Big floppy hats, a dreamy desert landscape and a white horse – I mean, what more could a gal ask for are we right? Anna Athanasiou Event Design, Jim Labraco and Thanos Asfis came together to “create something laden with meaning, beauty, and gorgeous fashion, but also time-relevant, a spark the modern bride connects to” – and that they did. Don’t miss out on the full gallery for some major future-forward wedding inspo.
From Thanos Asfis… Living in the moment is easier said than done, or at least was before the world experienced an entirely new reality dawning. This year, destination wedding plans widely took an intermission, and traveling vicariously became not only an option but a necessity. And yet, despite of what anyone might expect, more and more brides across the globe showed incredible resilience and hushed the buzzing of the mind in the most meaningful of ways.
When our creative team came to brainstorm on this bridal inspiration, our joined wish was to create something laden with meaning, beauty, and gorgeous fashion, but also time-relevant, a spark the modern bride connects to. We pondered upon one of humanity’s greatest evolutionary mechanisms “chronosthesia”, the capacity to mentally reconstruct personal events and bring forth future thinking which enables us all to prepare, plan, and shape the future. We wished to evoke the relationship between nature and our plans to get away, and thus employed olfactory, gustatory, visual, frontal, and motor notions into the styled shoot.
Balancing realism and the cat’s meow, our bride’s style is characterized by minimalist drama and sensuality. From the oversized straw hat, and the favorite of expert milliners raffia toquilla chapeau, that embody the love for proportion (it would be impossible to slip into the statement-making raffia hat whose wide-brim is more than a little reminiscent of Brigitte Bardot frolicking in 1960s Saint-Tropez) to slinky wedding dress silhouettes that reinvent cliché shapes, and from wardrobe-staple jewelry to the fashion bang of shell and geode rock creations, our muse has a strong sense of confidence, and imagination.
When talking about mental journeying this means “anywhere in the world” travel is possible too. Our bride takes spiritual escapism of her favorite destinations and brings them together in a landscape that could be practically anywhere on planet earth. Moroccan dunes, Arizona Rockies, Nicaraguan desserts, Montana creeks, and Umbrian-Tuscan equestrian acres meld perfectly in the Greek wilderness that became our scene.
Mindfulness is at the root of Buddhism, Taoism, and many Native-American traditions, not to mention yoga. It’s why Thoreau went to Walden Pond; it’s what Emerson and Whitman wrote about in their essays and poems. Our goal was to embrace it in super-elevated finishes and play out on a palette of ease. Yellow is the summer season’s standout color, seen as much on the streets as the catwalk, and with a surprisingly wide-ranging palette, a bride can make it mellow or choose to shine bright. Ranging from supple golds to creamy peaches, hay, butterscotch, and cornsilk, to Golden Marguerite for our cake, we employed dry foliage and plume-quality grasses, lemons for their visual optimism dotting the minimalist tablescape and invitation suites with shades of pumice.
As we continued to build on our living in the moment concept we thought of how the animal world has a habit of interrupting our streams of thought and helps us unstick from any mental chatter. Their minds are free to wander and when with them we become able to fully surrender to and enjoy each moment. Like them, we become curious and notice the small details and sights, sounds, and smells, like the sound of sand crunching underfoot, the feeling of light caressing our skin. Our muse is one that connects to the world, and through her benign relationship to nature cares less about destinations throbbing with blissed-out revelers. Instead, she reaches in, grounds herself to her big day, and indulges in her Greek days of heaven.
We couldn’t be more grateful for the outcome, and wish to thank the wonderful artisans, creators, and future-forward thinking team for making this happen. Our special thank you to Thanos Asfis our photographer whose delicate images became integral to our vision.
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Photography: Thanos Asfis Photography | Videography: Panagiotis Kastanidis | Event Design: Anna Athanasiou Event Design | Floral Design: Jim Labraco | Wedding Dress: Madebride by Antonea | Cake: Pavlov's Lab | Shoes: Savrani Creations | Art de la table & art objects: Moda Bagno | Furniture Rentals: Tore | Hair & Make up: Theocharis Katerina | Hand Made Ceramics: Mike Sparopoulos | Handmade huts: Savapile | Jewellery: Neso | Photography - Assistance: Michael Androulidakis | stationeries: Love Me Do