Married in Mykonos
A week of debauchery and magic on Greece’s party island (before it became obnoxious).
Gabriele may not admit it but he essentially asked me to marry him the day after we met. He showed up at my mom’s house for the second time in the first 24 hours he knew me, telling my smirking mom that he was taking me to brunch. He did. And then he took me, on the back of his motorcycle, to a doctor’s appointment for the wrist he’d broken while kitesurfing. Italian. Kitesurfer. Motorcycle. Bravado in spades. How could I resist? On behalf of womankind, I didn’t. We enjoyed the better part of the day together as I told myself the lie that I was just hanging out with my new, devilishly handsome man-friend. Then, as the sun started threatening to set, Gabri tried to take me to the airport where I was meeting my boyfriend at the time. Did I mention the bravado? This is all part of the much longer and highly dramatic story of our beginnings but I’ll save that for another time.
I was visiting from Chicago and I remember walking the streets of my home, Coconut Grove, Miami, thinking it felt totally foreign walking around with this foreigner. Somewhere amongst the leafy neighborhood and its sidewalk cafes, Gabri told me in his thick Italian accent, “I think you are the woman of my life.” I didn’t quite know what to do with that so I think I blushed and left to go hike the Inca trail to Machu Picchu with that earlier mentioned boyfriend and some friends.
Fast forward past a fair bit of drama and a few months and I was living with Gabri in my hometown. Our apartment on Miami Beach really just served as a base for our never-ending travel. We spent more time out of the country than in it. I spent more time on planes than on land. And on one adventure to Folegandros, Greece, Gabri basically started planning our wedding. He hadn’t yet officially asked me to marry him and waited another year to do so because of what he says was embarrassment over how quickly he wanted to pop the question. But we were in love with this supremely charming island and each other.
I’d never been to Greece before meeting Gabri. I think I was saving it for something special. It had decorated the top of my travel list for decades but the circumstances were never quite right. My very midwestern, corn-fed, American-as-they-come ex and his parents invited us to cruise with them around the Cyclades, apparently inspired by my talk of such an adventure. This invite came just before I met Gabri so, to put it shortly, I accepted the generous invitation for a while and then painstakingly declined. I didn’t know at the time I’d be right smack in the middle of the archipelago getting married just a couple short years later to a different man. But I think I knew deep down I was meant to experience Greece differently. Certainly not from a cruise ship. (Apologies to any cruise enthusiasts out there. I get it. It’s just not for me. Although I found myself considering a Disney cruise the other day so take my cruise condescension with a grain of salt).
Gabri eventually officially asked me to marry him in grandiose fashion on a boat with a meal prepared by the chef from Miami’s Milos and an overnight plan for romance. I, unfortunately, was in the throes of a battle with some shellfish-incited food poisoning the day before and was barely out of the woods. I nearly collapsed his entire plan but had a suspicion something was up. And so, I dragged my lethargic, dehydrated self onto the back of the Vespa and asked, desperately, if there was a bathroom on board upon arrival. Despite my body’s rebellion, it was a magical evening that finished with zero sex whatsoever but lots of love and excitement.
We were certain we’d get married in Folegandros, having fallen in love with the charming tiny island in remote Cyclades, Greece. It’s Chora, the town’s main square, was so romantic on its own and despite its first impression as an arid island, its magic revealed itself slowly and then all at once. So, we collected our moms, Gabri’s uncle (always along for an adventure) and my sister and went to visit our island. We were still convinced. That was until a third and final trip to do the actually planning when we were met with difficulty from every angle. If we wanted a bar, we were going to have to build it. If we wanted to have the ceremony in the main square, we needed to basically pay off the mayor. We found ourselves overwhelmed by the island’s own little mafia. And when you added the two ferries from Athens everyone would have to take, our plans started to fall through.
In a desperate act, we followed a “wedding planner” to Mykonos (I use quotations because in Greece, almost everyone is a wedding planner and yet, there’s very little planning that occurs). Apart from their trying to scam us into putting down a deposit on an entire mountainside of villas under foreclosure, they did point us in the direction of Hippie Fish on Agios Ioannis. Hippie Fish, both restaurant and hotel, harbors a casual beauty and is positioned right across from ancient Delos, a Greek island and archaeological site said to be the mythological birthplace of Apollo. It felt easy and on brand. And Mykonos is a direct flight from so many parts of Europe as well as being familiar with playing host to weddings. It made sense so we made it happen. Or if I’m being honest, Gabri made it happen.
As an American, I was unequipped to face off with the Greeks. Contrary to my very type B personality, I made a spreadsheet that included every finite detail of our would-be wedding. It went unopened. At every turn, there was this feeling of being taken advantage of. So, I quickly assumed the role of co-pilot as Gabri proved more than a match for our Greek friends and foes. He bargained and bantered and in the end, we birthed one hell of a wedding. I use the word birthed because it was entirely our creation, super labor intensive and so very worth it.
Wedding week finally arrived and I arrived in Rome burnt to a crisp by Miami’s scorching sun and my idiot failure to reapply sunscreen. (This happens on occasion as I am so often the pasty-skinned gringa among my olive-complected friends from all over). Gabri was up in arms (he takes sun damage very seriously). When we arrived in Mykonos, a guardian angel little Greek woman sugar-scrubbed me back to my normal color. And then the debauchery began.
Our humble little 300 person destination wedding had over 40 wedding crashers in attendance. I slept an average of three hours a night for five days straight. I grew a goiter on my neck from what I can only assume was combination stress and excitement. We hosted a white party at the villa we were staying at that was wilder than anticipated. The partying was such that apparently even a dealer of illicit substances cut a number of people off in good conscience. My grad school friends tried Molly for the first (and maybe only) time. Wonderfully weird combinations of people became the best of friends. Everywhere we went, we found a euphoric state.
Then there was the boat party that was so over capacity, the boat started sinking and we weren’t even aware my dad was below deck trying to help the captain save us all. Thanks pops. People were begging, eventually paying fishermen to bring them aboard. My American friends were chanting “music with words” but the chant quickly dissipated into dancing as we, in our matching captain’s hats, poured bottle after bottle of alcohol into the open mouths of eager friends. (I should mention I’m actually not much of a drinker so I was nearly black out drunk from one gulp.)
By the time our actual wedding arrived, so did the circles under my eyes. We were exhausted but so full of emotion that we were running on blissful fumes. We’d managed to create an atmosphere of new, cross-continental bonds and you could feel the love pouring out in our direction from every attendee. I arrived, barefoot, by boat and scaled somewhat treacherous rocks to the sound of “A Thousand Years” played on the violin. Gabri looked at me with tears and his unmistakable smile. We stood under the chuppah, amidst the setting sun, across from an island said to have long been inhabited by nothing but Greek gods. A Roman rabbi who’d known Gabri’s father (sadly, whom he lost in 2007) married us as our awesomely eclectic friends and family (and crashers) looked on.
The feeling was so intense, it inspired poetry among guests. I just came across one of these beautiful accounts. I didn’t understand it at the time but it’s now brought my sappy self to tears. Here’s an excerpt:
(Translation: The beauty of their feeling pierced, like lightning, even the hearts of the hardest, the skeptical, the bored, the disbelievers. Until the light of the next day there was a succession of dances, hugs and kisses, but above all demonstrations of affection between anyone and towards anyone, for those who were there, for those who couldn't be, in memory of those who would have wanted but were not given the time. Strangers didn't even need to introduce themselves. We were all there, all one family, to witness and testify that love, the real kind, still exists!)
Once the sweet sentimentality and tradition wrapped up under the Chuppah, chaos ensued. Gabri was thrown up onto a chair and was almost immediately decapitated by a fan that grazed his neck. For an instant, I saw my wedding ending suddenly in a gory, blood-spewing Kill Bill-esque scene. He was spared though and the party went on.
Our carefully selected DJ and fantastic violin/sax player expertly went to work, infecting the crowd the way only music can, throwing everyone into a frenzy. Gabri sweat through seven shirts (he’s notoriously sweaty in action), we crowd-surfed, I nearly fainted, we laughed, we cried but most of all, we danced. One of my dearest friends and among the most talented singers I’ve ever heard, Robin McKelle, beautifully sang us through a necessary, and what felt like the only, pause from the mayhem.
A fuse blew at one point and the sweet and masterful sax player saved the day, foregoing the intake of oxygen in order to play on til the music was restored. The rapture went on through so much dancing and plate smashing until 3:00 am when the noise ordinance was issued and the majority ventured to the after party back at our villa. My dad and stepmom showed up around 4:00 am asking if everyone was on amphetamines. My honest take is that it was a mixture maybe of things illicit but definitely things like love intoxicating the crowd. I had to politely ask people to leave at 11:00 am the next day. It was epic. It was exhausting.
We returned the following year for a sort of wedding reunion with 50+ people in tow. It was a fantastic time but there was already evidence that Mykonos was changing. Prices had doubled and they’ve since quadrupled. Zuma and all the obnoxiousness you can find in Miami had made its way to the island. Scorpios, where we had an amazing night watching the sunset and dining with friends the year before was now untouchable. The bottle-popping, bodyguard-clad, kitschy tourism had infiltrated our magic Mykonos. I haven’t been back since.
Gabri went back for a bachelor party a couple years after that. We’ve been to other islands in the Cyclades like Milos and Paros (highly recommend and will post about them soon) almost every year we’ve been together but I can’t bring myself to return to Mykonos. Maybe it’s because I want to preserve the memory of our magical Mykonos mayhem. Or maybe it’s because it’s authenticity has faded into something that looks less like Greece and more like South Beach or how I imagine Dubai. Whatever the case and whatever Mykonos has become, I’m forever grateful for the magic it showered us with back in 2016.
For those who’ve asked for my Mykonos recos, per the reasons above, I haven’t updated them in a number of years. I still get pretty good feedback about them though (just all infinitely more crowded and expensive). With regard to sites, you of course have to go check out the view from the windmills, wander Little Venice and the Chora but in terms of specific spots on the island:
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