Destination weddings always have such an amazing feel to them, following my wedding anniversary I wanted to do a little spotlight on my favourite wedding destination: Santorini. It's known for its white stone buildings and exceptional views but photographs just don't do it justice, I could look at hundreds of Santorini weddings and elopements and not get bored.
I think it is the light that makes this destination so special. The long Greek summers mean the light lasts late into the day so you have photographs with an almost ethereal feeling to them.
One of the things I love the most about it is that as a venue that you don't have to go overboard with decorations, like you might do to a blank canvas marquee. The venues and views are so spectacular that they do most of the work!
There are so many wedding venues to choose from, mostly they are beautiful cliff-top hotels with outside ceremony spaces to make the most of the Caldera views. There are also vineyard and one or two beachside venues if you wanted something a little different.
Planning a destination wedding can be a bit tricky. You do have to be prepared to relinquish a bit of control as you won’t be able to have the same hands on approach as you would at home. Often brides will accumulate decorations themselves to add to their venues, but this isn’t really a possibility unless you can fit everything in a suitcase! I would recommend booking through a business that also has a wedding planning team - they will have a lot of contacts already and will help you realise your vision.
So one of the reasons I love destination weddings and Santorini so much is because I got married there. We always wanted to get married by the sea but didn’t want to travel to far, as soon as I saw pictures of Santorini I was sold! We did have a few hiccups before the wedding so just wanted to share a few things I learnt:
1. Book way in advance We phoned the company we were booking through 13 months before we wanted to get married, they only had 2 dates left in the September with the venues we wanted.
2. The ceremonies generally take place late afternoon due to the heat and you get a better light. We had a first look session before this so we got lots of pictures so the guests wouldn’t be waiting for so long.
3. It was windy!! (We were married in September) I would have ideally had my hair down but having really long hair it would have ended up all over my face.
4. This is more for weddings in general I suppose, if it’s not perfect it’s not the end of the world. We were burgled the week before we were due to fly out. Car stolen and also our wedding rings. Queue horrendous trauma! The jewellers who made our rings were amazing and managed to make us a new set which we picked up on the way to the airport, but because of the stress I realised I had forgotten our vows (still on laptop at home), the place cards I had spent ages making, and the decorations I wanted to bring for the reception. I felt it wasn’t going to be as good because it wouldn’t look anywhere close to what I wanted and we couldn’t afford to get anything extra from the planner.
However it was perfect, it didn’t go entirely to plan and it sounds cliche but it really did make me appreciate and realise the actual reason we were there!
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