It feels so good to be back posting after the Christmas break! It seemed like we hadn’t been online in absolutely forever but as Amy already mentioned, we are away shooting our next inspiration shoot and to give you an idea of just how crazy Christmas was – lets just say there were a few nights there where we were found going to bed at 7am (no, not after a night out celebrating) after a long looong nights work! But, totally worth it and would we have done it any other way? Nah! If you got engaged over the Christmas break (Wahey!!) and happened to miss our post yesterday, take a look here. We will be posting lots of useful information over the next few weeks to help you on your way but for today, we are thrilled to have such a beautiful real destination wedding to share with you to remind you what it’s all about. The wedding of Aimee and Max took place in Santorini on the beautiful island of Greece and I can’t think of a better way to start our wedding inspiration for 2013. I have major couple crush and if you are suffering from the January blues then you are about to snap right out of it right…. now!
Aimee, originally from Scotland moved to the States when she was 14 and Max is from England so as ever we were itching to know how they ended up getting married in Greece but our beautiful bride (honestly, could they be a better looking duo?) filled in the gaps.
“We met in island of Ios, Greece, which is neighboring island to Santorini in 2007. We both met while Max was travelling Greece and Aimee was working in Ios as a bartender at the hostel Francescos. Max walked into the bar, and asked if my name was ‘Aimee’, it was a case of mistaken identity, as he thought I was someone he had already met, but we hadn’t…. we spent hours talking and that was it… he ended up staying in Ios with me and my friend for 4 days until Max had to get on flight back to UK (was supposed to be one night). We continued to talk via email while Aimee was still backpacking through Greece, and eventually I ended up working in Windsor England, which was only 2hrs from Max’s home. We continued to see each other, ended up travelling Thailand in February together in 2008, then it was Aimee’s turn to return back to US (was on gap year), Max followed me and that was it… we’ve been living in US together now with our dog for 5yrs. I think we fell in love straight away and have shared everything ever since.”
“My favorite movie is ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, since Max had no idea what shops to go to, or where to buy rings in the US, he knew of Tiffany’s and decided on taking me there. It was perfect. We had planned to go into Boston to go see the architecture of a new building (aimee was design major), all the while, Max had secretly plotted a walking route from the building directly to Tiffany’s. It was in Oct 2008, about a yr after we had met. I thought we were just walking around Boston, we grabbed some coffee, then all of a sudden we were outside of Tiffany’s in Copley Plaza Boston. I was utterly shocked that he got this one past me, I usually know everything…. He took me into Tiffany’s, we picked out a ring together, and then he proposed right on street outside in Copley Plaza.”
“We picked Santorini, as it was close to the island that we originally met on. I thinkthe most difficult obstacle was trying to orchestrate a wedding that was accessible to our family and friends, since we had a variety of age groups and people travelling from USA, Croatia, Scotland and England. The best bet was Santorini, since everyone could fly in directly from Athens without having to get on ferry’s. Another challenge was scouting locations for people to stay. The US people had to book flights/hotels separately, while those in UK had it easy and were able to book package holidays. We all ended up staying in Perissa and Perivolos beach area, which had great atmosphere, was easily accessible for walking and was family oriented (few of family members had children, but we needed somewhere that had enough excitement for 20-35yr crowd). I created a website for everyone with every detail you could imagine. I think it really helped our guests. I also sent out Save the Dates one year before the wedding to allow sufficient time for people to save money, take vacation time and make arrangements. Scouting for locations was also quite difficult. We didn’t choose our wedding planner until we had thoroughly researched the island and found enough places for venues. Our wedding planner was Shirley Chiarolanzio’s of Santorini Wedding Planner. She was amazing… We didn’t want to have the typical wedding where they roll out red carpet, usher you on, finish up ceremony, while the next wedding party is standing outside waiting for their turn. We wanted something completely unique and customizable. Every last detail was impeccably and coordinated & managed by Shirley and her team. She even got us a vintage suitcase, as I had made pics of everyone for place seating cards, and a vintage Moroccan tea set for decoration purposes.”
To Aimee and Max, they made some key decisions at the beginning of the planning process that led to this unique wedding day.
“Hiring Anna Roussos as photographer and Xavier as our videographer was one of our best decisions. Boy are they amazing. I was hesitant to splurge on the extra $ for the video, but given the quality and moments they captured, nothing will ever compare. They made us feel so at ease. I am a picky picky bride when it came to artistic touches, and I couldn’t have found anyone better than Anna & Xavier. Also, instead of having all of our pics done that day, we instead focused on group pics, since our ceremony was at sunset and we wanted everyone to get to reception as quick as possible. We didn’t want to hold up reception or our guest eating, so Anna worked with Max and I the next day on a separate photo shoot, so we had the entire next day (starting at 2pm ish) to shoot and go to different locations to take our pics. We walked around Oia, Red Beach, Immerovigli – we just couldn’t have done this had we done this on day of wedding. It allowed us plenty of time to relax and take great pics. Hiring Shirley from SWP was another great decision as she was so meticulous with her coordination and didn’t miss a beat. Not one thing in our wedding wasn’t unique.
Another decision was to go to dancing lessons. We danced to Red Hot Chili Peppers ‘Hard to Concentrate’. If anyone is planning a wedding, I strongly suggest going to dancing lessons, it was a treat for everyone, completely unexpected and got the crowd going. It was an extra little something just as a thank you for our guests. I think they thoroughly enjoyed all the work we put into the wedding, which made it all the more special.”
“Our vision was an elegant, upscale lounge atmosphere, with lots of fun, laughter, chill lounge music and dancing. I really wanted it to have a bohemian type feel, so we ended up going with a Moroccan feel to the wedding and colors were matched accordingly. All bridesmaids and flowers were in jewel tones. We had Moroccan hookah pipes in middle of table, adorned with jewel tone flower and accented with golden sashes and ribbon chair- backs. Chinese lanterns lit the pagoda of Theros in burnt oranges, fuschias, purples, violets and aquas. Our ringbearer carried in a genie lamp on top of Moroccan plate that I had adorned with jewels. We didn’t want a traditional wedding cake, so we opted for a small ganache chocolate cake with flower adorned on top, we then had assortment of pastries and cakes chosen by max and me from the bakeries in Santorini (Tiramisu, Baklava etc) for our guests to feast on.
Shirley also suggested we use a decoration team rather than just a florist. Fabio Zardi was hired for the occasion as florist and decoration team. They brought in Moroccan pillows, lanterns, hookah pipes etc. We also had Shirley recommend a belly dancer for us (Sophia), instead of typical Greek Dancers or band. It just heightened the atmosphere and got everyone going. The DJ played until the wee hours in the morning. My sister even sang her speech, which had everyone in stitches and awe. It was very personal. Since, I am a design major, I insisted on making all paper items/stationary for the wedding. This also helped significantly on cost, as I designed & printed our Save the Dates, Invitation Suite (which was boarding pass), the programs (fan shaped, since it was hot), dinner menus, and table numbers. Everything was completely unique. The table numbers were constellations, which tied in to Greek mythology. The stars on these were hole-punched and I put flameless candles underneath each of them so that they would flicker in moonlight.”
Planning a destination wedding is no mean feat and when you are so creative and want to personalise and design it to your own taste, it can be a rather daunting and expensive task, especially when you are not familiar with the area or local language. This is an area where Max and Aimee clearly triumphed so for those of you considering a destination wedding and want the look without it costing an arm and a leg, read on as Aimee explains exactly how they managed it.
“Our wedding was very personal. Since I am a design major, I insisted on making all paper items/stationary for the wedding. This also helped significantly on cost, as I designed & printed our Save the Dates, Invitation Suite (which was boarding pass), the programs (fan shaped, since it was hot), dinner menus, and table numbers. Everything was completely unique. The table numbers were constellations, which tied in to Greek mythology. The stars on these were hole-punched and I put flameless candles underneath each of them so that they would flicker in moonlight. Although the entire wedding was completely customized, we save a bunch by buying or bringing a lot of our own stuff, and it was so easy to do. We saved so much, that we were able to do things like hire extra transport, do the boat excursion, able to get premium open bar for everyone, as well as most expensive food from caterer.
We made and brought all paper items & stationary above.
The ribbons for chairs was going to cost something like 8euro per chair. Instead I went into local craft store, picked up 40 rolls of ribbon and cut each into desired lengths. I got them all on sale for 50c a piece (aqua’s, purples, fuchsia etc) For the food for the pre-wedding day activity we went to supermarket and had more than enough for everyone at fraction of cost for dinner on board. Bridal bouquet was made from combination of vintage brooches, family brooches and some that were bought by friends. My sister made the bouquet for me and combined with flowers bought from market & ribbon I’d bought from craft store.
We bought all the paper lanterns for Fabio Zardi, instead of renting them, I think I got all 40 lanterns in unique sizes colors for $100 online We bought bracelets and bangles from Forever21tt that looked Moroccan. They were something like $5 for a set of 10, I bought about $40 worth and used them to decorate tables, the vintage suitcase etc. We handmade beach-totes for women guests and made vintage travel tags for men. All made by me. Friend has a metal shop, and asked him to fashion 50 luggage size tag pieces of metal, adorned them with vintage travel pics. Everything was brought with us in large suitcase, and really saved us a bunch.”
Those lanterns make such a huge impact don’t you think? This wedding makes me want to start planning a party and once again, we have the amazingly talented Anna Roussos Photography to thank, we are always so thrilled to feature her work. Disappointed that the post is over? Us too, that’s why on Thursday we will be featuring their lovely wedding video and some more amazing advice by our super destination bride, Aimee! Tomorrow we have an opportunity not to be missed, especially if you are newly engaged and haven’t yet booked your wedding photographer. Don’t miss our amazing competition on tomorrow’s wishlist. Until then, check out Annas blog for more wedding goodness to get you through the working week and if you are in need for some wedding stationary, check out Aimee’s etsy shop, Lazy Little Sunday.
