Actually, it is Greek to me

Well, it was bound to happen. After ten years of being married to a Greek woman, and nearly ten years shooting weddings, I finally shot my first Greek Orthodox wedding this past weekend. You would have thought that the odds would have dictated that I'd have photographed plenty of them by now. Nope, not one. Weird, eh?

And that's why I was really looking forward to the wedding of Maritsa Lohere and Robert Kondilas. I've always wanted to shoot inside of St. Sophia, the beautiful Greek Orthodox church in Washington. I've been to midnight Easter services there with my wife Maya, and have consumed way too many gyros at the St. Sophia Greek Festival (which seems to pop up every four weeks or so), but never had the opportunity to actually work inside the cathedral.

My Greek connection goes back to 1995, when I met my wife Maya while we were both working at USA Today. Maya grew up in Athens and spent her first ten years or so there. She rode the bus each day from her home in Palio Faliro to the American Community School in Halandri. (The actor Greg Kinnear was a couple of years ahead of her at ACS.) Maya's time in Greece coincided with, among other things, the military junta, the ongoing efforts to get US Naval bases out of the country, frequent bomb scares, and the murder of the CIA's Athens station chief. Pretty exciting stuff for a little kid!

I had never been to Greece before I met Maya but we've been several times since. We were engaged on the island of Santorini in 1996 and, more recently, our daughter Alexandra was baptized there in 2005. (It was at Agia Thomas, in Goudi, the same church Maya was baptized in decades earlier. In the photo she's being held by her godmother.) Greece is such a wonderful place. I'll always treasure the image of Alexandra, clutching a stuffed little piggie, exploring the Parthenon. Or seeing the great Argentine tenor Jose Cura sing under the stars in the Herod Atticus theater on the Acropolis.
And I can't leave out the tavernas that specialize in paidakia, grilled lamb chops. Here in crab country, we go to restaurants where they put some newspaper over a table and dump Maryland blue crabs on the table. In Greece, they do the same thing with paidakia.

All of which brings me back to Robert and Maritsa. I met them earlier this year. Maritsa, you see, is best friends with one of my favorite people, Annie Magruder. It's always fun to have that personal connection. And Robert and I bonded instantly--like me, he's a Tour de France nut. I remember that after our consultation we all went down to the Greek diner (you're detecting a pattern here?) that my studio sits on top of in Alexandria and talked about Lance Armstrong, Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton.

Well, Maritsa and Robert had a beautiful wedding. I couldn't understand a thing, since the entire service was in Greek, but I got the gist. (There's a funny weekly feature in one of the English language newspapers in Athens called "Learn Greek in 28 years.") St. Sophia was as beautiful as I imagined. And for their reception, Robert and Maritsa chose one of the most beautiful rooms in all of Washington, the Crystal Room at the Willard Hotel.

Last week, as you'll remember, I photographed Shari Maletsky and Aragorn Smith's wedding ceremony in the Crystal Room. This time, it was the reception. There's really nothing like this turn of the century space, with spectacular period chandeliers. In fact, a photographer friend of mine recently told me that he once had a bride who got married in the Crystal Room and said that she hated the chandeliers. What a dope!!!



I guess I should wrap this up before I lose all of you. Maritsa and Robert are in Thailand and cambodia right now. Let's hope they read this blog and hook up with my old friend Narisara in Ankgor Wat. And I hope you don't mind me rambling on about all things Greek tonight.

Kalinihta!


Matt

p.s. I've always assumed people would figure this out, but just in case: you can see larger images by double-clicking on any of the photos in this blog.