Diary of a Greek Bride: The Wedding Part 1

The week leading up to our wedding on Antiparos was meant to be one of long lazy lunches with friends and family, swimming in the sea, working on my tan and generally chilling out before the Big Day. However in reality things turned out quite different! 

Before I go on to spill the beans I have to say that the week we got married really was the best of our lives. It wasn't just our wedding day alone but the days before and the days afterwards with all our closest friends and family really were incredible and will stay with us etched in our memories for ever. And many of our guests have said the same!

STRIKE HELL!

So, 3 days before the wedding the Greeks decide to hold a national strike which meant all transport throughout Greece and on the islands was suspended... so no planes, no ferries, no trains. Cue lots of frantic emails and texts sent back and forth between us and our guests some of who were now stranded in Athens and others who were on other islands holidaying before they got to us. What had we done?! Would we have any guests turn up? Arrrggghh!

PAPERWORK HELL!

I must mention the paperwork hell we went through. When we arrived on the island, our wedding planner, Magda, informed us that the local Mayor's office were not happy with our papers and that we had failed to get them stamped and authorised in Athens. We had NO IDEA that we were meant to do this despite calling the Greek embassy and visiting the consulate here in London and repeatedly checkign our paperwork was correct.Well it wasn't and at no point did anyone tell us this and our planner certainly wasn't aware of it. To say we felt utterly foolish is an under statement. Luckily Magda had some friends who were going back to Athens that night, the day before the pending strike, and they were going to give the papers to Magda's daughter who lived in Athens to take to the Australian and English Embassies on our behalf. Phew! the daughter returned to Antiparos on the Thursday with the papers all in order on the Thursday - she couldn't get the the island due to the strike on Wednesday! We got the OK to proceed with the marriage first thing Friday morning, ie, ONE DAY BEFORE we were due to have our civil wedding that 60 of our guests had flown from the UK and Australia to witness! Talk about living on the edge.

One thing I would say if you are not a Greek national and you want to get married in Greece, then check, double check and tripple check you have all your paperwork in order, not just with the Greek Embassy in London but with your country's embassy in Athens. God knows how this managed to slip beneath our radar but it did and we were very nearly having a sham wedding whereby we would have gone through with what looked like a legal ceremony but actually it wouldn't have been. Doesn't bare thinking about!

WEDDING PLANNER WARNING!

Anyway, what should have been carefree days of looking forward to our wedding turned into a stressful anxiety-ridden time spent constantly on the phone to the embassies trying to sort the mess out. While our planner was doing her best to help us resolve this issue, we felt she should have been more clued up on our paperwork which we had submitted to her the week before we left the UK. From her point of view, we were responsible for ensuring our consulates in Athens accepted the papaerwork we arrived in Greece with...There was no use in pinning blame on anyone, it was an oversight,  we dealt with it and luckily it all turned out ok in the end!

THE DAY BEFORE THE WEDDING

We had planned a boat trip around the island on the Thursday but because of the strikes lots of our guests were unable to make it in time so we made the decision to postpone the boat trip to Friday... and we were so glad we did as we had such a brilliant time and it meant loads more people were able to come on it, 43 of us in total! Captain Ben plied us all with ouzo and provided a tasty barbecued lunch on a deserted beach which was the perefct ice breaker for people to mingle and get to know one another. Success! I would definitely recommend organising some fun activity like this for everyone so they can get to see th elocal area and it gets everyone socialsiing right from the word go.

In the evening we had organised some sunset drinks at a gorgeous bar on the island. We told everyone to drop by for casual drinks between 7-9pm which again was a great way of spending time with our guests and gave us a chance to say more than just a quick "hello and thanks for coming to our wedding"  on the actual day itself. I can't tell you how beautiful it was to be stressfree at this point and sipping chilled wine with all our favourite people around us watching the most gloriouis of sunsets!