Photography: Chris Gouberis // Cinematography: DimH // Wedding planning: The 12 Events // Wedding venue: Island Art and Taste // Wedding Dress: Pronovias // Bridal shoes: Jimmy Choo // Wedding Rings: Bvlgari // Diamond ring: Cara Jewellers // Groom’s Attire: Prada // Shirt: Dolce Gabbana // Groom’s shoes: Givenchy // Bridal’s makeup: Vaso Nakopoulou // Hairstyling: Vasilis Bouloubasis // Floral Design: The 12 Events // Catering: Island Art and Taste // DJ: Loud and Clear
From the bride:
Majed and I come from different religions. I am Muslim and he is Christian. This wedding meant a lot for us and for our families as we proved to everyone that love can be stronger than anything. There wasn’t a proposal as such, we knew we were meant to be together and to spend our lives together. Very early in the relationship, we started planning ahead, discussing future together, looking for bigger apartments, etc. And one day we just decided to announce it to our families and we went to buy rings together 🙂 There are several reasons for which we chose Greece. We both live in Dubai, my family is in Paris and Syria, his family is in Lebanon, Australia, and Canada. Doing it in Dubai or in Lebanon was not an option as weddings in this part of the world count at least 500 guests. That’s not really what we wanted. We wanted something small where we could spend quality time with every single guest who was invited. We wanted something intimate (yet with enough people to get on the dance floor) 🙂 So we decided to do this in a country where none of us comes from and both of us have not visited. What destination comes to mind when you say “Wedding destination”? Obviously Greece.
We didn’t have anything specific in mind at the beginning. What we really wanted was to be surrounded by our loved ones, friends and family and organize a wedding that looked like us. I then started to look at a lot of wedding blogs, Pinterest boards, Instagram accounts of photographers and wedding planners to gather ideas and put together a mood board of what I really wanted.
I wanted something very elegant but yet simple. Nothing ostentatious. For the color palette, I wanted to use green in reference to the Greek olive trees and I thought the gold color would be really matching with green. My wedding planners then recommended adding nude and white which complemented really well the two other colors.
We had hats for men and hand fans for the ladies at the ceremony. We also had “dancing shoes” (flip flop in baskets) for the ladies so that they dance comfortably. There’s nothing worse than stop dancing from feet pain 🙂 Last, I had heel stopper for the ladies as we were on the grass for dinner and I didn’t want ladies to be annoyed with their heels sinking in the grass.
Everything about our wedding was absolutely beautiful. I wouldn’t have done anything differently. But if I really have to choose I would say our favorite moment was the “zaffe” (wedding entrance on Arabic music and drummers). I think this added an Arabic touch to our wedding. This as also the surprise I had organized for the groom. He got to know about it 2 minutes before.
To match with the palette I wanted all flowers to be white and to have green leaves (olive leaves mainly) and this has been beautifully done by The12Events. My favorite flowers are peonies so I had a bridal bouquet composed of white peonies and olive leaves. For my bridesmaids, I wanted gypsophila (also called baby’s breath) and I used that too for the flower girls crowns.
My gown is very special to me as my dad bought it for me before he passed away and it meant a lot for me to wear it on that day. I made him drive around Paris a few months to find the wedding dress of my dreams.
People will give you all sorts of advice but at the end of the day, you need to do what you feel like doing. Remember this is YOUR day and it needs to represent you, not to match your guests’ preferences.
