You see, six or seven years ago, N and her cousin stayed with N's cousin's cousin's cousins in Verdikousia, a little mountain village in central Greece (in the proximity of the city of Larisa, for those of you playing at home). N's cousin's cousin's cousin and his family put them up for two nights, drove them to Mount Olympus and generally showed them some sights and some great hospitality. In return, N showed her cousin's cousin's cousin around Sydney when he and his fiance visited a year and a half ago. And as a result, she and I (her +1 in this scenario) were invited to his wedding.
The plan was that we would arrive in Athens late on the Thursday, do some sight-seeing on Friday morning, catch the train to Larisa in the afternoon, book into our hotel, go to the wedding and reception on the Saturday evening, then back to Athens on Sunday and back to England on Monday. A flying trip, but how often do you get to go to a real Greek wedding in your life?
And at the last minute we found out - not only had we been so generously invited to this wedding, but the groom himself would be picking us up from the station and driving us to Verdikousia to spend the night with his family, before all going to the wedding together in Larisa the next day.
We were picked up right on time from the train by a very tired looking groom. Apparently the first Greek wedding tradition to be got through is a full WEEK of partying with family, friends, relatives, randoms (for instance, us) every single night. Every night, the groom's family makes food, sets up tables and people just show up for hours of eating, drinking and dancing until 4 or 5 in the morning - and then there is also all the wedding preparation to be done during the day. No wonder the groom just looked ready to get married and be done with it!
After a beautiful drive up into the mountains, we were greeted warmly and shown to our room. I don't have room here to do everyone justice, but the blanket statement that everyone was equally hospitable, and everyone treated us like simultaneously one of the family and also as an honoured guest should just about cover it. Most of the older generation didn't speak any English, so we had to get by with a lot of smiling and gesturing, but most of the people our age spoke English amazingly well (although every single one of them apologised for their poor English) and worked hard to make us feel at home. We learned about 10 words between us (N learned nine, I learned one) and one of my favourite moments of the whole weekend was being taught to count by a five or six-year-old who very earnestly wanted us to learn. Poor thing, he must have thought we werepretty slow. Anyway, now is not the time for dwelling on such things - instead, let's discuss what happens on the day of a traditional Greek wedding in Verdikousia.
- The groom sleeps until 1pm, having been up the previous evening (and all the other ones before that) until about 5am
- The children start having their hair done first, and getting into their beautiful suits and white dresses. This means that they have to be fed by the adults for the rest of the day, or risk spoiling their beautiful outfits.
- The adults then have their hair and makeup done, in time for the photographer and videographer to arrive around 4pm.
- The groom is then dressed by his family, who help him put on his coat, shoes, etc.
- Family photos ensue (including one of us with the groom...so maybe more like 'family' photos?)
- Then, the groom and his family, friends etc. have to go and invite the best man to come to the wedding. You need a clarinetist and accordion player for this, in case any dancing should be required. We had to stop once on the way to dance, so thank goodness they were there! We were welcomed at the best man's house with drinks and snacks and more dancing. Thankfully, the best man was free (phew!!) and came back up the hill with us to the groom's house.
- At this point, we had to deliver the bride's shoes. The groom's mother had these, inside a balloon (it sounds weird but it looked very cool) and a convoy of friends, family and cousins's cousin's cousins was required to deliver these to the bride. So we jumped in the car and headed down the hill (a cow, dog and some sheep wandered onto the road at various points and also a tractor, but we made it)
- We arrived at the bride's house and were shown upstairs, where her bridesmaids proceeded to put the shoes on for her, which is more difficult than it sounds - one of them needed to have some money and a rose petal inside, and on the sole of the other she wrote the names of all her single friends in ball point pen, the tradition being that after a night of dancing, whoever's name is still legible is the next to get married)
- The groom's family and friends are expected to steal things from the bride's house so we connived a the stealing of a sandal and photo frame
- There was more dancing
- As the bride left the house, she drank a glass of wine and threw it over her head and smashed it
- And then we went to the church for the wedding! All this took us up to 8pm, so it was a beautiful golden sunset as the bride arrived at the church, for the part this had all been leading up to - and I think it was worth the wait! (also, the children look adorable)
I love it! What an awesome experience!
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