Today's real wedding is a destination bash that's crammed with gorgeous details to steal for your own big day.
Florence & Gildas are a Belgian couple who dreamed of tying the knot on the Athenian Riviera in Greece.
And with the help of White Ribbon Boutique Events, it became a reality, with colourful decor, casual dining, lawn games and fun vibes.
And top Greek photographer, George Pahountis was the perfect choice to document their day.
The first thing you see when you scroll through this wedding is colour. From pink peonies and bougainvillea to moss and fern leaf greenery, green glassware and yellow Billy buttons, the bright tones add instant happiness and fun to the festivities. (Not to mention the glistening blue Aegean as their backdrop.)
And if the aesthetics weren't enough to deliver instant joy, Florence & Gildas treated their small group of guests to quizzes, games, sing-alongs and videos throughout the day.
Even their choice of chic, comfortable attire added to the relaxed vibes. Florence's Rembo Styling gown and flower crown add a subtle nod to Grecian style and Gildas' bow tie and suspenders are quite the jaunty touch.
We love it when a wedding ceremony is packed with sentiment, and this couple included lots of sweet ideas; happy tears hankies, a joint tree planting and sealing love letters with Champagne to open in the future.
If you're planning a destination wedding, but still want it to feel as intimate and personalised as if it was in your home town, let this cool couple show you how it's done…
Wedding Day Snapshot
Our Wedding in Three Words
Whimsical. Fun. Intimate.
The Inspiration
Our wedding theme was rustic, organic and colourful.
We chose our venue for its beautiful views, the fact that it was located in Athens but felt like it was located in an island and its amazing style!
The Ceremony
We had our friends perform “Let There Be love” by Oasis and had the guests sing along
This was followed by the exchange of our vows and the shared planting of a love tree.
And finally the sealing of a box containing love letters to each other along with a Champagne bottle which we will open in the future.
The Attire
We opted for comfortable attire in total that better fitted who we are as people.
We chose pistachio as our bridal party attire colour and applied this to the bridesmaids dresses and bow ties of the groomsmen.
The Music
Processional: ‘Close to Paradise' by Patrick Watson
Recessional: ‘We are from Barcelona' by I'm from Barcelona
First dance song: ‘More than Words' by Extreme
The Refreshments
We wanted the whole wedding to be informal and light so we offered many fresh juices including strawberry and homemade mint lemonade.
The service was based on different food stations and lots of live cooking.
The wedding cake was chocolate with vanilla cream cheese frosting and part traditional white with some gold leaf details and part naked.
The Decor & Details
Part of the decor was our lawn games which included a DIY ring toss, ladder golf and croqueted.
We also used a lot of foliage and greenery for a more organic look to decorate our cake, lanterns and seating chart.
We opted for wooden tables and chairs, no formal tablecloths and for centerpieces we used multiple different vintage containers with multicolored flowers. We also allocated a lovely boutonniere for each guest on their plate. We used gold cutlery, vintage glassware combined with green goblets.
We wanted bright and colorful flowers with smaller filler flowers that looked like we had gone for hand picked bouquets!
The Photography
We chose George Pahountis, a talented photographer from Greece, who we found was a perfect match for what we were looking for personality wise and style wise.
Favourite Moment
I think every single moment was “us” but we loved the post wedding cake cutting fireworks display we surprised our guests with.
Doesn't it just look like such a special day? The Athenian Riviera is such a stunning part of the world too, a pretty atmospheric place to get married.
Thanks so much to George Pahountis, White Ribbon Boutique Events, and of course Florence & Gildas for sharing their beautiful destination wedding with us.
Check out more Amazing Destination Weddings.
