Greek Wedding
Conductor: Maddy Kennedy
Interviewee: Katrina Pahos
Interviewee: Katrina Pahos
What was the date of your wedding?
- 27th June 2015
What location did you get married in?
- Lindos Bay, Islands of Rhodes, in the Dodecanese, Greece.
What were the cultural differences from a traditional Australian wedding?
- In a Greek orthodox wedding they have a set liturgy that they follow. This consists of prayers and a priest performing certain sacraments. Whereas in an Australian wedding such as a protestant wedding you have vowels, items of music and a church service. The Greek wedding was very traditional and exactly the same every time that it is performed.
- The Betrothal that was one of first ceremonies performed which is the ring ceremony.
- My husband’s sister was the koumbara (koumbara or a koumbaro in a Greek wedding) that helped perform some of the ceremonies. She placed the rings on our fingers and also placed the stefana (crowns) on our heads. They are like the spirit, similar in christening when you have a godmother or father.
- The priest spoke half of the ceremony in English and the other half in Greek.
Did your wedding take place in a church? If not, where did it take place?
- The chapel was very small. So in the beginning we walked into the chapel to sign the paper work. In a Greek Orthodox Wedding you go into the church and kiss the icons and greet the priest.
- The actual ceremony took place outside in the courtyard in front of the church.
Why did you get married in Greece?
- Greek Weddings are usually very large, with a large extended family. The large scale and expectations of a Greek wedding would have been too much for my Australian family and myself. Whereas I probably would have had a smaller, beach styled wedding on the Northern Beaches.
- By going to the Greek Islands we could still have the layback beach type wedding. With a smaller group, but still able to have a church wedding, which includes all of the ingredients to make the wedding significant and special for my husband and his family.
- I also wanted to pay my respect by visiting the family’s hometown Rhodes, where they all grew up.
What type of food was served during the reception?
- Many different types of meals
- Firstly, we cut the cake and fed it to one another, which was then taken away for dessert later on.
- We had a lot of seafood, as people from the Greek Islands love seafood that included octopus, calamari, prawn and fish. Others had lamb as their main dish.
What type of entertainment was in use?
- For the ceremony we had a violin player and someone playing the bouzouki, which is a traditional Greek guitar. The musicians walked us down the pathway to the church.
- At the reception both the musicians came along with a lady, singing traditional Greek style music.
- Later on we played more western-style, modern Australian type music playing from my I-pad.
How was your wedding decorated?
- There was a festival happening the next day so there were flags hanging up around the grounds of the church, which looked very beautiful.
- I had a white carpet running up the aisle of the courtyard into the church with white chairs on either side.
- Decorated lambadas, which are Greek candles, on either side of the table set outside of the church. The candles had beautiful flowers wrapped around them that were placed on either side of the sacrament table. The Bible, wine for communion and rings were all set upon the table, dressed with flowers.
- We had Bon Bon Vie, which are little gifts of sugared almonds in little blue bags sitting in a nice basket, for the guests to take.
- We also had cones of rice that were thrown at us at the end of the ceremony when we walked around the table three times, as the priest announced that we were married. This is called the dance of Isaiah.
- A table with drinks was decorated with my theme colour, a sparkly blue fabric.
- At the reception we had flowers on all the tables and a lovely table set up with the cake on it.
- There was a guest table with the guest book and Bon Bon Vies on it, as the gift that the guests took home. In the bags I made little artwork pictures of the wedding location and a little thank you note. Our florist decorated a small tree, which hung all of the little gifts on it.
- The venue was very beautiful so we didn’t have to decorate it too much. We had a magnificent view decorated with lanterns and flowers all around.
What did your wedding dress look like?
- My wedding dress was a princess styled dress, with a sweetheart bust and skirt that went down in an A line. The skirt was very full, full of churl. The dress was very heavy to carry over to Greece, however with a dance background, I loved it due to the full tutu look.
- We had to walk from the ceremony to where the reception was, which was through the village, a traditional, medieval village. The path had little cobblestones and archways, which we walked through and my dress dragged along the whole way.
What were the bridesmaids and best man wearing?
- I asked some of my friends to be the bridesmaids, however they found it hard to come over to Greece for the wedding. So I had my Husbands sister who was also the Koumbara in the wedding and my chief bridesmaid.
- My sister in law wore a soft blue, sweetheart styled dress but in a Grecian style, as one shoulder was layered with fabric. The dress had an empire line, high in the waist and came down in a column style.
- The flower girl was her daughter, who looked very beautiful in her little white dress.
- The chief bridesmaids husband was the best man and his son was the pageboy. They wore black suits with blue ties.
What style of makeup and hair did you have?
- My hair was curled and pinned up with a sparkly broach clipped in. I decided to have my hair up due to the hot weather. I wore a single long vale that trailed down along the dress and tucked in behind my hair.
- My bridesmaid also had her hair curled and pinned back. The flower girls hair was full of ringlets and flowers; she looked like a little princess.
Did you have any cultural dances?
- At the wedding ceremony the dance of Isaiah took place. The priest in an orthodox wedding takes you around the alter to symbolise the trinity, the father, the son and the spirit. This symbolised the beginning of our married life.
- At the reception, we wanted our photos done at sunset before it was too dark, so we cut the cake and had our first dance, which was a slow, waltz type of dance.
- Afterwards my husband’s family got up and danced a traditional Greek dance. Everyone got up and formed a circle, all holding hand and began the intricate footwork dancing.
- There were other dances that were at a faster pace, such as the Zorba Greek dance which is a very fast paced dance, which the men might do. There were also many other dances where both men and women danced.
What were the wedding gifts like?
- Before going overseas, I had a kitchen tea where all my friends and family gave me house gifts and money towards the house.
- At the wedding the guest put money into a box that we had set up (wishing well), which we partly used for our honeymoon.
Would you change anything about your special day?
- The photos were beautiful however they were done in a journal style. This didn’t quite capture formal pictures of the family that I would have liked.
- Getting married overseas meant that lots of friends and family couldn’t come which was a sad part of the day and probably my biggest regret. However is was for the best choice for us, as I don’t think my family and I could of coped with a big Greek wedding in Sydney.