{"id":2807,"date":"2011-10-25T18:52:35","date_gmt":"2011-10-25T18:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/?p=2807"},"modified":"2012-04-26T11:23:16","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T11:23:16","slug":"the-cretan-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/?p=2807","title":{"rendered":"The Cretan Wedding"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The Wedding of Antonio and Johanna<\/p><\/div>\n

Saturday in Kastelli Kissamos … the weather could not have been better for the Greek Orthodox Church Wedding (o gamos) Ceremony of Antoni and Johanna.\u00a0 Scheduled for 1800 hours, in the late afternoon extended family members began\u00a0to congregate\u00a0at our home, the bride (h nifi) arriving from Hania around 1700 hours – hair and makeup all done, however, she would get dressed in her wedding gown at the house.\u00a0 A more relaxed bride would I think be difficult to find … lots of photographs then off to the church.\u00a0 The groom (o gambros) arrived first with his best man (koumbaros) and family, awaiting his bride at the front of the church.\u00a0 Holding his bride’s bouquet, he presented it to her as she arrived and they walked into the church together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Soon after the start of the ceremony which was to take around 45 minutes, the priest blessed the rings and placed them on their right hands.\u00a0 Then the wedding crowns (stefana) which were joined by a ribbon were placed on the bride and groom by the best man, who then stood behind the couple and interchanged the crowns three times as a witness to the sealing of the union.\u00a0\u00a0Then the couple both drank from a goblet of wine – the “Common Cup”.\u00a0 The wedding ended with a ceremonial walk where the priest, bride, groom and best man joined hands and walked around in a circle three times … the bride and groom’s first steps together as a married couple.\u00a0 As they began the ceremonial walk, the guests showered rice and rose petals over them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the end\u00a0all the guests filed past the bride and groom in the church to congratulate them, the parents and best man standing alongside.\u00a0 The best man is guest of honour and just as important as the bride and groom. \u00a0It is customary to say “na zisete” (long life to you) to the bride and groom and “na zisoun” (long life to them) to the head members of the two families.\u00a0 This was also the time for the guests to drop an envelope of cash (fakelaki) into a special container – the\u00a0guests’ wedding present.\u00a0 I chose to be different and took them a gift from New Zealand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The wedding reception with some 500 guests was held at a Centre at Maleme, between Kastelli and Hania … with life Cretan music and a feast of local food, wine and tsikoudia.\u00a0 As dictated by custom, the bride would dance for much of the evening, with guests taking turns to dance with her – beginning with the groom, then the best man and his family.\u00a0 Anna, grandmother of the bride and family matriarch (90 next month) had\u00a0been saying all week that she would only be going to the church, however, she also came to the reception, showing her normal remarkable stamina.\u00a0 When we eventually arrived back\u00a0in Kastelli, I assisted Anna down our little road to the house and by 0230 hours, up the\u00a0completed new staircase to bed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As well as taking home Xerotigana, all the guests took a Bomboniere … a bag made from tulle and satin, filled with five white sugared almonds symbolizing health, wealth, happiness, fertility and long life.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I feel\u00a0great satisfaction, that I made the journey to be with them all on this very memorable occasion – Johanna’s wedding … the wee girl I have known for some 30 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday in Kastelli Kissamos … the weather could not have been better for the Greek Orthodox Church Wedding (o gamos) Ceremony of Antoni and Johanna.\u00a0 Scheduled for 1800 hours, in the late afternoon extended family members began\u00a0to congregate\u00a0at our home, the bride (h nifi) arriving from Hania around 1700 hours – hair and makeup all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2807"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3191,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2807\/revisions\/3191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itisallgreek2me.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}