Dolce & Gabbana Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Smashing the Glass

The only type of wedding that compares culturally to a Jewish wedding is, of course, a big fat Greek wedding. So, as you can imagine, a combination of the two makes for a pretty epic Mediterranean family-centric celebration!

Christina and Oryan tied the knot on the beach in beautiful Crete, owing to both the bride and groom’s Greek and Greek-Cypriot backgrounds, and the convenient short hop from Israel, where Oryan has family ties.

We adore the laid-back feel of this gorgeous destination wedding, with the bride making her grand entrance on donkey-back, the couple exchanging vows barefoot on the beach (with one notable moment as an exception) and Greek / Israeli food and dancing.

The pair kept things simple, with no bridal party and ensuring that everything had a natural, organic feel to it. We LOVE the simplicity of the wooden Chuppah with its delicate floral arrangements perfectly framing the view of the sea. Stunning.

Family played a huge role in the ceremony, with both of the bride and groom’s sisters being given a significant part to play.

Oh, and Christina’s Catherine Deane dress was simply perfect — elegant, bridal, flattering and beach-wedding beautiful.

Christina and Oryan wrote up the story of their real wedding together as a couple, and we’re delighted to hear the story from both of their perspectives, so we’ll hand over to them now to tell us more…

How we met

Christina and Oryan, the bride and groom: We met through mutual friends in NYC. We had both moved to New York in 2010 and had mutual friends in common through which we were introduced. We remained friends for several years before starting to date in 2014.

I’m absolutely blown away by this morning’s wedding. Not only are the details divine, the Pronovias dress to-die-for and the planning, by Outrage Events, utterly fabulous, but Cassy’s write up of her and Mark’s day really comes from the heart — as did Cassy’s efforts for the entire wedding.

Frankly, any bride who gets married under a chuppah styled out of a giant birdcage adorned with brightly-coloured ribbons and a rainbow of flowers, is an absolute winner in my book. But Cassy takes the originality one step further with beautifully illustrated wedding stationery, matching bespoke smoking slippers for her and Mark (yes really!), a silent disco, and personalised hangover packs for every guest. I’m telling you, I love, love, love this wedding with a cherry on top!

There are all sorts of wonderful wedding vendors involved in this W-Day, including two of my much loved Smashing Suppliers, make-up artist Philippa Louise, and the immensely talented photographer and film-maker John Nassari who alerted me to this wedding in the first place. I’m such a huge fan of John Nassari’s. Not only are his images and film some of the best in the business, but he is a fantastic guy to boot – just a total pleasure to be around. Cassy certainly agrees – just read what she has to say about him! In fact I will hand you over to her right now for the full report.

Happy Friday lovelies… and for any of you that are venturing on down to Brides The Show tomorrow, I would absolutely LOVE to see you there!

how we met

Cassy, the Bride: Mark and I met when I was 13 years old and Mark was 17! He was a very close friend of my older brother and from the time we first met until we started going out, he was often in and around my life at my brother’s parties and birthday’s. My brother was naturally very protective and made it very clear to all his friends that I was completely, 100%, absolutely out of bounds! That being said, Mark was always ‘my favourite’ out of his friends and we got on amazingly well. When we started hanging out more regularly and on and one on one basis, just over 10 years later, that’s when the true foundation of our realtionship started. From there it went from strength to strength and we soon started going out (much to my brother’s absolute horror) However, once Mark explained his intentions were only honorable and I rationalised that actually this was a good thing, my brother realised it was a great thing one of his best friends would perhaps be his brother in law! Two years after we got together, Mark proposed and the rest, as they say, is history.