Traditional wedding

The preparations for the traditional Santorinian wedding begin many days before and culminate on the eve when the wedding dress is laid upon the wedding bed and the groom brings the chest containing his clothes to the bride’s house.
The day of the wedding, after the ceremony, the priest, the best man and the in laws head to the nearest vineyard. They have with them a jug filled with wine covered with a white headscarf and are accompanied by musicians. Once they reach their destination, the best man irrigates a vine with wine and the priest chooses and cuts two of its branches. Those branches must have many “eyes” representing the number of kids the couple will have. The priest then coils the branches in such a way as not to break them (breaking means bad luck). Next they drink the leftover wine and return to the house. There, the girls take the vine wreaths and start decorating them on the table of the hall. When the wreaths, which will be used in the ceremony, are ready, people go to the church except the seamstress who stays back to dress the bride and sew on her wedding dress a small piece of paper with the names of the waiting to marry single girls, written on it.

Extracts from the text of Emm. A. Lignos titled “Santorinian wedding”