Greek saying, “If you haven’t built a house, or married off a daughter, you haven’t suffered.”

I have now done both, and I have not really suffered, at least not much.

Actually the saying should be “ If you haven’t built a house, or married off a daughter, you haven’t LIVED.”

I loved building our house, here in the Argolida, actually in Porto Heli.

I had a great time and it was a creative process…we are still friends with the architect so that should show what a good time we had, they were at the wedding as well.

The house played a role in the wedding; garden, terraces and chapel were all used.

Our daughter wanted as traditional a wedding as possible, very Greek, the village musical group leading her and me to the church, playing wonderful Greek and Epirot songs to start it off.

We have a small chapel on the property, with frescoes painted by our son in the traditional manner. We did part of the service in the chapel, the exchange of the rings.

The village band, clarinet, drum and guitar, playing the traditional music, led everybody through the garden to the terrace overlooking the sea where the crowning would take place and the guests could see the rest of the service properly.

Greek music, dancing and drinking took place after the service. Dinner was poolside later… with a disc jockey playing music that was arranged in NY, no real stress, certainly no suffering.

The priest, a childhood friend of mine, actually an Archimandrite, came from the States to perform the wedding. He did it in English as well as Greek so everybody could enjoy the beauty of the service. It was great to have him here.

An absolutely wonderful wedding, our other daughter was the combara; she did the crowning ceremony…everybody in the family was involved, paintings by our son, total supervision of everything by my wife. Heaven help the caterer if anything went wrong, by the way only Greek food, no sushi, no paella…just Greek.

So no suffering just joy.

Everything seemed perfect; we eventually viewed the many videos and found a slight anomaly, actually a hysterical one. The traditional Greek musicians, imported from a nearby village, were playing “roll out the barrel” when they escorted the procession from the church to the terrace were the remainder of the ceremony was to be held. Clarinet, drum and guitar sounding very villagy playing “roll out the barrel”, I never knew it was an Epirot song. 

I wonder what we will find they were playing in the other videos?