Our Wedding

We were married on the beautiful island of Santorini, part of the Cyclades archipelago of Greece, October 16, 2006.

Even before Jon and I were engaged, we joked that our friend Jason, who introduced us, would be the one to marry us. Once we were engaged and thinking about our wedding, we asked him if he would officiate. He of course agreed to. What else would a friend say?

At the time, Jason and his lovely 5.13 climber girlfriend, Karissa, were living in Greece. Jon and I planned to visit them in Greece the fall after we became engaged and then to be married the spring after. The wedding would have to be related to rock in someway because we met climbing. Our original plan was to have a wedding on a rock face in Yosemite. It would have to be a non-traditional wedding because neither of us are particularly traditional.

All spring, I was very busy studying for my professional engineering exam so I could be a registered engineer in California, and, as a consequence, didn't have much time to climb, let alone plan for a wedding. After I took the exam at the end of April, we at last had more time to plan. After mulling it over, we thought that it would be better to get married in October as opposed to the following spring because it is equidistant from our birthdays and we could thus spread out the holidays. (Not the usual reason, I know.) I didn't want to have to wait over a year to get married so we decided on the upcoming October. We would go to Greece, where our officiant was instead of making him come to us.

Besides being a beautiful location, having a destination wedding would keep our guest list low. We are both shy and the thought of having to say our vows in front of a room full of people was enough to make us want to elope. As a compromise, though, we did invite our parents. We will have receptions in our respective home states and everyone will be invited.

Jason and Karissa were living on Santorini (called Thira in Greek). We didn't know at first where on the island we would get married. In fact, planning the wedding has felt like watching Google Earth as it focuses from the entire globe down to a specific point. I browsed innumerable tour sites on the internet, searching for the perfect location. Eventually, the formation Skaros Rock caught my eye. I discovered that there was a trail out to it, so I hoped that it would make a good location for our wedding. Since we were such a small group, I knew it would be easy to change our location at the last minute if it didn't work out.

Having the wedding out on a rock at the end of a trail was made easier by the fact that we were all to be casually dressed and none of us are averse to walking. Normal wedding gowns just aren't me, and I planned to wear flip flops for footwear. I found a great bohemian cotton skirt online and a lace top to match. My mom sewed a unique and beautiful blue bolero to complete my outfit. Jon's mom sewed a wonderful bohemian shirt for him. We are so lucky our mothers sew!

Jon's mom recommended that we get a professional photographer and videographer, since it would be nice for the people who missed the event to be able to watch it later, and also because the designated picture taker would end up missing out on the ceremony, only seeing it through a camera lens. So we hired Nikos Sirigos, a professional photographer from Santorini. He and his team did a wonderful job capturing our event, as can easily be seen in our photo gallery.

Jason and Karissa set us up in a hotel right next to their home for the first three nights. We had fun walking around Fira and Imerovigli and spending time with Jason and Karissa on their breaks from work.

The day after Jon and I arrived on Santorini, we hiked out to Skaros Rock and scrambled to the top. It has a large flat summit with an amazing view. The only part that concerned me was a short third class section just before the summit, and I didn't know how everyone would handle it. We asked our future honeymoon hotel to borrow a ladder for the wedding, and they were happy to oblige.

The next day my parents, Jon's mom Tera, her boyfriend Sam, Jon and I went on a day tour of Santorini. We had the quirkiest and more lovable guide, Tanya. We toured to the highest point on the island, where an active monastery is located, then boarded a boat and set sail across the caldera to Nea Kameni, a still-smoking volcanic island. After walking around on that, we piled back on the boat and sailed around Nea Kameni to a hot spring bubbling out of the sea bottom where some of the passengers including Jon, his mom and I stripped down to our swimsuits and dove off the boat into the salty water that grew warmer as we swam closer to the source. Then back on the boat to Thirassia, the small island that is the other side of the caldera rim. We had lunch there and then the boat took to the northern most point on the main island, below the town of Oia, where my parents and Jon's mom took mules up the steep path to the top and Sam, Jon and I walked. Then we watched a great sunset (people say it's the best in the world, but living in the Eastern Sierra, we have to disagree), and took a bus back to Fira.

The next day, Jon and I checked into our awesome honeymoon suite which even had a big bathtub! I bought flowers at a flower shop and made a bouquet out of them, wrapping the stems with some climbing cord. We ironed our travel wrinkled wedding clothes while I fretted about forgetting my vows. Then we got dressed up, just in time for our entourage to arrive.

We walked up the cobble steps toward Imeroviglo and Skaros Rock and met up with Nikos and his crew. He snapped pictures while his videographer, Christina, filmed us while we made our way to the base of Skaros rock.

In my mind's eye, I remembered the section of third class being shorter and the ladder being taller than they, in fact, were. So Jason and I scrambled up to a ledge most of the way up. Jason helped people up from above and Jon helped them up from below through the more difficult section. Meanwhile, I was at the base of the last short section to assist people there. Everyone braved their way to the top.

Nikos scanned the area for the best views and started making a small rock alter area for Jason, Jon and I to stand. Jon and I changed into our flip flops and the ceremony began.

We walked to Jason, who was standing at the altar. He then delivered the introduction to the ceremony. Jon said his vows to me and put on my ring. I said my vows to Jon and put on his ring. Jason tied our hands with the same climbing cord that was around my bouquet to symbolize our climbing connection and the tying of the knot. Then Jon and I kissed for the first time as husband and wife.

After the ceremony, everyone made their way back off Skaros. My parents treated us all to a delicious meal at a nearby taverna. Most of us had wonderful Greek lamb and there was much wine and many touching toasts. Everyone made their way back to their hotels, and Jon and I retired to our honeymoon suite for the night.

I loved our wedding and it still gives me happy butterflies to think about. We'd like to thank everyone for coming all the way to Santorini to be with us. Thanks to Jason for being our officiant and to Karissa for being there and helping make everything special. Thanks to Robin's parents for the after wedding dinner, for the photographer, and for the special travel gift. Thanks to Jon's mom for the honeymoon suite (with the big bathtub!) and to Sam for writing a song about the event.