Wedding Reception in Stunning Location on Rhodes Island

As promised, I am back with the gorgeous photographs of the reception that SP Weddings planned for the lovely couple that travelled all the way from New York to hold their wedding festivities on the island of Rhodes.

The venue was located right on the water front and offered incredible views over the sea!

The colour scheme was crisp white, grey (the groom's favourite colour) and a lively, sunny yellow that really accented the colour palette.

We decided that all the decoration should blend with what was already in existence at the venue, so we used small olive trees on the tables and hung rice lights from the wicker umbrellas.

Lanterns and candles were placed on as many surfaces as possible, creating a romantic atmosphere with diffused light that was just perfect!

This is a view of the venue from afar once it got dark, it looked stunning!

All photos are by Spiros Tsambikakis

A summer wedding at St. Paul's in Rhodes

Good afternoon everyone, I'm sorry for the delay in posting this week, however I am having laptop problems and in the process of moving from one to the other, so it was impossible to log on yesterday!

Today, I am posting a beautiful wedding (one of my all time favourites) that was held on Rhodes island at the picturesque chapel in the bay of St. Paul's in Lindos! This is a setting that many couples choose for their civil wedding, however this couple held their Greek Orthodox wedding here and travelled from New York along with guests from both the US and Karpathos in attendance!

The bride arrived at the church, I thought her gown was so elegant and refined!

I love this picture, the girls were in charge of handing out the parasols to the ladies attending the ceremony, it was so pretty to see all the women taking their seats and using their parasols to shade themselves!

The ceremony took place in the courtyard of the chapel overlooking the water

This is a detail of the kochlaki detail in the ground of the chapel, we had a half wreath placed on it to frame the area where the bride and groom stood to be married, it worked really well and was very pretty for the guests to look at!

I love this image, this is the fun part of Greek Orthodox wedding ceremonies and you can see everyone is enjoying it including the wonderful Priest who is such a lovely person!

I will post the absolutely stunning reception images on Thursday (it is a public holiday here today), it is really worth checking back for them as the setting was truly beautiful!

Loukia, wedding dress designer

Happy Friday everyone!!!

I am finishing the week on a real high, I'm can't quite put my finger on it, but I feel that autumn is coming (no still not reached us here in Greece really), days are drawing in, time to travel, see more of friends and family and plan for next year! I absolutely adore planning weddings and find the creative part of thinking up a concept so exciting, the possibilities are endless and when you start throwing ideas about, you never quite know where it might take you!!!!

So my final post for this wedding fashion week is on the awe inspiring Greek designer Loukia. She is recognised throughout the fashion world and recently had a dress voted as the best dress in the Golden Globes.

She designed a dress for a colleague of mine, that was just so beautiful I can't really put it into words, the dress had a very low back with leaves sewn on made of the same fabric as the dress and there were several leaves sewn on in different parts of the dress to look as though some had fallen off and floated down, it was truly dreamy!

I adore this dress, I love that it looks a little unfinished and there are little bits of lace floating off the spaghetti straps, it makes the model look eatherial!!!

 

Fabulous movement of this dress!

 

Very eccentric!

 

 

For more information visit http://www.loukia.gr/

Greek Wedding Cakes

Today I wanted to explain the pros and cons of choosing a Greek or foreign style wedding cake to serve at the wedding reception.

Greek wedding cake is very creamy, typically there are very thin layers of sponge amongst layers of syrup and cream. The outside is "iced" with more cream and decorated in a style to complement the overal wedding theme or choice of the couple. It is common to have a cake stand with many cakes placed on it, however due to the lightweight style of the cake and the fact that it is not iced, there isn't a way that Greek cakes can form the popular tiered look that most are used to.

It is quite common in these times for Greek couples to want to achieve a modern or what they percieve as a "European" style wedding, so the need has arisen to create tiered cakes with hard icing that resemble those we all see in wedding magazines, however there are two issues with creating these cakes, one is that the Greeks do not actually want cake after their dinner, this is more of an accompaniment to their morning coffee, the second is that a typical Greek wedding has at least 300 guests at the reception, it is extremely difficult to bake enough circular cakes in tiers to feed all these guests. So the chefs in large hotels took on this challenge and found a solution that always makes me smile when I see it being practiced, the create a white cake made of styrofoam, that is then iced and they bake the top tier each time and decorate it as specified by the couple, the bride and groom then cut a piece out of the top tier as is traditional and all the guests get served from sheet cakes (meaning the same flavour cake is cooked in an oblong container).

Increasingly however, you can find bakers who are trying to create "real" wedding cakes, that can be presented in tiers and flavoured as in the rest of the world. We at SP Weddings are in touch with the bakers that we feel are experienced enough to be able to produce a gorgeous and tasty wedding cake in any shape, style or form requested and aim to offer this service around Greece to our clients.

We have created cup cake towers, shot glasses of puddings, traditional fruitcakes and cakes in many different flavours and continue to experiment with new ideas and decoration techniques!

Wedding Dresses on Sale at Pronovias in Kolonaki

Just a quick update to let you know that Pronovias is having a sale of up to 60% off the 2008/9 collection at the Kolonaki showroom until Saturday the 24th of October.

If any brides are interested then follow the link to book an appointment:

http://www.pronovias.com/index_entrada.asp?idioma=gr

Rita Pateroni # 2

Today we are visiting some of Rita's latest fabulous wedding dresses!

I must say that I adore the set up and styling of the pictures and feel that they could sit amongst any International designer happily. I am so pleased to see the quality of photography and website finally improving, as until now most have been abominably poor!

So cute, the sash, the bow on the dog, the roses in the bucket all add to this fabulous set up!

 A Spanish inspired dress with beautiful movement! This would be such a cool dress to dance in! Of course the bride would just "have" to do an Argentinian Tango as her first dance, it would be so fitting!

Another dress with a gorgeous low back, the entire back view is simply beautiful with the tiered, vintage lace and big bow! This is the dress for the bride that is a true romantic at heart!

 

This dress is quite regal, and certainly very Ancient Greece inspired! The bodice is draped, shaped to complement the contours of the body and the skirt fabric is slightly pleated adding to the romance and feather light appearance of this dress!