Sunday May 17 — Today was the big day. The wedding began at 1430. Eric wasn’t feeling good, so he spent the morning resting. The women spent the morning obsessing about minute little details. The men waited anxiously, looking at their watches every 5 minutes until it was finally time to get ready. Costas has had a beard for a while now and his male friends decided the beard needed to go and forcibly shaved it off.

We arrived at the church 20 minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start. The tradition is that everyone stands outside and waits for the bride to arrive. The groom meets her outside and they walk in together, then everyone follows them in. It was a small wedding with only 900 guests, and the courtyard outside the church was jam packed. Were we being facetious when we said “small wedding?” No. In villages, the whole village is invited, and weddings with as many as 5,000 guests are common. We went to a wedding with 3,000 people once a few years ago. It was crazy. In the cities, though, weddings tend to be much smaller. We noticed a few men were dressed in traditional Cretan costumes. Here are some of the more traditional dressers posing with Costas.

The church is at the top of a hill, with a long path that leads from the parking lot up the hill. Here is a shot of it from the parking lot.

We knew the bride had arrived when Continue reading →