A wedding in Monemvasia, Greece

Published on Style Me Pretty:

A horse-drawn carriage ceremony arrival, a reception at a castle under a canopy of string lights, 2 dessert stations, a cigar bar, and a party that lasted all night long - I mean, is that not the most epic wedding day you've ever heard!? Not to mention the bride's fairytale wedding dress from Atelier Loukia that's every girls dream. Maria Maroulidou planned every detail to perfection, allowing the couple and their guests to enjoy every magical moment. Don't miss out on the full gallery of images captured by Sotiris Tsakanikas to see all the beauty this day has to offer.

From the wedding planner, Maria Maroulidou...

When Maria & Alex contacted us for their summer wedding we knew this couple of globetrotters was interested in offering their guests something exquisite. As Maria is a soul who loves everything close to nature and always seeks after new experiences that pay respect to the gifts of life, we focused our foremost attention to scoring the perfect venue for the big day. Seeking out those poplar-lined routes and stony tracks that criss-cross the Southern Greek region, we aimed for a place that would be part blissfully inured to chance, part avant-garde retreat.Kinsterna is a Byzantine mansion cum state of the art retreat, where local history and sustainability matter big. With a straight view of the legendary castle-rock of Monemvasia, the freshness and majestic atmosphere inside the fortified 22-acre estate are the stuff of dreams. Think manicured flowering gardens and immaculate lawns, Peloponnesian citrus and orange groves, stands of ancient eucalyptus and towering cypresses, organic vegetable farms, aromatic herb beds, and lush private vineyards all giving the sloping land a truly irresistible scent. It used to be after all home to the residence of Mamluk chieftain and regent of Egypt, Ibrahim Bey. The couple's guests would have the chance to find out about the grape harvests, olive oil making, and tsipouro (traditional Greek moonshine) distillation, bread baking, and soap production- but also relax in the fresh spring-water pools, sample wines from the cellar at the Estate's Belvedere, and luxuriate with some of the best SPA treatments a haven could ever offer. "We wanted them to have a thoroughly sentimental journey at our wedding" our bride confesses. With bees humming industriously on the neat hedges and the best summer weather a wedding could ever wish for, the couple's 3day celebration rolled seamlessly. The two welcomed their friends by the beach to ease into the big day moods, enjoy a swim, cocktails, a taverna dinner and plenty of dancing. On the day of the wedding and right after the bridal preps and portraits, a white horse-drawn carriage awaited to take Maria to church. The ceremony took place is a picturesque nearby chapel and right after it was all about beautiful portraits in the fields and all across the dotted mansion's expanse. The reception was of course set in the estate's most elegant terrace, among rows of pergolas strewn with light bulbs, pastel blooms, wrought-iron chairs and tabletops made of traditional handiwork lace. Our couple wished to spoil their guests a bit with a poolside signature cocktail hour, a cigar bar and two dessert stations, but one of the best parts was definitely the culinary one. All the local fruit, herbs, and vegetables which flourish in Kinsterna's gardens and nearby Laconic fields (from sage, rosemary, thyme, wild asparagus and cherry tomatoes to pomegranates and quince) were ingeniously combined with local cheese and fresh, free-range meats and woodfire oven-baked bread, to enrich the couple's many dishes and oranges added zest to their desserts. Needless to say that when a wedding happens in Greece, the party is bound to last till the early dawn. This inexhaustible duo and their squad of shinny dancers surely knew how to party.  planning: Maria Maroulidouvenue: Kinsterna hotel