Celebrating a big fat Jewish-Greek wedding

My cousin’s eldest son fell in love with a childhood sweetheart whose family is half-Greek. It was a match made in the Mediterranean. But that wasn’t enough. The wedding had to be in the Mediterranean as well. To be specific, on Kastellorizo, an island so small there is only one taxi and so close to the Turkish coast you can just about swim there.

The bride’s father is a proud “Kazzi”, the son of one of thousands who migrated to Australia after World War 1. These days, many have returned to their roots and you are as likely to hear an Australian accent on Kazzi as you are a Greek one. I can’t blame them for coming back. Kazzi is a hidden jewel of the Greek islands, boasting a horseshoe port, turquoise water, large lazy turtles, and charming restaurants lined around the edge.

The wedding would be held on Greek territory but the bride and groom wanted the ceremony to reflect both backgrounds, a symbolic bonding. And so late last year, some 90 guests travelled from around the world – Australia, the US, England, Japan, Hungary and Mauritius – for a week-long party to celebrate the occasion.

They wanted the ceremony to be led by two celebrants, one Greek (the bride’s brother) and the other Jewish (me). I should add at this point that it wasn’t an official wedding. That took place in a registry office six months earlier. But when we boarded flights to converge on the island, the anticipation was no less feverish.

As destination weddings go, this was a big one, and the families spared no effort in planning a celebration that combined tradition and informality with huge dollops of fun. The bride’s mother made the wedding cake in Sydney and shlepped it to Greece on the flight. The groom’s parents brought a dozen suitcases full of goodie bags that had been prepared by a team of family members.

They also sourced the chuppah, an undertaking that became an odyssey on its own. The canopy was a tribal textile the groom’s mother had bought in Uzbekistan. As for the poles, here is her description: “my husband ordered tent poles originally from Amazon but they would not have kept up an ant's nest. We went to Bunnings and purchased new poles but had to cut them down to fit in the suitcase and then design a join that would enable them to be assembled again on Kazzi – and they now reside in Kazzi”.

Not all the ceremonial paraphernalia could be prepped in advance. The floral arrangements had to be fresh on the day; the bride's father was sent out with a pair of scissors to scour the island for foliage and olive leaves from his ancestral home. He returned with a bounty that included colourful bougainvillea, gumnuts for an Australian touch and pomegranates, a Greek symbol of fertility and fruit of Biblical significance for Jews. 

In the lead-up to the wedding we were treated to a separate boys and girls dinner, a cooking class, trivia night, and a boat trip to the local blue grotto, followed by an after party on a neighbouring beach island and a day trip to Turkey to round off the festivities.

One of the early highlights was a traditional Greek feast during which the bride washed the groom’s hair in a bowl (he hates having his hair washed), after which the best man held the shoes of both groom and bride over smoking herbed leaves, a pair of cleansing ceremonies meant to ward off the evil eye. The night ended with a round of Greek dancing and horas.

The day before the ceremony featured another group dancing session to the music from the Mama Mia movie, which was also about a wedding set on a Greek island. The sounds of Abba wafted around the bay and all about us, people were humming the tunes that blared out of the PA system. Our party had taken over the island.

When the big day arrived, the weather was perfect. The guests assembled at the designated spot on the water’s edge and yarmulkahs were distributed amongst the men. After a respectable delay, and with the afternoon sun shimmering on the water, the bride tootled across the bay in a tinny with her bridesmaids, a signal for the groomsmen, all dressed in white suits, to erect the chuppah under which the ceremony would take place. As they held on to the four posts and secured the canopy, the bride and groom assumed their positions and the two celebrants then stepped forward.

First, I gave an introduction to the Greek-Jewish theme of the ceremony, an explanation of the significance of the yarmulkah, along with that of the chuppah. Then my co-celebrant took the microphone to welcome everyone to the island and tell them about its history.

After the exchange of vows, and a sip of wine, in accordance with Greek tradition he placed two Stefanas – a pair of marital crowns joined by a ribbon - on their heads. Traditionally made from olive branches and lemon blossom, they are now fashioned from flowers and leaves, or with gold and silver. The crowns represent the couple’s role as heads of their family, and their shared responsibility in building a home together. These Stefanas were the ones the bride’s parents wore at their wedding, endowing the ritual with a rich sense of continuity.

When it comes to going around in circles, both cultures have included the practice in their marriage rites. The Greeks make the couple walk three times around the altar together. The Jews get the bride to revolve around the groom for a giddy seven times. No-one had thought about the extra difficulty added to this manoeuvre by the ribboned crowns. 

Each bridal rotation twisted another loop of ribbon around the groom, effectively binding him to the spot. When the glitch became apparent, some deft footwork by the bride and a few pivots by the groom kept the action in play.

All that remained was the exchange of rings, followed by the breaking of the wine glass, wrapped snugly in a white serviette, – the big Jewish climax – together with an explanation of the various interpretations of its meaning. With the guests primed, this was a joyous moment, prompting loud shouts of mazel tov all round, at which point the happy couple kissed.

They turned to their guests, blissed out, their parents beaming and the two marriage celebrants relieved that their duties were over. It was that glorious euphoric moment at every wedding - a heightened state derived from the ancient Greek “euphoros”, which means “borne well, healthy”.

A few of the guests were professional musicians and had been asked to bring their instruments from home, specifically for this moment. They launched into a medley of Jewish and Greek songs while everyone engaged in frenzied photo-taking. But the band had another task: to lead the wedding party on a processional to the reception across the bay, lending a touch of New Orleans to the journey with a brassy rendition of When the Saints Go Marching In.

The festivities continued until late into the night at a local restaurant, with modern and trad Jewish and Greek dancing that blurred as the night wore on – a fusion of two traditions in front of our eyes.

After dessert, the locals delivered a fireworks display that was literally hands-on: they ignited the rockets while holding them in their bare hands, a reminder of life from another era.

There was one last ritual to make the night complete: the breaking of the plates. We were not disappointed. The restaurant produced boxes of rough clay plates and handed them around for people to smash into the ground with great abandon.

“What’s the origin of this tradition?” I asked the bride’s father.

He shook his head. “I don’t really know, it’s not a Kazzi tradition,” he said.

No matter. It was such fun. As one guest later told me: “when it comes to destroying crockery, no-one does it better than the Greeks.”

And now they know how to break a wine glass properly.

All photos by Matthew Bowyer unless otherwise noted; videos by Michael Visontay and Aviva Lowy