Cyprus - Day 6 - Wedding day - PART I

--

This was a long day, mostly due to the 6 hours we all had to endure on a bus. Nonetheless it was worth every minute.

The funny thing about Cyprus is that sometimes you see a sign that says 10Km and you think, cool that's 10 minutes or so...and then it turns up to be half an hour.

The roads here aren't what we are used to. There is a motorway following all of the south coast, travelling through it is quite fast, however if you dare to enter into the mountains, specially into the centre of Cyprus, brace yourself for one of the longest journeys of your life.

Despite of the trip duration I must admit that the views were spectacular, day and night when you can see the lights of a far distant town down at the bottom of the mountains.

But I disgress. Yes, the journey to the chapel where the wedding was to take place was a long journey but the views were magnificent and the chapel was something of a pleasant surprise too. Another positive thing about being in the mountains is that temperatures are about 5-10C lower than down by the coast so we only had a mere 30C!

If you are wearing a suit with a tie, believe me, 30C is far better than 40C.

Guests arriving to the chapel

Guests waiting outside

The chapel was built on the 12th century. This is the chapel from the outside

The chapel on the inside

By the entrance there were hand-held fans and a booklet explaining the greek orthodox ceremony.

Haven't I mentioned that already? Yes, the wedding followed the Greek Orthodox ceremony, almost second nature to me, like say brain surgery, ah! and it also took place in Greek, not exactly my mother tongue so imagine my panic attack when I got there and started to read the booklet and started to find out about the actions I would have to perform in the ceremony (bear in mind I was the best man)!!

A paperbag would have come in handy with the hyperventilation but I didn't have time to hyperventilate, the booklet was 8 pages long and I only had a few minutes to get the whole ceremony imprinted in my brain...

And while I was still on page number 2 along came the bride...

Bridemades first

And then the bride

Too late for me! not a chance to finish the booklet... Then the priest took Alex by the hand, took him inside and the ceremony started

There was a point in the ceremony where I had to take one side of the cloth the priest was holding in his hand and put it under Alex's mouth while the priest fed him something previously marinated in wine. At that point the priest stares at me, I stare back at him and bear in mind at that point I didn't, know I was supposed to do anything , this was beyond page 2 on the booklet I haven't gotten that far.

So the priest points to the cloth with his gaze and I go and try to take the cloth from him... but he holds it tighter and moves his head negatively...ok...guess number two I took it by the other extreme and pulled from it...he pulled back and made another negative gesture with his head. My head was screaming. Someone please get me out of here! and just when I was about to give up, a friendly voice coming from behind me told me what to do. I shyly did it and to my surprise the priest gestured approvenly. Phew! that was a close call.

But the ceremony was far from finished...at some point they all started to go around the altar, and the same friendly voice that help me before told me what to do :-), so I did it and went around and around the 3 times...each time avoiding to catch on fire with the candles which were really close to the action... I think some people in the audience may have placed some bets to see whether I would catch on fire or not because the three times I was pretty close...

Anyway, with all the stress and the heat and the close encounter with the fire I was exhausted by the time the ceremony ended, but it was all worth it. The good news were that the wedding didn't get cancelled because of my inability to perform my duties. O:-)

And below the only person in the whole wedding hyperventilating more than me! Tina, Skeve's older sister and also the bridemaid. She had spent I don't know how many hours the previous night setting up the lights, organising the booklets, etc, etc...Had I had a paperbag at hand I would have lended it to her, she needed it more than me!

And that was the wedding ceremony, from there we took the bus again and headed to the restaurant... but for that story you'll have to wait until the next blog entry. :-)