Vintage Wedding in Milos island, Greece|Cary & Gwen

This is my favorite photo from the gorgeous vintage wedding in Milos that the talented photographers at Wedart sent our way and we are beyond excited to share it with you today! The destination wedding of Cary and Gwen, a crazy-in-love couple that decided to get married on the incredibly beautiful Greek island of Milos.
I am totally smitten and I sure you will be too…

“Milos island had always been my favorite place in the whole world… My love for Gwen was sealed when after several months of our first visit there, he told me «I can’t wait for the summer, so we can go to Milos, your paradise, which is mine now as well…»”

“Therefore, when he proposed to me, we instantly knew the location of our wedding. Milos island… Or how we prefer to call it: «our little paradise on earth»”

Carry shares her advice for brides that are now planning their weddings: “Advice # 1: Do exactly what you want to do in the way you have always been dreaming about. Don’t settle with what other people want, this is your day and in the end, remembering all the things you did and wanted to do, is a unique feeling of satisfaction”.

Advice #2: Enjoy all the preparation, its a beautiful period for the sole reason that you are planning the most beautiful day of your life. Don’t get too stressed and ask your future husband for his opinion. You will be surprised with how much men want to get involved too in preparations!”

Advice #2: Comfort! Choose a wedding dress in which you can move freely, walk and dance! It is your night! Being stylish and beautiful is one thing… however comfort is pretty important too”.

“Advice #4: Do what you want to do and not what you have to. Drink, eat, talk and dance with your friends. You don’t really have to greet everybody, one by one. Take the microphone, give a short speech and continue having fun at the best party of your life. A party you actually spent so much time organizing. Don’t think too much about your hair and your make-up. What matters in the end are the memories of how great you spent your night and not if your makeup was intact”

“We both like travelling and just because we like the vintage style in anything, we agreed our wedding theme would be «vintage travels». The amazing save the dates, invitations, table numbers and thank you cards were designed by Paulos from Atelier Invitations. The map of Switzerland and Greece showed our journey with the final stop being the island of Milos. We used this save the date as a home page for our website where we put in all the information for our guests. How they can come to Greece, how to go to Milos island, where to stay, what to visit etc. We made a mini guide of Milos and Athens, which was really useful for everybody”.

“We love our walks in the forest and especially Gwen loves wooden creations. At Etsy I found an artist that makes boxes from old wooden logs and I asked him to carve our wedding date and “Mr And Mrs” on them. We used them to hold our wedding rings. The best man was holding Gwen’s box and the maid of honor was holding mine.”

“One of the most romantic wedding proposals ever: “Having been to Milos together three times, Gwen had seen all my favorite places on island except for one. When we went to Milos on another visit, he insisted on hiking to the highest spot on the island. He had heard alot about this place from me, a place that is very special to me and my family. We rented a jeep and we went there to see the sunset…”

Cary continues: “After we explored the area and talked about my family and I used to go hiking, we went to the cabin where we were going to watch the sunset and early in the next morning head back to my family house. He made me have a seat, set up the automatic camera, ran towards me and then instead of sitting next to me … he got down on his knees and took a ring out and the only thing he could manage to say was “Would you like…” because I hugged him right away and started crying…”.

“We chose countries and cities that are of importance to us and we also found the appropriate maps. We made mini hearts that we mixed with the colored rice for the ceremony and also spinskled some on the reception tabless. Pavlos from Atelier Invitations also found an old map of the Aegean which he used to make some amazing rice cones for the ceremony. He also made cones for the welcome buffet so everyone could serve themselves with some koufeta and some mini marshmallows we had placed in large glass bowls”.

“We translated in French and in English the mayor’s speech so everyone could understand what they were hearing. We printed them in papyrus and signed them appropriately”.

“We had a civil wedding in the yard of my family house, a special place for me, where I grew up and vacationed every summer. I arrived with my uncle’s boat accompanied by my father. They had arranged with the florist and without me knowing, they had ribbons and flowers all over, as well as the Swiss and Greek flags”.

“No one really knew how I was going to arrive at the ceremony so as we approached slowly, the people started waving and we jokingly circled around with the boat, like  I regretted my decision to get married…. In the end the mayor of Milos married us and we exchanged our personal vows. I was surprised to hear Gwen’s vows in Greek! (He was learning Greek for 3 months with the help of our best man who sent him recorded speech messages) He really was stressed about saying everything correctly. Very emotional!”

“The moment I went up the hill, I saw all my favorite people smiling at me and a little bit further in the back, I could see my handsome husband-to-be, smiling back at me. It was magical that all this took place at my most favorite place in the world!”

“I ordered my wedding dress from the Australian designer “Grace loves Lace”… I fell in love with it the moment I saw it in an English magazine and without even trying it on, I went to a seamstress in Switzerland and she took my measurements. I then sent them to the designer and 6 months later I picked my dress up in Athens. I only had to make some minor alterations, because I lost some weight due to stress! I always thought my wedding dress would have a vintage style with french lace, with an open back and most of all being comfortable so I could dance all night!”

“I was getting married to the love of my life at my house where I had the best memories of my life and during the ceremony the view of the church was beautiful. There are no words that can describe my feelings during those very moments. Love and  euphoria…”

“We planned and executed all wedding details by ourselves. Our florist in Milos was our wedding planner the week before and on the day of the wedding. We sent her photographs that shoed how I wanted the table decoration to look (I took the photographs in my home!) , the banners and the welcome drinks buffet. After discussing with us, she also added all the decoration details (candles, flowers, table dressing and fabrics at the ceremony), at the reception venue and at the beach bar…”

I love this seating chart! Cary told us: “What would be more fun than to search for your name in a world map? We bought a huge vintage world map and I printed some signs «Where in the world are you sitting?» and then we pinned in vintage style postal labels, the name of the table and just below that, the names of our guests. 

Fantastic table cards by Atelier Invitations:  “Instead of table numbers we used cities and with small lettering we gave an explanation of what each city means for us. For instance Seoul, South Korea – Where Gwen first existed on Earth…)”

“I purchased from England, some of the most beautiful vintage card postals and instead of a wish book, everyone had to chose a card and after they wrote their wishes, they had to place the cards in a vintage travel chest with the signs «cards» that I had made”.

One of Cary’s favorite moments in her wedding, was: “When I asked my father to dance the first dance with me (and not with my husband as it is custom). It was an emotional moment, a thank you for everything they have offered me in my life”.