Our studio was born from our love for beautiful and clean fine art wedding photography. Since the first day we are seeking to create timeless photographs for all the couples who are choosing us for their wedding day, so they can enjoy their photos for the rest of their days as husband and wife. We love doing things together, our wedding studio is one of them. Being partners in life and work allows us to work great as a team and always deliver breathtaking images inspired by our couples’ love.
We’ve been working in Santorini for more than ten years. We love this island with its unique beauty and picture-perfect corners. Throughout the years we’ve collected all the places that frame a couple perfectly and all the nooks and crannies that work well and highlight the beauty of the island so each couple can go home with only the best angles of both them and Santorini.
We have found that the advantages of hiring locals for your wedding in Santorini are plenty. Knowing all the requirements, how to approach people and what works in Greece allows us to move on the island knowing our place and helping our couples to achieve the most out of their wedding day experience.
Getting Married in Santorini
Cost of Getting Married in Santorini
There are a variety of options for having your wedding in Santorini, and each will have a different price range. You can have a simple wedding in Santorini for as little as 1000 Euros, but a larger wedding may exceed 10,000 Euros, plus travel costs. However, what we suggest is to contact a local wedding planning agency that matches your style to get a quote. Each wedding is different and the cost relies highly upon the month, type of event and how many guests you’d like to have.
Types of Weddings in Santorini
Symbolic Weddings & Vow Renewals
A symbolic wedding ceremony also called a humanist ceremony is a meaningful non-religious ceremony performed by a wedding celebrant. A symbolic wedding ceremony in Santorini allows you to express your personality, your style, and your values. It is the same as a regular wedding ceremony, including the exchange of vows and exchange of rings. A symbolic ceremony is not legally binding and it can give you a lot of flexibility because it has no legal value thus no legal requirements or restrictions. Therefore, it can take place anywhere in Santorini and can be performed by the celebrant each couple’s desires, professional or not. It’s ideal for people who do not wish to get married in a church or those that think that a civic ceremony is impersonal and short.
A vow renewal in Santorini is an opportunity for a couple to renew the vows that they made to each other when they first got married. It is a way to commemorate a love that has deepened or matured between a couple throughout the years. Your vow renewal in Santorini can be as big or as small as you’d like. Be it a festive celebration with a hundred guests or a small intimate ceremony in the sunset with just you and your partner, your vow renewal is a personal experience and should be celebrated accordingly. Feel free to wear a white dress, but avoid wearing one that looks like a wedding dress. Remember, a vow renewal is not a second wedding.
Elopements
An elopement, colloquially speaking, is often used to refer to a marriage conducted in a sudden and secretive fashion, usually involving a hurried flight away from one’s place of residence together with one’s beloved to get married. In Santorini, an elopement is often an intentionally small and intimate wedding experience that allows more emphasis to be placed on the commitment between the couple. In our books, an elopement is celebrating your marriage in a way that fulfills and inspires you in creating a beautiful day with your partner you will cherish forever. Eloping is a wonderful way to skip the stressful planning of an event wedding. Many couples find the intimacy of an elopement in Santorini more romantic than the hoopla of a big wedding and dream about tying the knot in a no-fuss kind of way. Some couples think it’s more meaningful and romantic to be just the two of them and a couple of friends for witnesses to celebrate their wedding day. Santorini can be a lovely canvas for your elopement – hundreds of couples choose it each year, why not you?
Civil Weddings
Civil marriage is one where the marriage ceremony has a government or civil official performing the ceremony. It takes place without any religious affiliation and meets the legal requirements of the state or location of the wedding. Such a marriage may be performed by a religious body and recognized by the state, or it may be entirely secular. Such a ceremony in Santorini is ideal If neither person is religious or does not feel comfortable with a religious wedding ceremony. Also, if the two partners are from differing religious faiths and they choose a civil wedding to remain neutral and omit both religions from the wedding ceremony. Moreover, a lot of couples choose a civil wedding if they want to have a creative or a non-traditional ceremony or if the couple is choosing a non-traditional wedding location and not a house of worship. Some clergy will only perform wedding ceremonies in a house of worship, so a civil ceremony allows the couple to pick the location of the vows. A civil ceremony is legally binding and does not require any additional steps.
Greek Orthodox Weddings
A standard Greek Orthodox wedding is comprised of the Betrothal Service and Crowning Service. Greek Orthodox weddings have remained nearly unchanged since ancient Greece. During a Greek Orthodox wedding, the husband and wife are meant to experience a wide range of rituals, symbolisms, and prayers to celebrate the core meaning of marriage. The marriage ceremony is abundant with symbols that reflect the basic and important elements of marriage: Love, Mutual Respect, Equality, and Sacrifice. A civil ceremony is legally binding and does not require any additional steps. In Santorini, you can find plenty of whitewashed chapels to have your wedding – make sure you ask a local wedding planner for the paperwork required as it tends to differ in each parish.
Luxury Destination Weddings
A luxury destination wedding in a foreign country, usually at a high-end resort, where the couple, the wedding party and their guests stay for about a week, and where all activities related to that wedding take place. The etiquette of a destination wedding generally calls for guests to pay for their airfare and accommodations. The bride and groom pick up the tab for the ceremony, reception, guest food and beverages, and additional festivities. They may also want to prepare goody bags filled with a location map, SPF, flip-flops, a bottle of wine, and a welcome letter. It’s smart for a couple planning a destination wedding to negotiate a discounted rate for booking multiple rooms and also check with airlines to determine if group airfare rates are available.
A destination wedding in Santorini is a lovely opportunity for the couple to hold a wedding in a romantic location removing many of the stresses of planning a regular wedding. Every wedding detail can be arranged at a resort destination to suit your taste from afar. After the wedding ceremony, the celebration can last for hours or even days, with meals and outings arranged for you and your guests.
A destination wedding can be as cool and casual as you like. Want to wear flip-flops or barefoot and dig your toes into the sand at a beach wedding? You got it! No heavy brocade wedding gowns or stultifying tuxedoes required, either. Make the ceremony as short as you like, then strip down to your bathing suits and swim away. Or head to a patio, start the music and champagne toasts for a party that can last until the stars come out. The good thing about choosing Santorini is that the island has plenty of venues that will suit each couple’s taste.
Best Spots for Santorini Wedding Photos
Full Santorini Wedding Venues
Canaves Oia
Whatever type of ceremony you book, be it civil or the symbolic, private exchange of vows, or a ceremony in the presence of family and friends, whatever the setting you choose for it- a private panoramic balcony overlooking the caldera, a serene terrace overlooking the sun while diving into the sea the experienced event planners of Canaves Oia is always an ideal wedding venue in Santorini. From the initial planning stage to every last detail of the ceremony itself the venue will ensure that you and your guests have the experience of a lifetime. Each wedding is tailor-made and planned based exactly on the couple’s needs turning the wedding planning process into a fun & hassle-free procedure. The venue is the couple’s personal contact person on the island something that is really useful when planning a destination wedding in Santorini. The couples always give us the best feedback regarding Canaves and we’ve worked there countless times so that’s a total yes from us!
Rocabella Santorini
Rocabella Santorini is a venue of simple style and understated luxury, one of the most famous on the island. The Mediterranean climate and the imposing volcano create a quiet and romantic scenery for all the couples in-love that are looking to tie the knot in the island! The picturesque white buildings on the cliff prove that the venue is one of the top wedding destinations on the island and the perfect spot to say your vows!
La Maltese
La Maltese Estate is located at the top cliff of Imerovigli village and we can safely say that it’s one of the most desired and well-known luxury lifestyle venues on the island. It hosts exclusive events and picture-perfect weddings! The uniqueness of the Caldera and the Aegean Sea as a background view a breathtaking canvas of feelings and an unforgettable experience to its guests. It’s the place to be if a luxurious destination wedding is what you’ve been dreaming of!
Santorini Wedding Photoshoots
We’ve made an in-detail guide with our favorite locations on the island for capturing your wedding day, taking advantage of both the natural landscape and the idyllic architecture of the island. If we had to name two they would be the following!
Oia
Oia is the most popular village in Santorini, famous for its picturesque corners and iconic little nooks! The breathtaking church with the blue dome surrounded by colorful little buildings will look like a poster card from Greece, and it’s where we captured dozens of our darling brides while the sun was setting! If you wander down, you will find a cute little spot overlooking the Aegean. That’s the perfect place to click. Also, the golden hour in Oia is truly magical and paints everything in this golden bronze tint, perfectly nostalgic for a wedding day!
Imerovigli
The village of Imerovigli, also known as “The balcony to the Aegean”, lies in the highest point of the caldera cliffs. Our favorite place, the village has a magnificent view of the famous volcano, the sparkling Aegean Sea and the sunset that is out of this world! We always take our couples there. It is one of the most picture-perfect locations for that Santorini Instagram perfect wedding photograph you will cherish forever.
Santorini Alternatives – Other Greek Islands for Destination Weddings
Mykonos
Welcome to Greece’s most famous cosmopolitan island, coveted wedding location and a whitewashed paradise in the heart of the Cyclades. Mykonos is a breathtaking place to get married. Thanks to its treasures of natural beauty, history, the cosmopolitan and hedonistic lifestyle as well as the stunning natural beauty and picturesque villages, create the perfect environment for an unforgettable destination wedding in Greece. Brush off the post cards from Greece – your wedding day will look exactly like this!
Spetses
Beautiful nature, perfect beaches, and a complex history ‒ Spetses is an island that has all three. Spetses offers multiple options where small churches and peaceful beaches create the perfect destination wedding setting. The carless island with the intimate corners, cobbled streets, and neoclassical buildings is celebrated largely for its strong character. Spetses is the ideal location for the sophisticated couple and definitely one of our favorite islands!
Corfu
Corfu (Kerkyra in Greek) is the best known of all the Ionian islands and often cited as the most beautiful island in Greece. Couples love getting married in Corfu’s old town because of its beautiful Venetian style historic center. The most popular venue is the Town Hall of Corfu. Many couples choose to arrive at their wedding ceremony by horse-drawn carriages, others choose to walk through the historic streets of the town, serenaded by local musicians. Catholic weddings can take place at the Catholic church and a blessing is possible at the Anglican church, both also located in the Old Town. There is also the possibility to arrange a beach wedding in Corfu or to get married in a traditional Corfiot village.
Crete
Crete, Greece’s largest island, is known for its varied terrain, which ranges from fine-sand beaches at Elafonisi to the White Mountains. The island offers a wide collection of wedding venues, from luxurious villas to five-star hotels or alfresco experience residences. Instilled with a deep love of life, Cretans celebrate its every moment. Crete weddings are perfect for each couple that wants a strong taste of Greece and beautiful scenery to say “I do” to!
Planning a destination wedding in Santorini and looking for the photographers to capture you in the sunset? It sounds like us! Contact us!
