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.