A PANDEMIC WEDDING IN GREECE

03.11.2020

On November 3rd, 2020, we got married.

It was a long, dramatic and complex journey. Many unexpected things came our way. But in one way, it happened exactly as we had planned: just the two of us. Attempting to reunify in a pandemic world proved enormously challenging. But it's a story we’ve loved to tell over and over. We’re immortalising it for ourselves here, but also for you to hear our story. We didn’t get to share our day with anyone really. So here it is. You’re invited. 

As many of our friends & family will know, when the pandemic struck and lockdowns happened, we got stuck on opposite sides of the Atlantic, 7 hours of time zone and a whole lot of ocean apart. 

We were unable to travel to each other's countries to be together and we had wanted to get married for some time, so mid-2020 we set our sights abroad to find a suitable country that would host our wedding and allow us to reunite in the midst of a pandemic. 

If you Google, "easiest country to get married in in Europe," Greece is not the first, or second, but it's the third, and most attractive in our eyes.

(For those interested, Gibraltar is first, but that’s pretty unromantic. Denmark was second, but covid rates were bad there. We settled on Greece. Easy. Close. Open to tourists, and low covid rates.) 

Matching mugs. Sipping tea on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

We started planning our Greek elopement, which involved reams of paperwork stamped, sealed, notarized and authenticated by various levels of government in various jurisdictions across the UK, Canada and Greece. We managed to dot and cross the right letters. We found a wedding planner called Nikos (who typed his emails in all caps, but, regardless of Steven’s doubts because of this, we booked with him due to his stellar reviews.) We told our excited families, and built up to the big day with close friends, crossing our fingers that everything would work out in our favour. Lockdowns and restrictions were very unpredictable at this point. 


Paperwork together, we chose a date - November 5th (so we would always have fireworks on our anniversary - 5th November is Bonfire Night/Guy Fawkes night in England) and booked our flights to Greece.

On October 27th, we were both ready to fly to Greece, our covid tests were done and paperwork in hand, printed and readily organised in plastic folders. All looked good. We had agreed that Stefka would not get on the plane until she knew that Steven was well on his way.

Well, when Steven arrived to Edmonton International Airport, seen off by an excited Doug and Tamara, he got to the check in desk to find out that, just hours previously, Greece had changed their restrictions for Canadians, and he would no longer be able to fly. The phone call to Stefka was a sad one, not knowing our next steps, but we decided "that's okay, something will work out". And that was the whole truth.

Something did work out.  Seated in the terminal, while Steven waited for his father to pick him back up from the airport, Steven emailed the Greek Consulate in Vancouver and addressed the note to Aikaterini, with whom he had spoken numerous times to arrange his paperwork. "Don't worry about a thing” she said. “As soon as the Consul General arrives this morning, I will have her sign a letter granting you permission to enter Greece to attend to 'urgent personal matters'.”

The only problem was that the consulate was in Vancouver and the document needed to be picked up in person, and so our saviour, (Steven’s sister) Larissa, hightailed it over to the consulate to pick up the letter, and a UPS envelope to mail it express overnight to Edmonton.

The next morning, just 24 hours after he was originally meant to depart, Steven rocked back up to the check in desk, and flew through all the checks with his golden ticket in hand - our consulate letter.

No one could believe he had such a letter. We’re still not sure it really existed. Once Steven was firmly seated on the plane, Stefka rebooked her flight to arrive just a couple of hours before him. It was a minor miracle.


The two of us were reunited in Athens. It was a sweet reunion. 10 months/ 288 days apart. 

Stefka’s bag was not part of the reunion.
Next morning Stefka waited for her bag (and dress, and bouquet…) to arrive while Steven headed to the Canadian consulate in Athens to get one final piece of paperwork.

While there, he heard from the staff that it was rumoured that Greece was going to go back into another full lockdown, TONIGHT, and last time that happened, they closed off Athens completely, and stopped anyone coming in or out. We were planning on staying in Athens for 5 days before flying to Santorini. The lady at the desk said to Steven - “if you want to get to Santorini to get married, you need to leave NOW.” 

Steven called Stefka. She started looking at flights.
Her suitcase arrived and she didn't even unpack, just got changed and that was it. 

Our airbnb guy, Alex, had left us celebratory wine and cake because he knew we were getting married. So, one day after arriving, we drank wine with our gyros and ate a slice of cake before we had to leave it behind. Thanks Alex.

The story doesn’t end there (trust us, it’s only just started.)

While we were eating the cake, there was a mild earthquake. Right beneath us.
The lamp in our apartment dining room was swinging backwards and forwards for about 20 seconds. Stefka just thought it was an underground train. Steven did not.

We started wondering at this point, whether this was too many bad omens coming our way… but we persevered nonetheless. This was going to work in our favour.

So we headed to the airport. We booked a new airbnb  while sitting in the departures lounge. We arrived to Santorini, 4 days early, and kicked back, ready to chill and explore before our wedding day. 

The next morning we met with our wedding planner, Anna, who told us not to worry about the lockdown, and that we were still getting married on the 5th of November. Paperwork in hand, she told us she’d see us in 4 days.


We explored a deserted Santorini, before heading to a winery for the evening where Steven (formally) proposed. (I mean we already knew we were getting married) But it was beautiful and romantic. 

We celebrated and explored.

Our wedding planner called us on the 2nd of November, 3 days before we were due to get married. She said Greece is going into lockdown tomorrow, so you’re getting married tomorrow. 

So that was that. We met our photographer. We told her the new date, which she was fine with (business was quiet…). Steven spontaneously ordered us a wedding cake (chocolate orange filling FTW).

We wandered into a small cafe under our Airbnb. There we met Ursula, a German lady with her own catering company. We asked her if she knew where we would be able to buy lunch tomorrow, as restaurants were closing, and we would need lunch and dinner (on our wedding day). She said that she would be happy to cook both meals for us. Another serendipitous moment. The stars were aligning. 


And so the next day we woke up, got dressed. Ursula cooked us a delicious fish and salad for lunch. We got in a car to our venue, and we got married, just the two of us.
Kristos married us. nna and Nikos, our wedding planners, were our witnesses, and Joanna, our photographer, captured every moment, while we recorded the ceremony for our folks back home.

We took photos with Joanna until the sun set. Then we sat on our balcony, ate ouzo flambé shrimp from Ursula, and drank champagne while we opened wedding cards from our family.

The next day we registered our marriage, drank mimosas and ate leftover wedding cake before moving to a new apartment. We were now in lockdown, so restaurants were all closed. So we ate takeout gyros, drank Greek wine, tried to finish our wedding cake, and went for long walks around Santorini before the country fully shut down 2 days later. When we took full advantage of the fanciest part of our room: a rooftop hot tub where we whiled our days away watching the sunsets.

We had planned a 10 day trip to Crete, which we cancelled. We very luckily could still leave Greece (not that staying would have been a bad thing). We headed back to our respective home countries, so Stefka could pack and say bye to her family, get her paperwork, and come to Canada 3 weeks later, into the cold of -20 in Edmonton. And the rest is history.

There are so many more details we could provide, but this was quite the adventure. Life threw a lot of things our way, but in the end the stars aligned and we can call this an adventure rather than a tragedy. 

Three years on, we are planning on spending the rest of our lives in a hopefully less dramatic adventure, but this story is one we’ll be happy to tell over and over again. (Ask us about the time Steven dropped the wedding cake…)

Anyway. Thanks for listening to our story.
Stefka + Steven x

Thank you to: 

  • Nikos and Anna at Santorini Weddings

  • Joanna, our Photographer

  • Ursula for feeding us on our weddings day

  • Alexandra for the cake

  • Kasyanenko jewellery in Zaporizhia for our rings

  • The Vancouver consulate

  • Anna Lytwyn for helping with our masks and bouquet (the bouquet Stefka made, from flowers from her mum’s original bouquet)

  • Ariana for her charm (blue & new) and Larissa for the champers

  • Depop for Stefka’s dress and shoes

  • And all our Family and friends for all their help, and the wonderful gifts, wishes and blessings