I know, I know. We finally go to the event that spurred this whole trip and I go silent for two days. I swear, it was well earned!! Let's go back to Saturday, shall we?

Unlike when you have an American wedding to go to, we had all day to lounge around again. It was another hot, hot, hot day so we spent it by the pool, again. :) We didn't have to be to town until about 6, so relaxing and napping was plentiful before getting ready.

Once we loaded up and headed out, we were still early, even though we were on time. Yep, #GreekIslandLife. We got to the Hotel Eleana where the couple is staying, and the Bergs headed up to Evie's room while Mom, Steph and I went down by the pool and grabbed a refreshment from the lovely bartender, Theophania. So, there was a whole Stephania/Theophania love fest, which seems the perfect way to start a wedding, no?

For those of you that aren't aware (and I wasn't until just before leaving for this trip!), the girls were actually a part of the wedding. In Greek Orthodox weddings, they don't have the huge wedding parties that we do. Evie had just her friend Christina (I think that's her name?!) as her "koumbara" - like our maid of honor - so Sadie, Elsa, and Evie's cousin from Greece were the ones that carried signs and her dress on the procession to the church. They also stood with the couple during the ceremony. Sorry girls - your first experience standing up in a wedding had to be in Greece. Rough. :)

So back to the hotel. As we waited, we got to meet Evie's dad, Dimitri, who is AMAZING. Kind, generous, funny. He runs a Greek school in Chicago and is strongly tied to his roots here. And I won't lie, his cadence and accent so very very much sounded like the dad in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". :)

Then, we first watched Kosta and his family leave from one side of the hotel to walk to the church. Kosta was freshly shaved - another tradition in which the groom is shaved and dressed by his friends and family. Evie was also dressed by her friends and family, and had the names of all the unmarried ones on the bottom of her shoes. Greek tradition has it that all the girls whose names wear off the soles by the end of the night will also be wed soon. As of reception time, Evie informed us that just the name of her Koumbara was left! Poor girl! :)

Finally, Evie came downstairs with her entourage, and flower crowns were put on the young bridesmaids' heads. We were met by two musicians who led the group to the church, singing and playing the whole way. People came out to the street to cheer and clap as we went along. From what I've seen on Facebook, pictures of the procession actually made the local online newspaper!! It's clearly a very honored and celebrated tradition here. We walked probably about 5 blocks (yes, uphill in the heat, of course!) before arriving to a tiny church nearby. And this is where the Greek chaos begins! Everyone just kind of shuffled in, randomly sitting and standing all over the church. There were no less than 3 priests in the front of the church and the ceremony started immediately. And yes, it was all in Greek. All I could tell is that there was actually a lot of repeated speech. Whether it was prayer or liturgy? No idea. I could tell a sermon or message of sorts had started when the crowd laughed a couple of times. But otherwise, people were randomly talking during the ceremony (It did last 45 minutes), moving around, going in and out... So very different from American ceremonies! At one point Elsa added to the chaos by nearly passing out. It was SO HOT in the church and we figure she probably locked her knees standing there, and well, we all know what happens at that point. So, one lovely Greek American woman ran over with a bottle of water, a Greek doctor laid her down, took her pulse, ordered "something with sugar", which another Greek person ran out to get. Another handed over her handheld fan which Erica used to fan her. Let's just say aunties and grandma had no chance to help because the Greeks had this COVERED! And no worries - she's fine. Just takes after her Aunt Jen with the tolerance for extreme heat, it seems.

Just as the ceremony started out of no where, it also ended. Suddenly the congregation was filing out another door, where fortunately dried fruit, water and juice awaited everyone. (America - get on that - it was AWESOME.) When the newlyweds emerged, confetti cannons went off and cheers abounded. After a bit of milling around, it was time to head to the reception, back near the lookout that we hit on the way to the beach on Thursday. It was about a half hour away, but no way were we doing those windy cliff roads in the dark, so we took advantage of the bus that was headed that way with the rest of the visiting tourists, which of course left a half hour later than it was supposed to. :) Granted, the ceremony started 20 minutes late as well!

The reception site was BEAUTIFUL. "The Deck" is exactly that. A beach bar with a big deck and pool. The tables were set up around the pool, which had these amazing floating "islands" of flowers in it. We were greeted with cake pops, lollipops, candied almonds, sangria and champagne. We arrived right at sunset - probably about 9 pm. What we didn't realize was that we were going to wait a good couple of hours for dinner!!! I believe Evie and Kosta got there about 10:15 pm. So, the head table and happy couple were introduced and a prayer was said. Dinner was buffet style and...
So.
Much.
Food.
Oh my gosh. Unbelievable amounts of food. And I can personally say that having now been in the homeland of Feta Cheese, I love it even more. Spanakopita, Tiropita (think spanakopita, but just feta), plus slabs of feta in olive oil and herbs to be put on fresh Greek bread....Yes, this carbodairitarian was in heaven. :) We finally ate at almost 11 pm, and I think cake was served sometime after midnight. But I can tell you that having stayed outside that long? I TOTALLY get it. Right around 11 it suddenly because beautiful and tolerable to be outside without sweating your brains out.

Once dinner had finished, the dancing began. There were traditional father/daughter and son/mother dances, but then there were some "wedding party" dances - and they were all Greek, all traditional dance. Be sure to visit the video page here to see some examples. I will admit that I never joined in - Steph did, though! Having to drive AT ALL in the middle of the night kept me drinking water. I think on another night with a few glasses of wine? I'd have been all in. Another fun part of those dances was the parents of the bride basically making it rain dollar bills on them a few times. And then of course when the priest (who was basically chain smoking and drinking all night) got out and GOT DOWN traditional style. There is also a video of that for your viewing pleasure. He was clearly highly regarded here, if not slightly worshipped!!

Once the music got going, it got LOUD. The girls were SUPER tired by this point, and went to take naps on the beach chairs on the beach. The bus was scheduled to return to town at 2 am. So we headed back up about 1:50. And you guessed it, the bus left around 2:40. Turns out there were supposed to be two runs, but it didn't work out, so a lot of people hadn't come up thinking there would be another bus. So it took well over a half hour to convince these revelers that they needed to be on this bus or they'd be stuck on the other side of the island. (No Uber here. I checked!)

So, we were back to Nikiana by a little after three, and back to the villa by about 3:30 am. WIPED. Driving up this hilly and steep road in the dark was a whole new challenge, but we did it!! And as of about 32 hours later, I have yet to get back in that car or leave the house. :) Sunday was a total lazy day topped off by a delicious chicken pita meal (or grilled eggplant pita for me) and watching an amazing lightning show in three directions from our balcony. Today is a pretty overcast and much cooler day, so we will be heading to the next town south (Nidri) for lunch soon.

Enjoy the pictures and videos! Tomorrow we fly back to Germany and Mike and the girls will fly back to Chicago. Mom and her girls stay on in Germany for another 5 days, so get ready for more beer drinking adventure. :)