The highlight of our wedding and special day was the fact that it was a destination wedding in Santorini, Greece!!
Neither of us wanted to have a big wedding, we wanted to do something different... so we decided on Santorini and combined it with our honeymoon.
My husband and I had our legal ceremony here in Johannesburg a month before to sign all the legal documents and then we had our wedding, celebrating with our nearest family and friends a month later on the beautiful island of Santorini. It was the most perfect, special and memorable day in the most beautiful setting, right on the cliffs of the Caldera overlooking the sun setting over the Mediterranean Sea!!
After spending a wonderful week in Thira, Santorini, with our family and friends leading up to the wedding, we stayed on for another week in the beautiful little coastal village of Kamari, exploring the beaches soaking up the sun.
I wanted to keep it light, timeless and elegant. For our legal ceremony my dress was made by my tailor in Dubai, my hair done by my hairdresser Taryn, from Tanaz Hair and my make-up was done by me. For our wedding, seeing that it was a destination wedding, and needed to travel with my dress, I wanted something unique and light. Lizette from Bridal Alchemy made my vision come to life and created the dress of my dreams! My beautiful hair and make-up was done by two local stylists from Santorini.
I am not someone who followed all the usual traditions with the something blue, something borrowed etc, I decided to have only my something old, and that was to wear my mom’s old engagement ring, that my dad designed for her.
We had a small and intimate destination wedding in Santorini, Greece, but had our legal ceremony here in Johannesburg a month before to sign the papers. Our legal ceremony was held in Beechwood Gardens, Sandton, only with my aunt and uncle as our witnesses, as they were to old to travel.
Our wedding was held at Thermes Luxury Villas in Santorini. All our guests booked their own accommodation as we all spent a week together leading up to the wedding. It was a fabulous holiday!
We did not have a long engagement, as we decided not to wait, so I only had 4 months to ‘prepare’ :-) I stuck to my usual daily beauty regime, went for a fabulous facial, went to the gym at least 3 times and week and ate as healthy as I could. I did not want to starve myself, I just wanted to feel happy, healthy and be me....just the way my hubby loves me!
For our wedding in Greece, I wanted to keep it elegant and simple, as the setting and venue was so dramatic! Our colour scheme was black, white, green and gold. Our ceremony was held outside, on the Caldera cliffs. The only decor was some white flowers with white draping on a table, the gold Tiffany chairs, two white lanterns with candles and an olive tree.
Our reception was held on a terrace, also on the Caldera, with one long dining table simply decorated with branches of greenery, a few candles and a very simple table setting. The gold Tiffany chairs were moved up for the table. Due to the dramatic setting and venue, I did not want to clutter it with decor. We took over lots of candles that we used with white paper lanterns. Our amazing wedding planner, Panos from LovWed, made my vision a reality.
The groom and groomsmen had their suites specially made by the fabulous and very talented Vuyo from Sir Varoy, Johannesburg. All suites were customs made with fabric specially selected my my husband. The groom wore a white tuxedo jacket with black pants and the groomsmen wore black tuxedos. It was so elegant and they all looked so handsome!
I wanted my bridesmaids to wear long black dresses. I created a mood board for my ladies using Pinterest with some ideas :-) and they bought their own dresses in a style that they felt beautiful and comfortable in....and that they will be able to wear again.
Our marriage officer was Larne Trevor Hugo from Johannesburg. He is such a lovely and welcoming person and when we met, it felt like we already knew each other. We wanted to keep the ceremony short and the reading he gave with the vows, was perfect! We were emotional messes :-)
To capture our legal ceremony, we used a good friend of my husband, and a fantastic photographer, Xavier from By Xavier Photography. It was such a pleasure to work with him and it was so much fun! Not to mention the stunning photos he took!!
For our Santorini wedding, our photos were taken by the very talented Trifonas from Dream On Photography and our wonderful videographer was from Kapetanakis Studios. They were both from Greece and such a pleasure to work with. Our day was captured so beautifully!!!
I had such a fantastic planner from Santorini that made our day possible!! Panos and his team from LovWed Santorini were amazing!! Planning a destination wedding, especially to a destination you have not been too yet, is not easy. But after doing lots of my own reasearch, I found LoveWed. I told Panos my vision, what I wanted and did not want and he made it all happen. After our skype meeting, I felt at ease and relaxed and not once did I have any worries or stress about our venue and decor.....even though we only saw our actual venue once we arrived in Santorini!! It was a perfect day and we have made a friend for life!
Our delicious catering and wedding cake was prepared by Spicy Bites in Santorini. We could not have made a better choice and the food was AMAZING and so tasty!! We decided on a buffet style and everyone raved about the food!
I kept to a simple two tiered wedding cake, which was vanilla sponge with a vanilla buttercream and white chocolate ganache icing. It was delicious and beautifully decorated with white flowers.
Seeing that most of our family lived in different city’s around the world, we opted for a wedding E-vite. I created our Greek Themed invite using Etsy online, using a white background, olive tree greenery with black and gold writing. Saving on wasting paper and unnecessary costs :-)
My husband loves his music!! And he wanted to take care of the music. He spent months creating our wedding playlists, from pre-ceremony all the way to the dancing at the reception! We did not see he need for a DJ as it was such a small and intimate wedding of only 16 people, so we used a sound system and my husband provided all the music to be played throughout the wedding. Our planner took care of the rest and it was perfect!! The only dance lessons we had, was dancing around our living room, working on our opening dance and laughing at ourselves....and we nailed it at our wedding! :-)
