is where we got engaged. We found out a month before the wedding that the Archeological Society would no longer allow us to get married there because of prolonged construction and we were crushed. It was really special that we went up there after the ceremony for pictures and that our photographer still captured that beautiful location for us…” 

“We had the most incredible vendors and they really all stood out! Maria at Moustakis Flower Company is an insanely talented florist. Maria and her team literally worked through the entire night before the wedding. Christos Nikas, our wedding DJ from Showtime, made the party last until 7am. He made our reception a success and was so fun to work with. Thanasis Kaiafas, our photographer, was with us for three days and captured the most amazing moments. He truly became one of our friends. Kathy and Kalliope from Kallina Coordinators made the entire wedding happen. We truly could not have done this without them. They made a 200 person wedding happen in a town that didn’t even have a venue that held that many people or hotels to accommodate that many people. They got all our guests to and from the town safely, executed our wedding perfectly, and were so fun to work with…”