My Big Fat Ikarian Wedding
Ok, before the family back home in Australia get too excited - no, it wasn't my wedding, it was the wedding of Mihali Stamoulou and Triantafilyia Tsante at Monokambi, which I and members of my family attended on the Greek island of Ikaria, on Sunday, May 25th, 2008.
This video attempts to document that wedding and the reception that followed. I stress the word 'attempts' since these types of events on Ikaria are essentially impossible to document completely. After all, the wedding celebrations start early, and end very, very late in the night (or go right through to the next day). Bare in mind too, that the seven and a half minutes you see here, is edited down from 45 minutes of original footage.
The music you can hear throughout the video is the Ikariotiko, the traditional dance of Ikaria.
Here it is being played on violin by Yianni (John) Rousos. He is accompanied on tambourine and guitar by two other musicians whose name I did not note. This is an edited version of the dance, which I recorded live during the wedding (hence the constant background noise and chatter). The original tune went for almost 15 minutes.
The Ikariotiko is the first dance filmed in the video. The music plays on while various other dances are also shown being performed during the course of the celebrations. In the final dance shown in the video, we see the bride and groom, Triantafilyia and Mihali dancing the Tsifteteli, the Greek belly dance. They are joined by Mihali's father as the music plays on. Of course, these other dances are danced to their own tunes, but for the purpose of this film, I have used the Ikariotiko throughout.
I have no idea how many people attended this wedding, but there would have been at least 500 people there if not many more. The centre of the village of Monokampi was given over for the wedding, and from my perspective, everything was well organised and ran smoothly throughout the afternoon and into the evening while I was there. I do know that some 600 kilograms of meat was cooked for the hundreds of meals being served, and God knows how much rice to accompany that meat.
All in all, it was a great day, a fantastic celebration, and a wonderful introduction to an Ikarian wedding, celebrated in the old style, with gunshots, fire works, good food, and lots of kefi.
This video attempts to document that wedding and the reception that followed. I stress the word 'attempts' since these types of events on Ikaria are essentially impossible to document completely. After all, the wedding celebrations start early, and end very, very late in the night (or go right through to the next day). Bare in mind too, that the seven and a half minutes you see here, is edited down from 45 minutes of original footage.
The music you can hear throughout the video is the Ikariotiko, the traditional dance of Ikaria.
Here it is being played on violin by Yianni (John) Rousos. He is accompanied on tambourine and guitar by two other musicians whose name I did not note. This is an edited version of the dance, which I recorded live during the wedding (hence the constant background noise and chatter). The original tune went for almost 15 minutes.
The Ikariotiko is the first dance filmed in the video. The music plays on while various other dances are also shown being performed during the course of the celebrations. In the final dance shown in the video, we see the bride and groom, Triantafilyia and Mihali dancing the Tsifteteli, the Greek belly dance. They are joined by Mihali's father as the music plays on. Of course, these other dances are danced to their own tunes, but for the purpose of this film, I have used the Ikariotiko throughout.
I have no idea how many people attended this wedding, but there would have been at least 500 people there if not many more. The centre of the village of Monokampi was given over for the wedding, and from my perspective, everything was well organised and ran smoothly throughout the afternoon and into the evening while I was there. I do know that some 600 kilograms of meat was cooked for the hundreds of meals being served, and God knows how much rice to accompany that meat.
All in all, it was a great day, a fantastic celebration, and a wonderful introduction to an Ikarian wedding, celebrated in the old style, with gunshots, fire works, good food, and lots of kefi.
Labels: Aegean Sea, Greek Islands, Ikaria, Jim Lesses, Travel, Vacation
posted by Jim Lesses at
10:48 PM
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